Jon Peters Reviews: “Quarantine”

Ah, the shaky camera movie. There seems to be a lot out right now huh? ‘Diary of the Dead’, ‘Welcome to the Jungle, ‘Cloverfield’ and now add ‘Quarantine’ to the list, but as a film ‘Quarantine’ doesn’t work as it did in [REC], the original film from which we have this American remake. I really wish I could see that film, because I could see that there was a good movie in ‘Quarantine’ trying to get out.

The film is basically footage from a new crew following some firefighters on the night when something big went down. The footage shows them as they try to help the people at this apartment building, but something is wrong. Of course, if you seen the trailer you probably got a good idea on what is happening. The filmmakers try very hard to have the action and bloodletting come at you spontaneously and unpredictably and for that reason, they succeed. But the film suffers from slow plotting midway through. That’s not all it suffers from either, as it features some pretty weak writing.

Once the action gets going, I was amazed on how characters don’t react like they should. I had big problems with the cop character acting out of character. He’s a cop and no matter the circumstance he should at least assume leadership until things got handled, if not write him more thoroughly to create an interesting character. Jennifer Carpenter (‘Dexter’) goes out Marilyn Burns here to the point where it was comical seeing her over act and over react to what was going on. It’s not really her fault, director John E. Dowdle needed to bring her back. It isn’t like she is Daniel Day-Lewis, so focus her more. The audience needs to side with her character as she’s us; we’ll latch onto her as our guide into the horror. As she completely goes bonkers, we lose our guide and come out of the picture. I heard in the original film [REC], the actress was hysterical but grounded creating a fine line, probably one of the reasons why the film is universally praised.

A big fault I had with the film, as it was trying to stay true to the spirit of the original film, was the fact that it used too much editing. There were no establishing bookmarks on the film stating that we are watching recovered video. Sure, it’s assumed, but as such it limits the power of the ending. Why can’t these shaky camera movies use trick editing as if we see everything from the first second to the last? There are times when we have a spatial jump to a new room, but we do not actually see the characters walking, we instead get a jump cut. This tells us that we are watching an edited version of the ‘found footage’. I would think it would be scarier without these tricks. Think Hitchcock’s ‘Rope’ but with this film. That would be a cooler film.

Not all is lost, as it is watchable (even for those who get sick with the shakiness of the camera) and the ending, despite being a bit confusing, packs some suspense. The FX on the infected is great and there were a few rousing moments that had the audience cheering. I don’t think this film deserves repeated viewings, and I really wish someone would release [REC] so we can see this superior film. I won’t download it, but everything I’ve heard about the film from the ‘net and friends lucky enough to see it, that film seems much more interesting than what I saw in this American remake.