QUARANTINE

SYNOPSIS:
A television reporter (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman Scott (Steve Harris) are covering a fire fighting team on one of their calls which take them to an apartment building where a woman is apparently trapped. But once on the scene, they are themselves trapped inside the building which is quickly quarantined by the authorities when the danger is recognized as coming not from a fire or a malfunction, but a virus which infects the residents, causing them to attack other humans for their flesh.

Review by Andrew L. Urban:
The most authentic English language remake of a foreign language film [REC] bar none, Quarantine not only replicates the story but captures the all important mood and atmos. Much of this is due to recreating the apartment building (interiors, anyway) from the original film, complete with its signature staircase with wrought iron handrails and musty, old world décor.

And just as in [REC] the news cameraman shooting the footage we see as the film wouldn't get a job at a real TV station for his inability to point the camera, frame the subject and keep focus ... not to mention the sometimes excessive camera movement. But then that's the heightened reality style of the 'hand held horror' subgenre and it works well to disorientate us and instil primal fear.

Jennifer Carpenter is terrific as the news reporter who gets swallowed up in her own story, and leads an excellent cast, all of whom bring a veracity to this remake in the hands of the talented Dowdle brothers.

The most admirable element of the screenplay is the credible premise on which it is built, which I won't divulge, but to say it is far more plausible than most flesh eating movies are able to drum up. Nor de we get the cliché zombies who behave like so many sleepwalkers.

Scary and full of surprises, shocks and a sense of dread, Quarantine is not for the squeamish or fainthearted. Fans of the horror genre will appreciate it, as will those interested in the evolution of this genre.