Quarantine (Review)

Saturday, Nov. 22 2008 | Author: Mr Butterscotch

Quarantine

(Some plot spoilers included below)
In case you missed it the first time around, I’d certainly recommend seeing Quarantine. Of course, when I talk about the ‘first time around’, I’m in fact referencing the film [REC], which Quarantine is based on. No, let me correct that, there are scenes that remain exactly the same – of course this stretches to the story too.

In case you’re unfamiliar with [REC], the back-story to the film is that a TV show is being shot by a two-person crew, and the show involves going with a local fire department on what should have been a standard job – rescuing someone from a room in which they are trapped. Unfortunately, it all goes wrong very quickly.

The power of Quarantine really comes from the camera that is used to show the situation that the characters find themselves in – this is a neat trick – though you’d question whether a cameraman, with his life at risk, would continue to bother lugging the thing about!

The film does begin quite slowly, but once the action starts up you’ll feel the tension mount up to a level not seen in a Hollywood movie for a while. The Strangers? Pffft, if you jumped at that, you should consider watching Quarantine from the bathroom, or indeed, not at all.

Perhaps one of the biggest departures from [REC] is the amount of core that you’ll see – it’s a bit more graphic in the depiction of the violence that takes place in the four-storey building that our intrepid crew find themselves locked into. Jennifer Carpenter as Angela is suitably frightened in the action – whilst the script has been altered to make her seem a little more sympathetic (though those of you who are quickly annoyed by the heroine’s screaming may find her performance a little much).

The biggest change over [REC] comes in the form of the story – and exactly what causes the strain of madness that apparently seems to infect the resident(s) of the house where Angela and Scott (the cameraman) find themselves in. This is one occasion where I actually found the rather more odd explanation from the original film rather easier to swallow (even if ultimately they both hint at the same thing).

It’s really very hard to say exactly how much you’ll enjoy Quarantine if you’ve seen [REC], simply because the similarities are so readily apparent. Nonetheless, if you’re looking for an English language version or if you did indeed have the misfortune not to see [REC], I can wholeheartedly recommend Quarantine as it’ll make you jump out of your chair – a lot – whilst it plays to a horrifying conclusion.

Perhaps the greatest recommendation is just how scary the whole Quarantine process is when it plays out – you can very easily believe that the characters are very much trapped in this form of living hell, with no chance at all to escape. Unfortunately, for those who did catch [REC] and want to see it again, don’t bother with Quarantine; it simply isn’t up to the standard of the original.

8/10