Melissa O’Connell
On March 11, the government sealed off an apartment complex in Los Angeles.
The residents of the apartment complex were never seen again. There were no details, witnesses or evidence — until now.
Halloween is getting close, which means it is time for an onslaught of horror films. If you are eager to give the new movie “Quarantine” your hard-earned dollars, then the joke will be on you.
Television news-reporter Angela Vidal, played by Jennifer Carpenter, and her cameraman Scott Percival, played by Steve Harris, are assigned to shadow a fire-fighting crew.
When the firehouse receives a call about a woman screaming and behaving strangely, Vidal and Percival go to the scene with the firefighters. They come upon a decrepit apartment building whose tenants are behaving strangely.
One of the tenants, an old lady, is foaming at the mouth and covered in blood. Before long, she has bitten others and the building is sealed off.
Director John Erick Dowdle’s “Quarantine” is a remake of the 2007 foreign film “Rec.” It has the exact same plot and characters.
The shaky camera work is similar to the “Blair Witch Project” and “Cloverfield,” as the whole movie is shown through the perspective of the camera’s lens.
It is difficult to tell what is going on at times but it does have its share of scary moments. Do not watch “Quarantine” if you suffer from motion sickness.
The weaknesses in “Quarantine” were its 90 minutes of continuous kicking and screaming. Every single one of the characters made bad choices and there is nothing illogical behind them.
The ending left the viewer anxious to know what happened.
“Quarantine” is certainly not original; its premise is cobbled together from previously released films and it apparently lifts entire scenes and bits of dialogue from “Rec.”
It also adds some new material, which makes the movie about 10 minutes longer than the original film.