The film stars Jennifer Carpenter, from Showtime’sDexter, as Angela, a young television reporter following a Los Angeles Fire Station for the night shift. She’s joined by her committed cameraman Scott, who films a vast majority of the movie. An emergency call to an apartment building leads to Angela, Scott, the firefighters and the tenants locked in the building by the CDC.
What ensues is an existential thriller, the inhabitants dealing with limited contact to the outside world, a strange virus that takes them out one by one and little hope for escape.
Directed by John Erick Dowdle, who also wrote the screenplay with his brother Drew, the film exploits a handheld camera to create dizzying cinematography and scares around every other corner. It also blends the occasional moment of levity between frights, putting the audience into uncomfortable periods of ease.
The filmmakers also do a surprisingly good job of leaving many of the scares to the imagination, emphasizing sound effects instead of graphic sight. It’s more in line with Psycho than Saw.
Comparisons to Other Horror Films
The most obvious comparison to this film is Cloverfield, which rode a clever marketing technique to garner more than $80 million from US patrons. However, Cloverfieldtries to force scares using a monster attack in New York, equating it to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Quarantine succeeds by using the more claustrophobic apartment building, a much more frightening scenario.
The other major difference between the two films is the characters. The protagonists in Cloverfield are shallow and boring, too superficial for the audience to care about. Quarantine, on the other hand, does a better job of allowing the audience to empathize with Angela and Scott, who are trying to do their jobs make their mark in journalism.
Quarantine has more in common with George Romero’s Diary of the Dead, films that, in a subtle manner, deal with the digital age. If it’s not on film, it doesn’t exist. Both films also focus on the spread of disease, the paranoia people feel during an epidemic.
Flaws
The filmmakers do steal from other, more established horror movies, including Night of the Living Dead and 28 Days Later, which isn’t surprising. Because of the obvious borrowing, some of the better surprises of the film are ruined, the filmmakers telegraphing the scares.
But the main flaw with this film is the style of scare used. The quick shocks, while effective and horrifying on the first viewing, will fail to hold up on repeated viewings.
But it’s still good for that one time, a good film for the Halloween season. It sure beats watching talking Chihuahuas or a mediocre, by the numbers sports flick.
