Quarantine advertises itself as the true story of a Los Angeles reporter Angela Videl (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman Scott (Steve Harris) doing a story on the life of Los Angeles Firefighters. She is being shown the ropes by two firefighters Jake (Jay Hernandez) and Fletcher (Johnathon Schaech). They are called out late that night to an apartment complex where residents have reported screaming from the home of Ms. Espinoza (Jeannie Epper).
The firemen arrive to find the LAPD already on the scene. Two police officers, Jake, Fletcher, Angela and Scott enter with the residents and head upstairs. Upon entering Ms. Espinoza's apartment, they find her standing in the middle of the living room. She's not looking too good and ends up attacking one of the police officers biting off a good chunk of his neck. They try to rush the down officer to receive medical attention from the other officers or paramedics waiting outside, but soon find they are locked in the building. They look for another way out and Fletcher falls from the second floor after having also been attacked by Ms. Espinoza. So it's back upstairs to see what is wrong with this woman. Back inside her apartment, another tenant has been "eaten" and is thrown into the hallway.
They decide to gather all the remaining tenants downstairs figuring they'll have a better chance of survival if they can see where everyone is. Meanwhile, the best qualified doctor in the building tends to the wounds of the police officer and Fletcher. He is a vet named Lawrence (Greg Germann).
Outside, the Center for Disease Control has declared the complex a Biological Nuclear Chemical Threat and will be sending in representatives to see if the problem can be contained. Lawrence has concluded that the victims must be suffering from some advanced strain of rabies.
In the middle of all of this, Angela, the professional journalist that she is, decides to interview a 5 year-old girl and get her feelings on the situation. She interviews other tenants for their account, but the interviews are cut short as Fletcher staggers in looking like a zombie. And then it starts to snowball quickly. Zombie-like tenants quickly start to outnumber those still not infected and there is no way out. The front door and back door chained. Windows sealed shut. And armed marksmen outside ready to take out anyone who tries to escape.
Finally, the landlord remembers there may yet be one way out and tells Angela how to get there. While frantically searching for what may be their last hope to get out, she and Scott discover a room with cult paraphernalia and what appears to be laboratory experiments inside. They find an old tape recorder and decide to put their desperate escape attempt on hold to listen to a bit of it and shockingly discover this may all have been a planned attack. And I don't really need to tell you how the movie ends because the trailer did a pretty good job of spoiling that one.
This was a very disappointing movie. Not once was I scared throughout the duration. It was a poor attempt to cash in on The Blair Witch Project phenomenon. Carpenter is annoying from the beginning and doesn't get any more watchable as the events unfold. The whole movie is shot from one camera being held by Scott to give the illusion that you are actually seeing what's happening as it happens, exactly like The Blair Witch. It follows the same storyline: introduction of the characters, getting to the scene, crazy stuff starts to happen and chaos ensues, dark night-vision camera work, and finally they get picked off one by one. Quarantine, too, claims it is based on real events. I was so not thrilled by this thriller that I didn't even bother to check the facts. We all realized after The Blair Witch that it wasn't real, but the craze had already begun and people still loved it.
There were several scenes in which they failed to live up to their attempted movie-making style. First, there is a scene where Angela and Jake are taking a sick tenant down the stairs. Scott lags to marvel at a rat he just stomped to death. There is a brief cut and Scott is now at the bottom of the stairs filming Angela and Jake coming down behind him. Did they really stop carrying this sick woman downstairs to get a better camera shot? Second, when the CDC opens the front door, there are three men in protective suits and breathing apparatus standing there preparing to enter. Unless all three of them are breathing in unison, there is only one distinct breath being heard. Only two of the CDC representatives actually enter to investigate the infected men. When Scott aims his camera into the examining room, once again, they are either both breathing at the exact same time, or only one of them can be heard. Angela, in the middle of this horrifying situation, decides to interview a 5 year-old girl. The girl was horrible. She acted like she was being coached and was not believable at all. Finally, when they are making their last escape attempt, they decide to stop in a weird room and investigate the cult materials laying around and listen to a random tape recorder in the room?
This was not scary, it was not believable as a first-account movie, and it will certainly not be making it's way to my DVD collection. Like I said, I'm already leery about modern day horror movies and think that a good, scary horror movie is almost impossible to find. I think the more successful ones are the comedy horrors of Hot Fuzz or Sean of the Dead or Zombieland. This one was boring, not scary, and a failed attempt at what made The Blair Witch so successful. So, what's the next movie that will be on my mind, and will that one make it to my DVD collection? We shall see . . .
The firemen arrive to find the LAPD already on the scene. Two police officers, Jake, Fletcher, Angela and Scott enter with the residents and head upstairs. Upon entering Ms. Espinoza's apartment, they find her standing in the middle of the living room. She's not looking too good and ends up attacking one of the police officers biting off a good chunk of his neck. They try to rush the down officer to receive medical attention from the other officers or paramedics waiting outside, but soon find they are locked in the building. They look for another way out and Fletcher falls from the second floor after having also been attacked by Ms. Espinoza. So it's back upstairs to see what is wrong with this woman. Back inside her apartment, another tenant has been "eaten" and is thrown into the hallway.
They decide to gather all the remaining tenants downstairs figuring they'll have a better chance of survival if they can see where everyone is. Meanwhile, the best qualified doctor in the building tends to the wounds of the police officer and Fletcher. He is a vet named Lawrence (Greg Germann).
Outside, the Center for Disease Control has declared the complex a Biological Nuclear Chemical Threat and will be sending in representatives to see if the problem can be contained. Lawrence has concluded that the victims must be suffering from some advanced strain of rabies.
In the middle of all of this, Angela, the professional journalist that she is, decides to interview a 5 year-old girl and get her feelings on the situation. She interviews other tenants for their account, but the interviews are cut short as Fletcher staggers in looking like a zombie. And then it starts to snowball quickly. Zombie-like tenants quickly start to outnumber those still not infected and there is no way out. The front door and back door chained. Windows sealed shut. And armed marksmen outside ready to take out anyone who tries to escape.
Finally, the landlord remembers there may yet be one way out and tells Angela how to get there. While frantically searching for what may be their last hope to get out, she and Scott discover a room with cult paraphernalia and what appears to be laboratory experiments inside. They find an old tape recorder and decide to put their desperate escape attempt on hold to listen to a bit of it and shockingly discover this may all have been a planned attack. And I don't really need to tell you how the movie ends because the trailer did a pretty good job of spoiling that one.
This was a very disappointing movie. Not once was I scared throughout the duration. It was a poor attempt to cash in on The Blair Witch Project phenomenon. Carpenter is annoying from the beginning and doesn't get any more watchable as the events unfold. The whole movie is shot from one camera being held by Scott to give the illusion that you are actually seeing what's happening as it happens, exactly like The Blair Witch. It follows the same storyline: introduction of the characters, getting to the scene, crazy stuff starts to happen and chaos ensues, dark night-vision camera work, and finally they get picked off one by one. Quarantine, too, claims it is based on real events. I was so not thrilled by this thriller that I didn't even bother to check the facts. We all realized after The Blair Witch that it wasn't real, but the craze had already begun and people still loved it.
There were several scenes in which they failed to live up to their attempted movie-making style. First, there is a scene where Angela and Jake are taking a sick tenant down the stairs. Scott lags to marvel at a rat he just stomped to death. There is a brief cut and Scott is now at the bottom of the stairs filming Angela and Jake coming down behind him. Did they really stop carrying this sick woman downstairs to get a better camera shot? Second, when the CDC opens the front door, there are three men in protective suits and breathing apparatus standing there preparing to enter. Unless all three of them are breathing in unison, there is only one distinct breath being heard. Only two of the CDC representatives actually enter to investigate the infected men. When Scott aims his camera into the examining room, once again, they are either both breathing at the exact same time, or only one of them can be heard. Angela, in the middle of this horrifying situation, decides to interview a 5 year-old girl. The girl was horrible. She acted like she was being coached and was not believable at all. Finally, when they are making their last escape attempt, they decide to stop in a weird room and investigate the cult materials laying around and listen to a random tape recorder in the room?
This was not scary, it was not believable as a first-account movie, and it will certainly not be making it's way to my DVD collection. Like I said, I'm already leery about modern day horror movies and think that a good, scary horror movie is almost impossible to find. I think the more successful ones are the comedy horrors of Hot Fuzz or Sean of the Dead or Zombieland. This one was boring, not scary, and a failed attempt at what made The Blair Witch so successful. So, what's the next movie that will be on my mind, and will that one make it to my DVD collection? We shall see . . .
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