Quarantine

Watched Quarantine with Stephen at Cine just now.

Quarantine is a remake of [REC], a Spanish horror film, and the show is about a reporter and a cameraman who are trapped in a quarantined Los Angeles apartment building as a highly contagious rabies contaminant begins to infect the unsuspecting tenants.

The show starts off with the reporter having a banter with the firemen as she interviews them. There is a bit of harmless flirtation going around as she explores the fire station for a documentary showcasing the lives behind the firemen. The work turns from jovial fun to serious when they receive an emergency call at an old building. All things turn for the worse when a creepy and sick looking old lady suddenly bits a police officer. Turns out that a virus is spreading within the old apartment with its poor hygiene conditions. All of a sudden, the building gets blockaded by a swarm of heavily armed police officers who quarantine the entire building with the residents, reporter, cameraman, some firemen, and police officers still inside the creepy building.

For a Hollywood film, i would say that Quarantine has done a great job as a horror film. There are plenty of scares, plenty of disgusting and creepy looking infected people, some heroes who fend away the infected, and a shrieking and perpetually petrified female reporter. From start to the final moments, the hand-held camera style shooting is effective in bringing up the scary atmosphere. Although there might be some foolish decisions made by some of the people in the building, we understand that the paranoia and the constant fear might be the cause of it.

I think that the chills in the movie are quite effective and the scary atmosphere builds up well throughout the entire length of the movie. A good horror genre film and hope that that Hollywood's horror films will continue to improve. The short screen time of 90 mins can be improved as well.

***1/2