Quarantine Movie Review
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
Quarantine is a movie testament to craftsmanship and commitment.
The best Blair Witch knockoff of them all is basically a zombie movie seen through the viewfinder of a TV news camera — the “found footage” conceit of Blair Witch.
But think about what it takes to make that come off — the camera blocking and staging, the choreography that gets the actors, the lights, the mikes and camera from one perfect spot to capture what’s happening to the next perfect spot, with enough jarring, jumpy bumps in the Steadicam to make it all so nauseatingly real.
And the actors are working in long takes. That means pages of script at a time, with no lazy short edits to cover blown lines or players dropping out of character. Jennifer Carpenter — playing the too-thin, too-young, too-flirty TV reporter whose “ride-along” with firefighters turns into a zombie-virus nightmare — gives a performance that harks back to the golden age of Jamie Lee Curtis. Yeah, she’s that good.
No, the script isn’t anything special, and the novelty long ago wore off in this style of moviemaking. But the execution in the film from John Erick Dowdle is amazing; the camerawork and cutting are perfect.
Quarantine is a remake of a Spanish horror thriller about a reporter and cameraman who get more than they bargained for when they do a story on the night shift at a fire station.
An ambulance call takes them to an old apartment building. An old woman is sick, foaming at the mouth and covered in blood. Before they can get her out, she bites others, and the building is quickly sealed off, with SWAT snipers preventing anybody from leaving. One by one, the residents and first responders are picked off.
As Angela, Carpenter (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) avoids shallow, vapid news-babe cliches. She’s just a young woman fighting back hysteria by doing her job and yelling, “Film everything!”
Quarantine is the first clone to rip off Blair Witch without embarrassing those doing the ripping off.
Source — The Columbus Dispatch