REC or no REC, this swiftly unleashed, yet somehow – inevitable U.S. remake is a relentlessly intense, genuinely frightening slice of hand-held, first-person horror. Like its Spanish forerunner, which it very faithfully reworks, it combines the fashionable shaki-cam faux-reality of CLOVERFIELD with the bleak cynicism of CRAZIES-era Romero : the authorities represented by the faceless, anonymous CDC imprisoning the characters represent as much of a threat as the disease itself. The new movie is true to its inspiration in refusing to let the viewer relax after an absorbing build up, while also resisting the temptation to in any way Hollywoodize REC’s devastating denouement. (To this film’s detriment, the very final shot was used in the film’s trailer. The trailer!!).
Jennifer Carpenter is appealing as the pretty young TV presenter who spends an initially slow night with an L.A. fire crew. Answering a routine call to come to the aid of a troubled old woman, the crew wind up caught in the middle of a rabies-like outbreak that turns ordinary folk into infectious, foaming-at-the-mouth, fast-moving 28 DAYS LATER-style monsters. The CDC seal off the building, the virus spreads like wildfire and as in REC no one is guaranteed to live through to the credits.
QUARANTINE duplicates the look and feel of REC, recreating all of its major scares and set pieces while coming up with a few frissons of its own (and a couple of slightly expanded expository moments). It precisely replicates the claustrophobic backdrop of the earlier film and rarely diverts from its trim narrative. Its Americanized central characters, especially Carpenter and Jay Hernandez, are likeable and charismatic. In a refreshing touch for a post-BUFFY age where every heroine seems to be a ball-busting warrior princess, Carpenter falls convincingly to pieces in the face of mortal danger – spending much of the terrifying final act in an understandable state of sustained hysteria.
This very well directed flick’s impact is heightened by a pervasive, ever-ominous soundscape (again a key facet in REC’s success as well) that helps sustain the fear as much as any music score could. Even if you’ve seen REC, it’s still an efficient fright-fest, its hand held jittery camerawork cannily capturing glimpses of graphic gore and fleeting flashes of passing infected when you least expect it. There are many potent scares along the way, notably the NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD-inspired sequence involving an infected child’s attack on her mom. The highlight though, as before, is the masterful finale, an exercise in night-vision protracted suspense aping the climax of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and featuring Doug Jones as one shit-scary emaciated zombie-thing.
A key flaw for certain viewers is one shared by REC and, indeed by other films of this type from BLAIR WITCH PROJECT through to CLOVERFIELD : to truly enjoy it you HAVE to just accept that the cameraman is going to carry on filming however deep the crisis becomes.
– Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
