Saturday 26 December 2009

Film Review: QUARANTINE (2008)


Director: John Erick Dowdle
Running time: 86 mins (approx)
Certificate (UK): 18

Watched on Sky+ Saturday 26th December 2009.

PLEASE NOTE: POSSIBLE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

This is a remake of the Spanish film [Rec] (2007) which, for the record, I have not seen. The setting is Los Angeles where a young reporter, Angela Vidal is following the LA Fire Department for the night shift. She has her cameraman with her, Scott Percival and is assigned to follow two firemen, Jake and Fletcher.

The film begins pretty light hearted with Angela being shown around the fire station where she does the usual sliding down the pole, etc. Things are looking pretty dull until they are called out to a building where the screams of a woman in her apartment have alerted the authorities. The police have already arrived by the time they get there and the firemen are forced to break the woman’s door down when they can get no reply from her. They find a very frightened elderly woman who eventually attacks one of the policemen, biting him on the neck. The take the policeman downstairs leaving Fletcher alone with the old lady. A few minutes’ later Fletcher lands in the foyer of the building having been thrown two floors down the stairwell. On top of this, they find they cannot get out of the building, it has been quarantined and outside they can hear helicopters and sirens. I won’t say too much more as I don’t want to give too many spoilers away.

We see all the action through the eyes of the cameraman, Scott, a style that seems to have been in vogue since The Blair Witch Project (1999). I guess, because of this, I found the film to be a little disjointed at times and the action a little bit too chaotic. Decent performances from the main cast members, Jennifer Carpenter as Angela Vidal (who you may know better as ‘Debra Morgan’ in the TV show "Dexter"), Steve Harris as Scott Percival, Jay Hernandez as Jake, Columbus Short as Danny Wilensky and Rade Serbedzija as Yuri Ivanov.

A pretty exciting horror film that, through the middle section at least, kept me on the edge of my seat. Towards the end it did get kind of predictable, but I’ll forgive that for the exciting middle section. Certainly not one for the squeamish, it’s pretty gory in places. Over all, an exciting horror/thriller that keeps you guessing, for the most part, pretty well made but for a little over-acting and a slightly predictable ending.

My score: 5.9/10

LINKS:
IMDb Site: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1082868/
Official Site: http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/quarantine/
Trailer: http://uk.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK/video/imdb/vi3133276441/

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