Quarantine

Released by: Sony Entertainment
Released on: 2/17/2009
Director: John Erick Dowdle
Cast: Jennifer Carpenter, Jay Hernandez, Columbus Short, Greg Germann, Steve Harris
Year: 2008
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The Movie:

The premise for director John Erick Dowdle's 2008 horror film Quarantine is an effectively simple one. In short, on the evening March 11, 2008 a reporter named Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and her camera man followed a crew of firefighters into an apartment building in the heart of Los Angeles. When they get there, they soon find that they've been locked in and that the building has been quarantined by the Center For Disease Control. Unfortunately for Angela, the firefighters, her cameraman and a few of the building's occupants, some of the tenants have become infected with an unknown disease and turned into flesh eating monsters.

As more and more people within the building are attacked by the infected tenants, the uninfected find themselves in a fight for survival to avoid becoming contaminated themselves, all the while trying to find a way out of the building that they've been locked inside of.

Cast the blame wherever you like - Cannibal Holocaust, The Blair Witch Project, 28 Days Later, or Cloverfield - but it seems that POV (point of view) horror films are here to stay. From the low budget pictures like The Collingswood Story to the bigger budget productions like Quarantine, shaky cameras and manic performances can be an effective way to tell a story and place us in the situations of the characters we see on screen. In the case of Quarantine, it works fairly well. At times, yes, it can get a little dizzying but it does do a pretty good job of pulling is along for the ride. The story itself, which basically takes the opening scene of George A. Romero's Dawn Of The Dead, replaces the soldiers with firefighters and turns in into a feature length movie isn't all that original but it works and it sets up a few of the movie's memorably frightening set pieces quite well.

That said, anyone who has seen 2007's .Rec, a Spanish horror film from directors Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza, will find no surprises here as Quarantine is pretty much a shot for shot remake of that earlier and scarier film. Audiences unfamiliar with the earlier film will definitely appreciate this Americanized version more than those who have seen what came before and inspired it, simply because it's so damn close to the original picture. Very little has changed and because of that, those familiar with .Rec are not given much of a reason to seek this one out.

The whole 'remake' issue aside, however, Quarantine is a decent and suspenseful horror film. Jennifer Carpenter, who fans will recognize from Showtime's Dexter, makes for a believable and likeable enough lead and the film moves at a very good pace. While much of the horror comes from simple jump scares, there are more than enough memorably horrific moments in here to send a chill or two down even the most seasoned horror fan… as long as that fan hasn't seen .Rec.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Quarantine arrives on Blu-ray in a nice 1.85.1 1080p anamorphic widescreen MPEG-4/AVC encoded transfer. The closest point of comparison for this release, in terms of how it looks, is obviously Cloverfield. Both movies were shot on HD video and utilized a handheld camera throughout. Like Cloverfield, detail levels fluctuate depending on how and how fast the camera is moving but generally we've got a nice clean, clear and colorful picture that's free of edge enhancement or mpeg compression artifacts. While it doesn't compare with more traditionally shot films that have appeared on Blu-ray, for what it is and for how the movie is supposed to look, this release is just fine.

The audio comes courtesy of English and Portuguese language Dolby TrueHD 5.1 tracks with optional Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound tracks in French and Spanish. Subtitles are provided in English, English SDH, Spanish, French and Portuguese. This is a pretty active track that does a good job of enhancing the film's many jump scares without ever sounding like it's trying too hard. Dialogue stays clean and clear throughout and there are no problems with hiss or distortion. Levels are properly balanced and bass response is nice and strong. Rear channel activity is almost constant with nice directional effects used very effectively to help build atmosphere and tension - nicely done!

First up is a commentary track with co-writer/director John Erick Dowdle and co-writer/producer Drew Dowdle. This is a strong commentary that does a pretty good job of detailing the history of the production from start to finish. There's a fair bit of emphasis on how the pair tried to keep things as realistic as possible but also a good bit of time spent explaining the film's cinematography, casting choices, and effects work.

Up next is the first of three featurettes, Locked In: The Making Of Quarantine (10:05), which is basically a quick and fairly superficial featurette in which the cast and crew talk about the film, what they like about it, how much fun they had working on it and what a great movie it is. This is less a behind the scene featurette than it is a promotional piece. The second featurette, Anatomy Of A Stunt (3:23) is a brief featurette takes a look at the film's stunt work - it's rather interesting but too short to offer up more than just the basics. The third and final featurette, Dressing The Infected: Robert Hall's Make-Up Design (7:29) is, as you could probably guess from the title, a look at the make up work that Robert Hall did to give the infected characters in the film their grisly appearance. All three of the featurettes are presented in 480p standard definition. Rounding out extras are trailers for a few other Sony Blu-ray releases, animated menus, chapter selection, and Blu-ray live capability that allows enabled users to access exclusive online content.

The Final Word:

Quarantine is a decent enough movie but the fact that it's pretty much a shot for shot remake of .Rec makes you wonder what the point of it really is when the original isn't all that hard to track down in the first place. That said, on its own merits, the film is pretty entertaining and at times effectively scary. Sony's Blu-ray release doesn't impress in terms of supplements but the A/V presentation is plenty strong, making this one worth a look.