Quarantine (2008)

Quarantine is a well-done, original entry into the zombie-film genre. It starts out a bit slowly, but picks up when the zombies enter the picture. Jennifer Carpenter of Showtime’s Dexter stars as late-night TV host Angela Vidal. Angela and her cameraman, Scott Percival (Steve Harris of TV’s The Practice), are filming an expose about the night shift of an LA fire station when a call comes through for a medical emergency at a nearby apartment complex.

Angela and Scott ride along, filming and narrating, and enter the apartment complex with firefighters Fletcher (Jonathon Schaech) and Jake (Jay Hernandez) and police officers Danny (Columbus Short) and James (Andrew Fiscella), already on scene. They are met by building manager Yuri (Rade Serbedzija), who takes them up to the apartment of Ms. Espinoza (Jeannie Epper), where there’ve been complaints of loud, unnerving shrieks and screams. When Espinoza doesn’t answer, Yuri lets them all in. The wavering, shifting light of Scott’s camera reveals glimpses of a corpse-pale, disheveled figure hiding in the shadows with head lowered, seemingly disoriented, panicked, delirious.

As the officers approach and try to subdue and reassure her, Ms. Espinoza suddenly screams like a savage and attacks, biting James in the onrush. The firefighters and other officer subdue her and haul James away, leaving Ms. Espinosa confined inside the apartment with Fletcher staying behind to keep her restrained. James is rushed downstairs to the building’s lobby but when Jake and Danny try to exit the building, they find the main entrance locked; for reasons that will shortly become more apparent, no one can get out. Fortunately, a veterinarian (Greg Germann) lives in the building and he provides improvisational treatment to the wounded officer while chaos reigns all around.

As sirens scream from all directions outside, some disembodied voice over a bullhorn instructs everyone inside to remain calm and wait patiently while steps are taken to get everyone safely out. James can’t wait though, and Jake and Danny immediately begin looking for another way out. As they do so, we hear a loud scream from above and Fletcher suddenly comes plummeting into the lobby floor from several floors above, bones crunching, blood splattering in a pool below his head. He’s alive but in even more desperate need of medical attention than James. Regardless, the lockdown remains in place and this time, as Angela and the others try to get out, they are threatened at gunpoint. No one will be let out under any circumstances.

The story rapidly unfolds from here, with the situation becoming more and more desperate as the people inside the building realize they’re not only imprisoned and forcibly quarantined, but also shut-in with something from out of a nightmare.

The entire film is shot from Scott’s perspective, using herky-jerky handycam footage, creating a frenetic, claustrophobic and confused feel. There is no mood or background music here, nor is any needed; Quarantine feels gritty and realistic, as if we’re watching real-time footage of a horrific event instead of a movie. Though there are a few inconsistencies, Quarantine is, overall, fairly scary and suspension of disbelief is easy.

The performances are solid too. I’ve read a few complaints about Carpenter--that she’s over the top. And while there’s some validity to that, with a film like this, overacting is far preferable to under acting. For the most part, I found her believable, even compelling at times, albeit occasionally grating. Director John Erick Dowdle keeps the action moving at an almost nauseating pace and, to his credit, does a respectable job of making us care about these characters before bringing them to horrific endings. And although the first few minutes are a bit slow, Dowdle creates a believable, real-world environment that unravels with surreal, nightmarish intensity inside that quarantined apartment complex.

Quarantine is creative and original, employing a nice twist on the zombie movie, with relatively little violence or blood for a horror film. While Quarantine is by no means a great film nor truly ground breaking, if you’re in the mood for a few scares, it’s not a bad choice.

Starring: Jennifer Carpenter, Steve Harris, Jay Hernandez, Columbus Short, Greg Germann, Johnathan Schaech

Directed by John Erick Dowdle