A thrill-seeking television reporter and her dedicated cameraman find themselves living out a predictable yet entertaining Resident Evil videogame nightmare in Quarantine; a remake of the Spanish-language horror film [REC] told through the eyes of a found camera ala The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield and joining the latter in high definition on Blu-ray Disc.
Dexter costar Jennifer Carpenter sheds her serial killer brother and steps into a heroine role as television reporter Angela Vidal. With cameraman Scott (Steve Harris) in tow, the pair is assigned to cover the late night shift at a firehouse with fellow indie actors Jay Hernandez and Jonathon Schaech as firemen providing chaperone duties to their guests. Before you can say naked men showering in the firehouse, a 911 call sends the quartet to an apartment building where they quickly find themselves trapped within its walls by local authorities with a tenant infected by “something” eager to munch on anyone within the vicinity.
Once the first “attack” transpires there’s not much surprise in what’s to come. The script by John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle combined with John’s deliberately paced direction of Scott’s camera telegraphs each and every “jump” scene up to a couple minutes before it occurs. Knowing what’s about to happen allows you to brace for it and subsequently tones down the imminent scare lurking in the dark or around the next corner.
Veracity and tenaciousness of infected victims when they attack draws obvious and unavoidable comparisons to 28 Days Later with the visual creepiness and tight quarters of the Resident Evil videogames. Unlike those almost B-movie experiences, Quarantine benefits from emotionally charged and believable performances from its entire cast that help “sell” the terror as a reality versus a scripted production.
Quarantine’s entertainment value excels past its fellow reality-driven films and horror inspirations squarely on the shoulders of Jennifer Carpenter. When you want to scratch your head and wonder why Scott continues to film when his life is clearly in danger or why survivors don’t go on the offensive against so few infected victims, Jennifer emotes raw fear and desperation few young actresses in Hollywood can touch. Her agent must have set up camp just off-camera, threatening to torch her paycheck if she didn’t give her absolute all in every scene.
Whereas The Blair Witch Project’s video playback was from a grainy handheld camera, Scott’s camera in Quarantine is clearly a pricey high definition piece of equipment. The 1.85:1 1080p AVC MPEG-4 encoded transfer has only a light veneer of natural grain rather than a heavy coat I would have expected from a “reality tv” production.
The high definition visuals bring out strong details throughout the film but most noticeably during horror make-up effects sequences. A couple shots of a firefighter’s broken leg are especially graphic, as is a splattered rat that Scott zooms in and focuses on for several seconds – complete with entrails scattered around it.
Much of Quarantine is filmed in dark tight quarters, especially during the final act when the power is cut and lighting is offered only by Scott’s camera on an intermittent basis. The heavy blacks are tough on the transfer, falling victim to crush on numerous occasions. Of those, two stood out as truly problematic and were over relatively quickly so they don’t kill an otherwise respectable high definition video presentation.
Scott’s camera apparently had a futuristic microphone on it because the 5.1 Dolby TrueHD lossless audio mix is far stronger than I expected it to be. Surrounds spring to life with pinpoint accuracy from a handball court at the firehouse to a helicopter buzzing above the apartment building to various bangs and thumps in floors above the tenants. Bass is also well-defined and impacting when called upon, a brief scene with the fire truck en-route to the apartment building hitting bumps in the road being a prime example. Dialogue is sharp, never muddied and rounds out a fantastically creepy aural experience. Don’t expect a Cloverfield aural bombardment but do expect more than this genre of film generally offers.
The Dowdle brothers kick off a quartet of bonus features with a Feature-Length Audio Commentary. Their enthusiasm for Quarantine is made apparent on numerous occasions like two boys talking quietly in the back of church. They are clearly new to commentaries and fall victim to long pauses and boring rhetoric which, combined with their low and seemingly unenthusiastic voice inflections, make for a chat better skipped than endured.
The remaining extras are comprised of three short standard definition featurettes totaling barely over 20 minutes combined. Locked In: The Making of Quarantine (10:05) interviews cast and crew who all share the same thought spoken with different words: Quarantine was an extremely difficult but rewarding film to assemble. Dressing the Infected (7:29) takes a closer look at Robert Hall’s visual effects. I wanted to see his Mona Lisa, the walking broken leg effect, broken down and examined. Instead the focus remains on the facial make-up for the victims. Last is Anatomy of a Stunt (3:23) which goes behind-the-scenes to visually break down how a victim was dropped over a balcony.
Quarantine surprised me in ways I wasn’t prepared to be even without the benefit of having seen its inspiration, [REC]. Jennifer Carpenter, Jay Hernandez and the rest of the cast act their collective asses off to make an otherwise mundane and predicable story entertaining to follow. The high definition presentation, especially the audio, plays well above the reality genre typically demands. Bonus features are nothing to write home about. Then again, Quarantine is about people running from zombie-like creatures in a locked-down building. There wasn’t much in the way of expectations to begin with.
– Dan Bradley
