Quarantine Review by Royce Icon
Quarantine
Starring Jennifer Carpenter, Steve Harris
Directed by John Erick Dowdle
Written by John Erick Dowdle, Drew Dowdle
I have to admit that I was rather ambivalent about what to expect from this movie when seeing the trailers, but it’s actually a rather straight forward, effective horror flick.
A journalist and a cameraman follow some firefighters around for a story, and end up being quarantined in this fucked up apartment building, where people are coming down with a mysterious illness that is turning them into insane, bloodthirsty sociopaths.
All of this is shot first person with a high quality digital camera, Blair Witch style, only it actually doesn’t have any of those big editing continuity errors. This looks as if it could have actually been shot on only one tape, and it’s fucking awesome.
The cast is effective as hell, and it’s a rather good take on the whole Night of the Living Dead/ Cube theme, which can be succinctly summed up by Sartre’s “Hell is other people” concept from No Exit.
Is shooting a first person digital flick a bit of a gimmick? Sure, but what the fuck isn’t? What matters is that they did it very well, and the only disappointment I had with the film was that I saw it in a packed theatre filled to the brink with drunk college kids. I certainly recommend you check it out.
-Royce Icon