Day Nine
T'is the season for shlocky horror films to come out and cash in on one's compulsive need to seek out something scary. Since Saw 20 hasn't hit theaters yet, and it doesn't look like Rob Zombie is pumping out another unbearable, ultra-violent flick, that whittles us down to one contestant. In the spirit of enlightenment, let's talk Quarantine.
This movie, directed by John Erick Dowdle, is actually a remake of a Spanish film, REC, which came out in November of last year. America crapping up a well-recieved foreign horror film? Do tell. But this time, they didn't even wait a whole year to do it. It premieres in theaters tomorrow, and if my guess holds any water, you'll probably be able to see it in the cheap shows by the 31st. But don't quote me on that, since people flock to October horror movies like college girls to the sexy costume aisle.
It's one of those 'the camera is a character too!' type movies, where a character is filming the whole thing. Unfortunately, Scott, our camera man, is either a temp or the worst professional cameraman in history, as even while standing still, you're treated to a nauseating cornucopia of blurry lack of focus, shaky cam, and constant sweeping around without giving viewers much time to digest what they're seeing. When you're running for your life, this is understandable. But even when spying something horrible from behind a barrier one room over, Scott flails like an epileptic watching an episode of Pokemon. On the plus side of things, this style affords for some genuinely creepy jumps scares and glimpses that leave you wondering 'what the Hell was that?' Though at the same time, he has no problem with masterfully zooming in on a crisp, clear shot of something exceptionally gory.
We start out with a rather mundane scene of Angela and Scott working on a news bit about the local LA fire station. They're covering the night shift with them, and after about fifteen minutes of 'charming' sexual harassment, they get a call to an apartment building, dealing with a woman's screams.Needless to say, two gory attacks and three bullets later, something seriously wrong is obviously going down. Oh, guys, after the first time a bloody, foaming at the mouth old lady attacks someone, you have to figure it's time to take her down.
In the commotion, they find out they're not allowed out of the building. But why? Here we meet Laurence, our typical angry black police officer, prone to get shovy and to pull his gun on people, Jake (or Jack, hard to recall) the fireman. Oh, and a whole bunch of apartment residents, whose names aren't important because none of them really have any role aside from 'body count'. We do have the vet that, being the only guy with a legit medical background suddenly becomes Mr. medical expert. And the uppity drunk that does not give a shit, and keeps on telling us that. Everybody else is just parroting ‘Why won’t they let us out?!’ ‘What’s going on?!’ ‘Why can’t we leave?’ Too many characters that don’t strike a chord with anybody, and you won’t even remember who they were, or care when they’re picked off.
When the Center for Disease Control guys finally come around, that’s when you start to get a little bit of an inkling of what is going on, followed closely by a shift from ‘boring! People are sloooooooowly getting sicker’ to a pastiche of that stairwell chase scene from 28 Days Later, only filmed in blurry first person. Like the director realized they'd wasted most of the movie and had to cram more creatures in there, pronto!
The film also succeeds in nailing just about every horror movie cliché imaginable.
-Whoops, this person is showing the same signs as that infected person that fucked up our shit. Better bring them down with the other survivors!
-Screaming female protagonist who won’t. stop. Screaming.
-“Were you bitten?” “…n-no.”
And this one doesn’t work as a bullet point, so we’re just going to explain it. One tenant turns out to be infected, bites a family member and disappears upstairs. A few survivors go after it, and rather than shooting them in the head because they’re obviously infected and there is no cure… well, I’m sure we can all guess where this is going.
In the jarring shift from ‘kind of unsettling, yet boring’ to ‘it’s dark, we’re running, and everybody is very suddenly turning out to be infected’ (never mind the fact that the original infected ones took hours of getting sicker and sicker) makes the jerky-cam effects much worse, and while the first few instances of ‘what was that bloody thing I kind-of saw?’ are creepy, after about the tenth one, you get frustrated with it.
Also, the dialogue in the latter half of the movie basically ends up being nothing but ‘Eaaaaaaaagh! Keep the light on me! Keep the light on me!’ Toward the end of it, the camera crew might have made some discovery about a possible cause of the virus, however, Scott’s shaky camera work and inability to focus leave us in the dark as to what the documents and headlines they find actually say. “Are you seeing this?” No Scott, we aren’t. I think I saw the word suspected, but it’s kind of hard to be sure of that for some reason.
While Quarantine definitely had its moments, they were rather far between. The Spanish version was much more well-done (so if you can bear subtitles or dubbing, I’d recommend that one over this), plot and terror-wise. Among the four of us that saw it, we gave it a unanimous score of two out of five. Also, three of us had headaches, and the person driving had a wicked case of vertigo for about fifteen minutes. If you go see this, sit far back from the screen. If movies like Cloverfield or Blair Witch gave you trouble, you might want to think twice. Even if they didn't, you might want to still pack some Advil.
If you’re jonesing for something spooky to see in theaters, this has some good jump-scares, but it’s nothing to write home to mom about. Cheap show or dvd would probably be your best bet.
As my brother would kindly sum up for us: Shitty camera. Main chick won't stop screaming.
That right there, guys? That is pure poetry.
This movie, directed by John Erick Dowdle, is actually a remake of a Spanish film, REC, which came out in November of last year. America crapping up a well-recieved foreign horror film? Do tell. But this time, they didn't even wait a whole year to do it. It premieres in theaters tomorrow, and if my guess holds any water, you'll probably be able to see it in the cheap shows by the 31st. But don't quote me on that, since people flock to October horror movies like college girls to the sexy costume aisle.
It's one of those 'the camera is a character too!' type movies, where a character is filming the whole thing. Unfortunately, Scott, our camera man, is either a temp or the worst professional cameraman in history, as even while standing still, you're treated to a nauseating cornucopia of blurry lack of focus, shaky cam, and constant sweeping around without giving viewers much time to digest what they're seeing. When you're running for your life, this is understandable. But even when spying something horrible from behind a barrier one room over, Scott flails like an epileptic watching an episode of Pokemon. On the plus side of things, this style affords for some genuinely creepy jumps scares and glimpses that leave you wondering 'what the Hell was that?' Though at the same time, he has no problem with masterfully zooming in on a crisp, clear shot of something exceptionally gory.
We start out with a rather mundane scene of Angela and Scott working on a news bit about the local LA fire station. They're covering the night shift with them, and after about fifteen minutes of 'charming' sexual harassment, they get a call to an apartment building, dealing with a woman's screams.Needless to say, two gory attacks and three bullets later, something seriously wrong is obviously going down. Oh, guys, after the first time a bloody, foaming at the mouth old lady attacks someone, you have to figure it's time to take her down.
In the commotion, they find out they're not allowed out of the building. But why? Here we meet Laurence, our typical angry black police officer, prone to get shovy and to pull his gun on people, Jake (or Jack, hard to recall) the fireman. Oh, and a whole bunch of apartment residents, whose names aren't important because none of them really have any role aside from 'body count'. We do have the vet that, being the only guy with a legit medical background suddenly becomes Mr. medical expert. And the uppity drunk that does not give a shit, and keeps on telling us that. Everybody else is just parroting ‘Why won’t they let us out?!’ ‘What’s going on?!’ ‘Why can’t we leave?’ Too many characters that don’t strike a chord with anybody, and you won’t even remember who they were, or care when they’re picked off.
When the Center for Disease Control guys finally come around, that’s when you start to get a little bit of an inkling of what is going on, followed closely by a shift from ‘boring! People are sloooooooowly getting sicker’ to a pastiche of that stairwell chase scene from 28 Days Later, only filmed in blurry first person. Like the director realized they'd wasted most of the movie and had to cram more creatures in there, pronto!
The film also succeeds in nailing just about every horror movie cliché imaginable.
-Whoops, this person is showing the same signs as that infected person that fucked up our shit. Better bring them down with the other survivors!
-Screaming female protagonist who won’t. stop. Screaming.
-“Were you bitten?” “…n-no.”
And this one doesn’t work as a bullet point, so we’re just going to explain it. One tenant turns out to be infected, bites a family member and disappears upstairs. A few survivors go after it, and rather than shooting them in the head because they’re obviously infected and there is no cure… well, I’m sure we can all guess where this is going.
In the jarring shift from ‘kind of unsettling, yet boring’ to ‘it’s dark, we’re running, and everybody is very suddenly turning out to be infected’ (never mind the fact that the original infected ones took hours of getting sicker and sicker) makes the jerky-cam effects much worse, and while the first few instances of ‘what was that bloody thing I kind-of saw?’ are creepy, after about the tenth one, you get frustrated with it.
Also, the dialogue in the latter half of the movie basically ends up being nothing but ‘Eaaaaaaaagh! Keep the light on me! Keep the light on me!’ Toward the end of it, the camera crew might have made some discovery about a possible cause of the virus, however, Scott’s shaky camera work and inability to focus leave us in the dark as to what the documents and headlines they find actually say. “Are you seeing this?” No Scott, we aren’t. I think I saw the word suspected, but it’s kind of hard to be sure of that for some reason.
While Quarantine definitely had its moments, they were rather far between. The Spanish version was much more well-done (so if you can bear subtitles or dubbing, I’d recommend that one over this), plot and terror-wise. Among the four of us that saw it, we gave it a unanimous score of two out of five. Also, three of us had headaches, and the person driving had a wicked case of vertigo for about fifteen minutes. If you go see this, sit far back from the screen. If movies like Cloverfield or Blair Witch gave you trouble, you might want to think twice. Even if they didn't, you might want to still pack some Advil.
If you’re jonesing for something spooky to see in theaters, this has some good jump-scares, but it’s nothing to write home to mom about. Cheap show or dvd would probably be your best bet.
As my brother would kindly sum up for us: Shitty camera. Main chick won't stop screaming.
That right there, guys? That is pure poetry.
Labels: Halloween
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