Saturday, November 29, 2008

Quarantine


Ok... SPOILERS!!


There's no way I can voice my opinion on this one without giving away a major spoiler, so you have been warned and here goes...

Ok for starters this is an English language remake of a 2007 Spanish film called [Rec] or [.REC] or however you want to say/type it. It falls into the current fad of hand-held video style films (such as Cloverfield, Diary of the Dead, even Blair Witch to some extent), and follows Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter), a late night reality show (ob-doc) host, who's shadowing an LA fire crew.

After a bit of faffing about in the beginning, setting up characters and stuff, they get a call and off they go. They arrive at an apartment block where the residents are worried about an old lady in one of the apartments....shortly after the shit hits the fan.

Also falling loosely into the Zombie genre (in the same way that 28 Days Later does), it's a scary fucking movie! So scary in fact that a certain person I was with was so scared she was nearly sick, that's pretty good for a horror movie. It's also pretty relentless. Cloverfield in the cinema was a full on assault to the senses, cleverly done handheld, ridiculous noise, and almost non-stop pacing. Quarantine is just as full on (once you get past the fluff at the start), the POV of the camera lends itself to some truly jump out of your seat moments (as most of the people in the cinema were), and those moments, don't go by quickly, they last, making sure you've well and truly evacuated your bowels.

It also works very well on the laughter side of things, meaning, there are moments in the film which aren't specifically comical, but allow you that release, where you can laugh and relax for a moment before the next assault starts. This guy can do horror.

Apparently [Rec] is better as various people have said, I'm guessing those people saw [Rec] first, and thus already knew what was gonna happen with Quarantine, therefore, I'm assuming [Rec] won't 'do it' as much for me as Quarantine did for the same reasons. Will see tho.

Quarantine - 7/10 (find out why only 7 down below)



Here's where the real spoiler is.

What the film company can't do is marketing.

If you've seen the trailer (and indeed the poster!), you know how the film ends, down to the final shot, this becomes apparent as soon as that sequence starts, possibly earlier. Thus after a REALLY enjoyable horror (especially after the abortion that is Diary of the Dead), it was spoiled by shite marketing. There was plenty of other bits they could've gone with, but they didn't.

Okay, it's a remake, but I haven't seen the original, I don't know if it ends the same way, I'm guessing it's pretty close at least, I'll find out when I watch it (so please don't spoil it for me if it's different!!), thus showing me the final shot of the film in the trailer and on the poster, kinda fucked it up a bit. It wasn't like I figured it out and saw the end coming, I KNEW by that point in the film, that's how it was gonna end. :(



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