By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
At the height of the found footage craze, low-budget horror films were able to use the technique to tell innovative stories, like in Paranormal Activity or Cloverfield, or to take a classic horror story and make it seem new again. 2008’s Quarantine uses found footage through the eyes of a news crew to put you at the center of a zombie outbreak, making the old-school story of survival seem different by only changing the perspective. Found footage isn’t a popular format today,and it’s debatable how well the films of the era have aged, but a few are worth watching today, including REC, the Spanish-language film that was remade by Hollywood into Quarantine.
Nowhere To Run
Quarantine starts off with the news crew of Angela, the reporter (Jennifer Carpenter), and Scott, the cameraman (Steve Harris), following firefighters as they respond to a call at an apartment building that looks suspiciously like rabies. An old woman, infected by a mystery virus, attacks the group, which now includes a pair of police officers, before being shot down. Soon, we see the exits from the building, including all the windows, sealed by the CDC with the first-person perspective, turning the act of plastic wrap going up into a terrifying death sentence.
The ranks of the infected start to swell with nowhere to escape, leading to most of Quarantine’s jump scares and the majority of its kill count. An attempt to escape the building results in a sniper taking out the resident, forcing the survivors to try and find a way out, which is a little convoluted. The end result robs the movie of some of its horror by revealing far too much about the origin of the infection in a textbook example of why it’s better to leave audiences wanting more.
A Relic Of A Bygone Era
It’s impossible to talk about Quarantine without mentioning the original film REC, one of the most successful Spanish horror movies of all time. Darker than the English-language remake and with better pacing, the original film is still considered one of the best-found footage films of all time. It went on for three more sequels, branching out into an elaborate mythology that ended up including a Vatican conspiracy.
Quarantine, on the other hand, had a single sequel, Quarantine 2: Terminal, that’s set on an airplane before dying out. Though the original is superior, even the Hollywood remake is better than most of the low-budget found footage horror films of the era, despite the weak plot and third-act stumble. In theaters, the film made $41 million, making it a success given the low production budget.
Found footage films are few and far between today, especially given the diminishing returns of the Paranormal Activity franchise, turning films like Quarantine into relics of a bygone era in pop culture. It’s also an example of when Hollywood felt the need to remake foreign films, for example, The Ring or The Grudge, compared to today when films like Train to Busan are allowed to hit streaming. Zombie films have been around for over 60 years, dating back to the sci-fi standout The Day of the Triffids, and it takes a lot to stand out, but a first-person outbreak with no place to run is certainly something different.
Quarantine is available on Video on Demand via YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV.
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