Quarantine

Synopsis: rabies, old hotels, and Jennifer Carpenter freaking out.

So someone finally did the obvious. They took the handheld camera from the Blair Witch kids and pointed it at some zombies. I love zombies. In fact this review needs a

DISCLAIMER: TD loves zombies.

George Romero, unlike the other George, can keep right on remaking his movies and I’ll keep watching them. That said, this movie has nothing to do with Romero other than zombies. Well not even that actually.

Technically, a highly virulent form of rabies breaks out in a very old hotel (old = very few exits). So while not undead, the bitten occupants turn into unstoppable maniacs with a lust for human flesh, incapable of vocalizing beyond a raspy moan, and who can only be stopped by severe blows to the head. Rabid zombies. Nothing particularly new here, just something of a cross between The Dawn of the Dead remake’s fast zombies and 28 Days Later’s Rage virus (was that rabies too?). The end product being they can withstand inhuman amounts of damage and want to eat you.

The single camera “discovered footage” aspect is terrifying and restricting. It forces the movie to go with classic horror roots, ala good makeup and lighting, and very little of what makes movies modern: craptastic CG. It also puts you very literally in the middle of a zombie situation like no other cinematography can. A long hallway with open doors is really scary when you can only see it through the narrow viewpoint of a single lens. Beating a zombie to death with your camera, a camera with an audience inside it, while it’s clawing at your ankles is intimately horrifying.

Now combine this with acting beyond your typical horror flick and you have a claustrophobic winner. Jennifer Carpenter is really good at looking scared, even when she isn’t possessed by Beelzebub. The long single shots must have been taxing on the actors. At one point she hyperventilates for so long you genuinely worry for her.

So if you like scary movies as a stress reliever, don’t mind classic jump scenes, and want to wash your hands every five minutes for the rest of the night, I very much recommend Quarantine over watching Saw: Eleventy-Billion. If you're not much of a zombie fan (you heathen!), this probably isn’t for you as it really isn’t much beyond a good horror flick. So in theater for you my children, and matinee for the unwashed masses.