Quarantine (2008)

Quarantine is a 2008 American science fiction horror film directed by John Erick Dowdle and starring Jennifer Carpenter, Jay Hernandez, Columbus Short, Greg Germann, Steve Harris, Dania Ramirez, Rade Sherbedgia and Johnathon Schaech. The film is a remake of the Spanish film REC and features several differences such as added and excluded scenes and characters, dialogue and a different explanation for the virus. Shot in the "found footage" style, the movie was released on October 10, 2008 by Screen Gems. Quarantine features no incidental music, being "scored" only with sound effects. It received mixed reviews from critics and was moderately successful at the box office. The film was followed by Quarantine 2: Terminal.

Plot
A television reporter named Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman Scott Percival (Steve Harris) are assigned to follow firefighters Jake (Jay Hernandez) and Fletcher (Johnathon Schaech) on their night shift. The crew responds to an emergency call from an apartment building. The apartment manager Yuri (Rade Sherbedgia) says that he and other residents heard screams from the room of an old woman named Mrs. Espinoza (Jeannie Epper), who has locked herself in her apartment.

Jake, Fletcher, Yuri, police officers Danny (Columbus Short) and James (Andrew Fiscella), and the camera crew go to the apartment, where they find Mrs. Espinoza in serious condition. She is bleeding severely and foaming at the mouth. Moments later, they are attacked by Espinoza who bites James in the neck.

They take him downstairs for medical assistance, while Fletcher stays with a now sedated Mrs. Espinoza upstairs. However, when they get downstairs, they find the apartment doors have been locked from the outside, leaving everyone, including several residents, trapped inside. Upstairs, Fletcher is attacked by Mrs. Espinoza and thrown from the railing to the ground, leaving him in serious condition.

Lawrence (Greg Germann), a veterinarian, starts tending to the injured as best as possible. Angela and Scott return to Espinoza's apartment, where they witness the cleaning woman die. Jake and Danny show up and find Espinoza, with blood on her mouth and dress and her eyes bleeding. She charges at them, but Danny shoots and seemingly kills her.

Jake, Scott, and Angela head room to room to bring down anymore guests; they bring down Randy (Denis O'Hare), Jwahir (Sharon Ferguson) and Nadif (Jermaine Jackson) (an African couple who don't speak English), and Elise (Stacy Chbosky), a woman who has many similar symptoms as Mrs. Espinoza. The residents begin to panic as the CDC quarantines the building. Meanwhile, Angela interviews the tenants. A little girl named Briana (Joey King) is sick with bronchitis and says that her dog Max is at the vet because he's sick as well. After the interviews, Lawrence explains more about the conditions of Fletcher, Elise, and James as they all have symptoms similar to those of rabies, however, presenting themselves at an alarming rate.

Angela and Scott follow residents Bernard (Bernard White) and Sadie (Dania Ramirez) back to their apartment to check the TV news. On the way, they witness Randy being killed by a dog who corners him in the elevator. Once inside the room, they watch the televised report where the Chief of Police (Michael Potter) states to a news reporter (Jane Park Smith) that everyone has been evacuated from the building, then the power goes out. Elise appears, turns violent and starts attacking the others, but Scott bashes her head in repeatedly with his camera, killing her. While going over the status of the tenants, Danny learns that Randy and the cleaning lady are dead, Jwahir has a paralytic father living with her and Nadif in their apartment, and a man from Boston that rented the attic apartment hasn't been seen for days.

Two CDC Agents (Craig Susser and Bert Jernigan) wearing hazmat suits arrive and attempt to treat Fletcher and the policeman by taking a brain sample. Suddenly Fletcher attacks and bites one of the inspectors. While evacuating, Lawrence is trapped with the infected and is bitten. The surviving health inspector reveals that the previous day, a dog was taken to a local veterinarian. The dog became violent and killed or infected the other pets at the clinic, causing them to be euthanized. The CDC traced the dog back to the apartment building. The CDC Agent tells the residents that this unknown but highly virulent disease turns people into bloodthirsty savages.

Angela discovers that the infected dog was Briana's dog, Max. The remaining survivors become skeptical that Briana's illness is actually bronchitis. Suddenly, Briana becomes savage as well and bites her mother Kathy (Marin Hinkle) before escaping upstairs. Kathy is handcuffed to the stair railing to stop her from trying to protect Briana. Angela, Scott, Jake and Danny find Briana in Mrs. Espinoza's apartment. When Danny attempts to sedate the girl, Briana bites him. Mrs. Espinoza, who survived the earlier shooting, then attacks. She is finally killed by Jake with a sledgehammer. They rush downstairs only to find everyone else running upstairs in fear, for they find the infected have broken through the shutter.

Jake tries to close the shutter, as Angela tries to free Kathy. When they can't find the key, Jake drags Angela upstairs leaving Kathy to die by the infected. As everyone runs upstairs, Jwahir and Nadif are both separated and bitten. Angela, Jake, Scott, Sadie, Bernard, Yuri, his wife Wanda (Elaine Kagan), and the CDC Agent lock themselves in an empty apartment. The CDC Agent locks himself in an adjacent room when he realizes he has been bitten. They also realize Sadie has been bitten when they notice she is eating her own fingers and soon after coughs up blood on herself.

Bernard pleads with them not to kill Sadie, and out of desperation, attempts to break through the apartment window to call for help, but he is killed by a sniper positioned in a building across the street from the apartment. Yuri remembers another way out in the basement, where there is a large drain that is connected to the sewers, but the keys are in his apartment. Suddenly, the health inspector and Sadie succumb to the infection and bite Yuri and Wanda. As they try to escape, they must fight off the infected as they work toward Yuri's apartment as Jake uses the sledgehammer on the dog in the elevator.

After Jake and Scott break Sadie's neck, the group reaches Yuri's apartment and find his key ring. Jake is bitten by Yuri, leaving Angela and Scott as the only survivors. Rather than making their way to the basement, they are forced upstairs to the attic apartment by Danny and the remaining infected. They search the apartment and discover that its former tenant was a member of a doomsday cult who broke into a chemical weapons lab and stole a mutated rabies virus. As Angela and Scott continue through the apartment, a door opens from the attic and Scott uses the light on the camera to investigate.

An infected boy (Benjamin Stockham) swats at the camera, breaking the light. Scott turns on the camera's night vision. Scott and Angela hear loud banging noises inside the apartment. When Scott looks around, he sees a ghoulishly emaciated man (Doug Jones) searching the kitchen area unaware of Angela and Scott's presence. Scott tries to escape but trips and is viciously attacked, dropping the camera. Angela retrieves it and sees the man eating Scott. Unable to control herself, she cries out and is subsequently attacked, dropping the camera in the process. Strangely unharmed, as the attack deflected off the camera, she crawls slowly through the darkness for almost ten seconds, in a vain attempt to escape. Suddenly, she is dragged backwards by her legs into the dark, screaming as the camera continues recording.

Cast

 * Jennifer Carpenter as Angela Vidal
 * Steve Harris as Scott Pervical
 * Jay Hernandez as Jake
 * Johnathon Schaech as George Fletcher
 * Columbus Short as Danny Wilensky
 * Andrew Fiscella as James McCreedy
 * Rade Sherbedgia as Yuri Ivanov
 * Greg Germann as Lawrence
 * Bernard White as Bernard
 * Dania Ramirez as Sadie
 * Elaine Kagan as Wanda Marimon
 * Marin Hinkle as Kathy
 * Joey King as Briana
 * Jermaine Jackson as Nadif
 * Sharon Ferguson as Jwahir
 * Denis O'Hare as Randy
 * Stacy Chbosky as Elise Jackson
 * Jeannie Epper as Ms. Espinoza
 * Barry Sigismondi as Bob Orton
 * Ace Hatem as Wounded Woman
 * Christian Svensson as Armed Guard
 * Scott Donovan as Armed Guard
 * Michael Potter as Chief of Police
 * Jane Park Smith as News Reporter
 * Craig Susser as Hazmat Doctor
 * Bert Jernigan as Hazmat Guard
 * Doug Jones as Thin Infected Man

Release
Quarantine had an initial release date of October 17, 2008, but was moved forward and released on October 10, 2008. Quarantine was released February 17, 2009, on DVD and Blu-Ray. In Australia, the original release date was November 6, which was pushed back to December 4.

Reception
Quarantine, which was not screened for American critics, received mixed reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 58% of critics gave positive reviews based on 81 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an aggregate score of 54%, based on 10 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews". Quarantine received a 70% from Bloody Disgusting and Fangoria gave the film an 87.5%. Empire was lukewarm in its response, but critical of the rushed and copied-verbatim style of the remake. Jaume Balagueró, who co-wrote and directed the REC series, expressed distaste to Quarantine by saying: "It’s impossible for me to like, because it’s a copy. It’s the same, except for the finale. It’s impossible to enjoy Quarantine after REC. I don’t understand why they avoided the religious themes; they lost a very important part of the end of the movie." Paco Plazastated that Quarantine "helped REC to become more popular than it was. It moved a spotlight onto our film. You know, the fact that it was going to be remade in Hollywood, it was big news in Europe. Everyone knew that it existed, this tiny Spanish film." On its opening day, the film grossed $5,379,867, ranking #1 in the box office. The film opened at #2, behind the second weekend of Beverly Hills Chihuahua, earning $14,211,321 in its opening weekend. Its total gross is $41,319,906 worldwide.

Sequel
In March 2010, Screen Gems announced that John Pogue would direct the sequel, Quarantine 2: Terminal, which focuses on an outbreak in an airport. The sequel was released on June 17, 2011 to favorable reviews.