With only a precious few examples, the notion to make English language remakes of foreign films, simply because some audiences can’t be bothered to follow subtitles, fills me with unencumbered dread. Part of the majesty of watching a foreign movie in the first place is to see how other cultures approach certain genres, be it thrillers, action, or – of course – horror and one of the most attention grabbing examples from the 2000s was [Rec]. Hailing from Spain courtesy of filmmakers Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, the film not only gave a shot in the arm to the post-28 Days Later zombie genre, but it also did it’s part to make found footage horror respectable too. However, rather than try and bring the film to a wider audience and get them to read subtitles, some bright spark figured why not simply just remake the entire film with a different director and an English speaking cast, and then release it only a year after the original came out. I don’t know about you, but that scares me far more than any zombie infestation possibly could.
As the sun sets on the evening of March 11, 2008, we find roving reporter Angela Vidal and her cameraman, Scott Percival, are filming a report about the night shift at the Los Angeles Fire Department. After filming little vignettes about the pole and various other aspects of the station, the pair head out on a call with firefighters Jake and George to investigate an emergency call from a local apartment building.
Once they arrive, they find that the call concerns screaming that’s been coming from one of the apartments and with both a couple of cops in tow, the firemen break down the door to find out what’s going on. What they find is kind of bewildering and freakish, and after taking various accounts from the rest of the gathering residents, they discover that everyone who lives there are a mixture of American citizens and illeagal immigrants, with some reporting strange illnesses in their respective households. This is rather small potatoes when it’s discovered that the little old lady responsible for the original screaming has become a slavering animal and proceeds to first rip a hefty chunk out of the neck of one of the cops, and then maul George.
From there it’s bedlam as both Jake and the remaining officer, Danny, try to contain the danger and keep the residents calm. But when its revealed that a bite from one of these infected people means that it’s recipient will soon undergo violent, rabies-style symptoms, things soon get out of control. Even more worrying is that a horde of personal from the CDC has somehow arrived and has started quarantining off the building, sealing everyone inside whether they’ve received a fateful gnawing or not. With no way out and the infection steadily spreading throughout the building, Angela and Scott keep diligently filming everything as a record. But are they filming a report, or are they merely recording their own epitaph?
So for the record, as a stand-alone movie viewed in a vacuum, Quarantine isn’t exactly a bad film, especially if you had no idea that it’s source material actually exists. However, when lined up with [Rec], it quickly becomes apparent that it’s way less effective – and certainly less scarier – than the Spanish original. However, my main issue is that while movies made in similar circumstances are potentially a void of creativity, movies like Gore Verbinski’s remake of The Ring proved that you still can add your own stamp on a preexisting film rather than deliver a slick hack job. However, here we find that director John Erick Dowdle is content to go down the Gus Van Saint Psycho route and deliver something akin to a carbon copy that seems like an overwhelming waste of time and money to anyone who has already seen the original. For example, the very fact it’s a copy means by definition that it’s inferior and everything about it is simply just not as good. The tone, the acting, the scares, even the gore; it just isn’t as relentlessly and punishingly scary as the Spanish version which ferociously pulled no punches and felt uncomfortably real a lot of the time.
One of the issues is the cast, but while such names as Jennifer Carpenter Jay Hernandez, Dania Ramirez and Rade Šerbedžija do decent work while trying to fend off infected zombie archetypes (Carpenter in particular hyperventilates like a pro), the very fact that they’re recognisable immediately strips away some of that all-important, simulated realism. It’s tough to suspend disbelief and pretend what’s occuring is real when your brain is constantly going “oh look, it’s the sister from Dexter; oh look, it’s the guy from Hostel; oh look, isn’t it that guy from Ally McBeal?”.
Another forehead slapping botch the film does, weirdly comes from the poster which, bizarrely, shows the last shot of the movie as plain as day – OK, maybe you wouldn’t realise it until you saw the actual movie, but for those in the know, it’s still an objectively weird choice…
As the remake trots out all the greatest hits from the original (the sudden jump scare as a guy splats in the middle of the lobby; the beast-child in the crawl space; the emaciated ghoul with the hammer) it just doesn’t hit as well as you’d hope, which only serves to make me more cross. Because if anyone saw this and thought it was lame, that means less people as going to discover the original which seems horribly unfair. Of course The Ring and Martin Scorsese’s take on Infernal Affairs, The Departed, are different, but that’s because they’re trying to be their own movies and not some bland photocopy that fails to harness the animalistic panic the Spanish film achieved with far less resources.
However, one thing I’ll say that works in the film’s favour (other than that gnarly broken leg effect) is that in a post-COVID world, any film that sees the CDC trying to clumsily wrestle a virus into submission automatically feels 45% percent more realistic and hard hitting than it did before – it’s just not as hard hitting as the 2007 one. It’s tough to take a film to task mostly based on the business decisions that led to its creation in the first place and I actually mean no disrespect to Dowdle (it’s not like he showed up to set every day and yelled “I’m gonna [Rec] it!” in a John C. Reilly voice), but signing on to something so devoid of its own voice simply just isn’t helping anybody.
To the uninitiated, Quarantine seems like your average, polished, fast-zombie homage to both 28 Days Later and The Blair Witch Project – but when you realise it’s only reason for existing is to help those unwilling to read subtitles witness a less-scary version of a genuine horror classic, it’s a tough decision to defend.
If quarantined from its own inspiration, this zombie romp works fine enough and potentially may be even worthy of an additional star. However, while it hardly [Rec]s the reputation of what came before, it’s tough to support a film that genuinely has no real artistic reason to exist. Do yourself a favour, isolate Quarantine and just get [Rec]-ed.
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