4 gibbles out of 5

It’s a little spastic, and when viewed side by side with the original, it becomes that much more apparent what was forcefully changed just to make it American and what was changed because the Dowdle brothers thought it would be more effective.  But Quarantine makes enough adjustments to the formula to become its own thing, the original shocks tweaked slightly to give you a smile, and the new ones introduced a creative ramping-up of an already intense film.

The setup is primarily the same: a reporter (Jennifer Carpenter) has the task of following some fireman about the station and on their job.  When accompanying them to an apartment building for some unclear emergency, they all find themselves in lockdown (or, ahem, quarantine) when it becomes clear that some kind of biological wackiness is turning people into zombie-esque crazies.  Hey, we have a camera and “the public deserves to see this,” so let’s film it, and that’s what we’re watching.  The Dowdles had experience with found footage with Poughkeepsie Tapes and so do a slightly better job of making the inclusion of the camera justified and real (it’s not always on, and not always on the action), and the decision to make the apartment building less insular – more rooms – ups the ante when shizzle goes wacky.

Seeing this first, the ending was immensely terrifying, but once the original is seen, the choices of what to show and not to show seem more for a need to be different than for any real filmic basis.  However the decision came down to remake Quarantine, it is an excellent example of accepting the awesomeness of the original and also trying to build upon it.  It stumbles, for need of extra scares and over-explanation Americanization, but the director’s /writer’s skill with the subject matter and Carpenter’s looks of fear help to sell the entire experience as a legit horror offering.