Jennifer Carpenter in "Quarantine"As usual I went to movies after my Friday job interviews. I avoided those art house or more serious films (not that many of them now anyway), but chose the no brainers (gosh, such a pun for zombie movies). This week, it was "Quarantine".
The first thing you will notice about this movie is its reality TV like shooting style. The whole movie is showed as footage from a two-people team (one reporter, one camera man) documenting a routine night for a fire department. Then, of course, things go terrible wrong, and this single-point-of-view video camera soon becomes your eyes and ears.
This style of horror movie shooting has proved very effective, both financially and technically. The first of its kind, "The Blair Witch Project", a super low budget (60K) movie which eventually earned more than 30 million, was phenomenal. The hand held video camera makes you feel you are right behind it watching something really happened; the limited point of view enhances the suspense. After all, when we face something terrible, the less we know, the scarier it is.
Still, "The Blair Witch Project" was flawed. The camera was too shaky. (I got a headache in the middle of the viewing, some people felt nauseated.) The story line (if existed at all) just dragged on and on. (The movie trailer was actually better than the movie.) It was a hype. Even so, in a time even the B movies became cliche, it was refreshing and a wake up call to many filmmakers what could be done.
The filmmakers of "Quarantine" must have learned from "The Blair Witch Project". (These two movies' tag lines are almost the same.) Though the movie is still shot from a hand held video camera, it's not that shaky, so we feel very comfortable following it to the story. We see, through the camera, our protagonist Angela (Jennifer Carpenter), a reporter for some unknown TV station, jovially starting her interview with the fire department. We see her flowing down the fire pole, playing basketball with fire men, and even doing a detour into the shower room. Everything seems cheerful and normal, no bad omen at all. Then, of course, the fire department gets a call from an apartment and she's finally in the fire truck, excited for the real action. Only we know it will be a trip to hell.
I don't want to divulge more details (they are all the same in horror movies). Suffice to say soon enough, we know the situation is bad, very very bad. The hand held video camera now truly shows its power. Not only it becomes our eyes and ears, in one scene it even become a weapon (a good reason you should have a heavy duty video camera in horror movies). In fact, it almost has a character of its own: it vividly (even cruelly) documents everything and never panics. It can even see better than all the human beings and is still there recording after all the protagonists succumbing to their ill fate. A true hero in a heroless horror film.
One person I have to compliment is our leading lady, Jennifer Carpenter*. This young actress has won my vote as the true successor of Jamie Lee Curtis as the new scream queen. Instead of being unbelievably heroic, she is realistically hysterical in the movie and chooses flight instead of fight most of the time. I don't think the movie can be convincing without her performance (hint, some screams help too).
I walked out of the theater thinking about all the horror movies I had seen and the social commentaries they implied. I thought about how another Carpenter (John) created a new wave of horror movies almost 30 years ago. I also thought about how George Romero had used the same shooting style in his latest work. In terms of stimulating me to think, not bad for a no brainer.
P.S. just as I am writing this, I read from imdb.com that this 12M low budget movie has even beaten the 100M Ridley Scout film "Body of Lies" (starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe). I am stunned. OK, it may be a no brainer, but it definitely kills!
P.P.S. I just found out "Quarantine" is actually a remake of the Spanish hit "Rec". No wonder, Amercian horror movies never kill their leading ladies.
*She also starred in "the Exorcise of Emily Rose" and the TV series "Dexter".
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