Rec or Quarantine
Rec was an absolute revelation when I first saw it last year. One of my mates implored me to give it a go. It was a Spanish horror film and I had heard nothing about it so I sat down without expectation and was blown away by the fast-paced tense horror filmed with a handheld camera. Now the film has been remade for US audiences and retitled as Quarantine. Does it match up to the visceral terror of the original?
The set up is simple, a young female reporter and her cameraman are spending the night with the local fire crew, in the new US version the film is set in Los Angeles. The film draws you in as we see the unedited footage shot by the cameraman and to begin with it is a dull documentary style affair which introduces you to the principle players. Eventually the fire fighters are called to an apartment building and they enter with the reporter in tow. The police are waiting inside and they enter the scene of the disturbance to find an old woman who is visibly freaking out. All hell breaks loose when she bites one of the police officers.
Audiences may have gotten sick of the trend for handheld camera footage which exploded in popularity after The Blair Witch Project but rest assured the effect is brilliantly used here. It really heightens the tension as the cameraman jostles for position and we strain to see exactly what is going on. Moments are captured in real time as they unfold and there are some terrific shocks and jumps along the way.
Luckily this is a very faithful remake; the setting and scenario are identical. We are plunged into the mystery along with the protagonists when they return to the atrium to discover that they are all locked in the building. It soon becomes clear that a rabies-like disease has broken out and it is turning infected humans into slavering zombies with a thirst for human flesh.
The cast is quite good. Jennifer Carpenter (sister of Dexter) plays the reporter, Steve Harris is her cameraman and Jay Hernandez plays the tough fire fighter, Jake. The only other face I recognised was Rade Serbedzija who plays one of the other tenants but everyone acted their roles well.
The direction is excellent; it gives an authentic feel to the action but also captures some of the principle scenes with style. Of course the credit has to go to the original film because Quarantine unfolds very much as a straight almost scene for scene copy although it does add a few extra touches.
Both Rec and Quarantine are exciting horror films which drag you along on a high octane adventure into a gory nightmare scenario. I actually slightly prefer Rec, it was a little tighter and handled the ending better. I also found the fact that it was in Spanish made it feel more authentic or real to me, as though I was actually watching genuine footage recovered from the scene. In any case both are good and if you can’t handle subtitles Quarantine does the job nicely.
