Quarantine Autopsy

In 2007 a tiny Spanish film was released into the wild. Rec only cost 2 million dollars to make and made back more than 16 times that at the box office. The film was a springboard for a successful franchise that spawned 4 sequels. Rec would go on to sit at a very respectable 60th place in Time Out’s extensive list of 100 best horror movies.

Following the found footage craze, Rec was remade for the English-speaking market as Quarantine in 2008. Because the original made so much money the American producers – Screen Gems – did the whole thing again but En Inglés.

Quarantine was not as well received by critics as its Spanish counterpart, scoring an average of 53 compared to REC’s 71 critic score on Metacritic. Audiences were kinder, awarding both versions of this zombie adjacent found footage/mockumentary film a healthy 7 out of 10.

So, with that out of the way, we catch up with Angela Vidal and her cameraman Scott Percival. The pair are getting ready to spend the night shift with the LA Fire Department. We are told early on that a lot of the calls that the fire crew gets called out on are – in fact – medical in nature. We spend a little time with the fire crew who seem like a nice bunch of guys, it’s a shame that we’re going to see them all die. Angela is a little playful and flirty and the fire crew are a bit randy and bawdy and everything is lovely. We get to play with a Dalmatian and see Angela slide down a pole. It’s pretty much the dead of night and a call comes in, Angela and her cameraman run and they are off to the main plot.

One major change – between this film and its predecessor – is that the apartment is actually a set, a four-story tall set built on a sound stage. Rec was filmed inside an actual apartment block. This is why the lighting in the remake is so much better, and a large part of why it looks slicker and more polished. The fact that it cost $10 million more to make than its churro-eating counterpart might also have something to do with this.

The apartment building does look good though, homely and foreboding at the same time. It seems that a little old dear, Ms. Espinoza, has had a nasty fall. But far from being a sweet Miss Marple extra, she is foaming at the mouth and communicates mainly by screaming and biting. This doesn’t bode well for one of our police officers, who gets a chunk taken right out of his neck.

The firemen try to get the hell out of dodge but the CDC have the place locked down tight. The remaining cop isn’t a fan of the camera, but Angela is adamant. She says that they need to have a record of what is going on, and – since she is the one on the poster – he listens to her. Pretty soon team lockdown finds that the doors have guys wearing Hazmat suits with guns at them and the cell service to the building is shut down.

The randy fireman from before plummets to the ground with a visceral and gruesome practical effect. Half of Team Lockdown decided to go upstairs and try to figure out what made our moustachioed firefighter try to fly.

Back in Ms. Espinoza’s place, we see a wounded woman run into an end table and die, and then Ms. E gets shot by the one remaining cop. Jennifer Carpenter acts her heart out in this scene. To be honest she must have a strong back because she is carrying the whole movie.

The fire crew decide that the best thing to do is gather everyone together in the atrium and go door to door. We see an immigrant couple who speak no English and an asshat lawyer (apologies for the tautology). One of the residents is sat with the lights off staring at a TV tuned to the spooky static network. As well as unusual viewing habits, our extra is foaming at the mouth and charges Team Lockdown.

Shit is getting a bit juicy fruit in the atrium as men with big guns take control of the situation. As we are trying to work out what is going on, Angela has the bright idea of turning on the fireman’s mic. Eavesdropping in on a conversation between him and someone on the outside, they are told this event could be a BNC. Oh No! Not a Blue Nose Crustation!… oh, sorry, Biological, Nuclear Chemical attack.

Team Lockdown wants out. Rather than listen to the men with guns, they go up a few levels and try to get out that way. They find that they are being cling-filmed into to building by the CDC. Who knew that CDC meant Clearly Don’t Care? Our member of LA’s finest has had it with these monkey-fighting CDC in the Monday-to-Friday building and pulls his gun. I don’t know how I feel about this bit. On the one hand, he is just a man with a badge and a gun, but he is about as much use as a cholate teapot in high-pressure situations – not something you want from a cop.

They don’t have any doctors in the building, best they can get is a vet who doesn’t have a clue. One of team lock down, a nebbish dude with a magpie’s attitude to hoarding old prescriptions. Officer useless continues his character arc of trying to be the worst movie cop since Sheriff Hoyt

Angela interviews a young girl, Briana – in an early turn by Joey King – whose dad has taken their sick dog to the vet. Her dad is currently locked outside of the apartment. The tape cuts to the nebbish chap who is an opera teacher called Benard when: SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER! The film remembers that is meant to be a horror and fireman-tash hobbles out on a broken leg. Looking 90% dead and foaming at the mouth, the vet does give him a nice vainful of knockout juice though.

The Vet thinks that the sick people have got some kind of super-rabies. Progressing much faster and, for the students at the back, Rabis has no cure and is 100% fatal.

The belligerent drunk man has had it with the lockdown love-in and wants to go back to his apartment so he can sleep in his own bed and Roboflop try’s to stop him. But our douche lawyer points out that if it is a virus then they would do better to self-isolate, and to be honest I can’t fault his guys logic.

Angelia splits away from the main group to sneak upstairs with Bernard and his protégée. A very angry dog goes to take a chunk out of them but at that moment the lawyer’s lift opens and the dog decides that ass hat is the dish of the day. Because the teacher has a super old school TV they think that they might be able to pick up some news even with the cable cut. They pick up a few seconds of a crappy analogue signal that announces that the building has been successfully evacuated. and then the power to the building is cut.

Another – let’s be honest – Rage Zombie jumps out at them Scott smashes her skull to a pulp with his camera. A Camera that seems to be made of Nintendium until she stops moving. So, it turns out there IS a cure for rabies after all!

Team Lockdown all cumulate together in a ceramics workshop that backs onto the apartment complex. They are told by the men with guns that they need to submit to a blood test to see if they have rabies. The vet calls bull shit and says the only way to check would be with a brain biopsy. They do a quick roll call and a random Karren tries to blame the immigrant family for everyone getting sick because racism.

The CDC come in and forbid Angelia from filming, but she didn’t go to collage to get that found footage protagonist degree for nothing. She and Scott manage to capture some footage of the CDC guy drilling into Fireman Stach’s head. guess he gives them a piece of his mind. It dosn’’t take long for the sedative to wear off and pretty soon Stach is chomping on necks like it’s cheat day at draculars castle. Things get a bit hectic and a CDC man gets bit and ends up getting locked in with the infected. It turns out that wasn’t a bad call though because he sprays blood up all door and turns.

CDC man spills that they are there because they got a call from a vet who had a sick dog who was presenting with symptoms like they had never seen before. The dog got aggressive and started to attack the other animals and within an hour they were all infected. The dog is max beloved pet of young Briana who right on cue gets incredibly bitey and all raged out. Her mum gets bit and Roboflop cuffs the mum to the handrail on the stairs while the firefighter goes off to try and sedate little Briana.

It does not end well.

For some godforsaken reason the freaking camera crew run up the stairs and find Briana in a closet she bites Roboflop and team lock down make a valiant rearguard action (run away from the rabid little girl).

The infected are hankering for a Manwich and the immigrant kill Briana’s Mum, Team Lockdown runs upstairs (because horror movie) and they lock themselves in but we learn that the inspector and Sadie are bitten Bernard tries to peace out but gets a high velocity forehead piercing and shuffles off this mortal coil. Yuri, the magical exposition machine points out they might be able to get out via the basement which connects to the sewers, having delivered his plot relevant information and the counter having reached zero on his personal death timer Yuri gets bitten by the now rabiefied health inspector, and then there where three; hot fireman, camera dude and Angela.

They try going down but Jake didn’t last this long not to die heroically and joins the body count as Angela and Scott figure downstair is a bit shit so they try the attic

It does not end well.

In the garret has newspaper clippings about a doomsday cult that stole a viral weapon codenamed “The Armageddon Virus” from a biological warfare lab.

A trapdoor with an impeccable sense of dramatic timing opens from the attic and our final two go up there, we lose the camera light but – because movie – his camera has a night vision mode, in the attic are an infected boy and Skeletor’s granddad who kill Scott off screen, the last one standing is Anglia, who as a pro till the end, delivers her final scream right into the lens, a shot so iconic they used it for the poster, basically giving the ending away with one image.

Score:🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟

Cause of death: Fatal nightshift syndrome .

Tl;dr  Pretty by the numbers ‘rage zombie’ flick, if it wasn’t an almost shot for shot remake of a existing property it would be quite original, as it is it’s basically just rec only slightly prettier and in English, really the only real reason to watch this one and not rec, is if you don’t want to read the subtitles.