The horror genre is full of movies that don’t get anywhere near the amount of attention they deserve. Fortunately, the contributors to r/horror regularly put largely forgotten titles into the spotlight, and right now they’re showing some love to an awesome found footage flick.
This is 2008’s Quarantine. This intense zombie (sorta) movie sees a reporter and her cameraman following up on a distress signal from a Los Angeles apartment building. They arrive to find a mutated form of rabies turning the peaceful residents into monsters, with escape proving impossible when the government locks the building down to prevent the virus from escaping.
You’re forgiven if you think that sounds familiar. Quarantine is a remake of Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s 2007 Spanish movie REC, which is considered one of the best found footage movies of all time and spawned a number of sequels.
In my opinion, REC is by far the better movie, though that doesn’t mean Quarantine is bad. There’s a lot of high-tension thrills, particularly in the scene with the operation room and it’s full of its own individual touches that separate it from its inspiration.
Quarantine did well enough at the box office to spawn a sequel, 2011’s Quarantine 2: Terminal. This shifts the action to a jet and an airport, with travelers and flight crew struggling to survive as the virus returns. This is also unjustly ignored, scoring an impressive 75% positive on the Tomatometer.
If you’re curious, Quarantine is available to stream on Netflix and REC can be rented from all the usual places. If you haven’t seen either of them definitely go with REC (preferably in Spanish with English subtitles), though Quarantine certainly won’t let you down.
