My take: Quarantine

HD Goofnut

Title: Quarantine
BD-50 Dual-Layer Disc
Video: 1080p/AVC MPEG-4
Audio: 5.1 Dolby TrueHD
Aspect Ratio: 1:85:1
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese
Run time: 89 minutes
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Video
Rating: R
Player used for review: LG BH200

My take: (the breakdown)

Quarantine is probably about the 50th movie with this type of storyline and these types of movies are getting extremely old and weary in my opinion. The story focuses on a reporter and her camera man as they follow a local L.A. Fire Department unit to a medical call. Once they find an old woman who looks to have gone mad everything just kind of goes out of control and from that point all of the characters are complete morons. For some odd reason these generic slasher horror films always have extremely dumb characters. You know someone is about to be an idiot when they say something like "I'm gonna check this out." or "I gotta take a look behind this door." I say avoid this poor excuse for a movie unless you're just bored and like mindless movies.

The quality of this transfer is certainly debatable. There is no grain whatsoever because this was apparently done on video rather than film. We get the shaky camera movements as with Cloverfield and Blair Witch Project, but this one is not quite as bad. Most of the movie is extremely dark, but most of the blacks are completely resolved. Flesh tones (what we see) seem to be accurate and fine detail is decent at times and at other times rather soft. Sony's effort is decent, but I wouldn't commend then on this one.

The audio is actually quite well done. Dialogue is clear and pronounced even though the acting is questionable. The sub gets some work when there's some action, but stays dormant for the majority of the film. There's a lot of helicopter blade effects in the surrounds and some other discrete effects. Definitely better than the video quality Sony.

Ok the supplemental package really annoys me. Not only is it extremely light, but it's in 480. Why does Sony need to waste money on a BD 50 disc for a 89 minute movie that contains 21 minutes worth of extra features and a commentary? First it was Warner using BD 25s when they should have used 50s, but now we have Sony using a 50 when they should have used a 25.

Movie: 5/10
VQ: 8/10
AQ: 9/10
Supplements: 3/10
Final word: One to Avoid

As always thanks for reading folks.

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mytime

Ty Goofnut I think I'll skip this one, as you said this plot has been overdone.

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PFC5

I watched this several months ago and it was ok, but certainly not a buy for me.

Thanks for the review!

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HD Goofnut

You're welcome guys.

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gossamer

[REC] comes out tomorrow on DVD. This is the original (spanish) movie Quarantine was based on. I enjoyed [REC]. Never bothered with Quarantine. I'll wait for the cable broadcast.

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JohnnyTex

Yup, I agree. I haven't seen Quarantine, but REC is pretty good. It's a pretty basic story, but entertaining and the reporter is hotter.

MikeRox

Spot on with my thoughts when I rented it the other week Goofnut. An idea that had the potential to be a fantastic film, but was squandered in a case of what seemed like Sony jumping on the band wagon screaming "me too!" for a Cloverfield style title.

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mshulman

I hate when people dig up old threads, but I just watched this and I agree with the above.

It was an ok movie and I think I would have found it better if not for the incredibly annoying female reporter. Dire situation or not, at some point you have to suck it up and realize acting hysterical isn't helping. And for a movie director, do they not realize how incredibly annoying that gets?

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HD Goofnut

Quarantine was probably the worst horror movie I saw in 2009.

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mshulman

Fair enough.

I'm not really a very good judge on movies. I tend to find most movies (even ones that are widely considered bad) entertaining. Having simply watched it on TV, it was definetely entertaining. There's very few movies I've actually found so bad that I've walked out of the theater (or would have if I was alone). One Hour Photo with Robin Williams is one of those. I really hated it and if I had been alone would have left the theater. hmm.. Talledega nights is another I stopped watching after about 15-20 minutes in to it.

Would I watch it again? No. Would I have been disappointed had I bought it? Yes.

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Chris Gerhard

What is that?

Chris

Chris Gerhard

I will assume you didn't watch a Uwe Bol film in 2009. I thought Quarantine was slightly above average for a modern horror film and I like horror films so it gets a 6/10 from me. There are a lot of horror films made in the last decade much worse than this one in my opinion. I would watch this one again if I had purchased the Blu-ray but I didn't, so it is a one and done for me. I have plenty of mediocre films I have purchased, so I will watch one of those instead.

Chris