Quarantine

Quarantine is an American found-footage survival horror movie directed and co-written by John Erick Dowdle, produced by Sergio Aguero, Doug Davison, and Roy Lee, and co-written by John's brother Drew. The film stars Jennifer Carpenter, Jay Hernandez, Columbus Short, Greg Germann, Steve Harris, Dania Ramirez, Rade Sherbedgia, and Johnathon Schaech.

It was released on October 10, 2008, in the United States and served as the American remake of Spanish found-footage survival horror movie [🔴REC], despite its co-producer Sergio Aguero openly denying it.

Plot
Television reporter Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman Scott Percival (Steve Harris) are assigned to spend the night shift with a Los Angeles Fire Station. After a routine 911 call takes them to a small apartment building, they find police officers already on the scene in response to blood-curdling screams coming from one of the apartment units. They soon learn that a woman living in the building has been infected by something unknown. After a few of the residents are viciously attacked, they try to escape with the news crew in tow, only to find that the CDC has quarantined the building. Phones, internet, televisions, and cell phone access have been cut off, and officials are not relaying information to those locked inside. When the quarantine is finally lifted, the only evidence of what took place is the news crew’s videotape.

Why It Sucks

 * 1) To make things simple, the movie is a near-total frame-by-frame remake of [🔴REC], despite its co-producer Sergio Aguero openly denying it. This is the most common complaint amongst critics and the audience.
 * 2) The movie's promotional materials openly spoiled its ending, making it very predictable.
 * 3) Unnecessary padding to extend the movie's length in the beginning
 * 4) The American equivalent of cameraman Pablo from [🔴REC], Scott Percival, reveals himself very early at the beginning, spoiling his mystery over his appearance.
 * 5) A lot of the movie's iconic moments are very predictable if you had watched [🔴REC] due to how awfully similar they are. Of note, the movie starts with a fire station and continues at an apartment, one of the firefighters gets thrown over the stairs and faceplants really hard onto the ground and the Uber-Rabies' Ground Zero is a locked penthouse.
 * 6) It spawned an awful duology that died out in 2011.
 * 7) The movie's co-producer Sergio Aguero openly denied that Quarantine is a rip-off of [🔴REC] in interviews despite critics, the audience, and even [🔴REC]'s creators and directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza proving otherwise.
 * 8) Large amounts of exposition

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) It has a few new moments that makes it different from [🔴REC], but only by a wafer-thin slice. These are the FBI SWAT sniper shooting a survivor in the head and Scott bashing the living daylight out of the infected Elise's skull with his camera.
 * 2) Elise's death by camera bashing. Enough said.

Reception
Quarantine got mixed reviews from critics and the audience.

On Metacritic, the movie has a critic rating of 53/100 and a user score of 5.9/10 ("mixed or average reviews").

Bloody Disgusting gave the movie a 3.5/5, praising its claustrophobic set, cast, and editing while criticizing its large amounts of exposition.

Dread Central gave the movie a 1.5/5, criticizing its shaky camera and pacing.

Trivia

 * The sniper scene would later be reused in [🔴REC]2.