Quarantine
Directed by John Erick Dowdle
- horror
- science fiction
- thriller
The story
A television reporter and her cameraman are trapped inside a building quarantined by the CDC after the outbreak of a mysterious virus which turns humans into bloodthirsty killers.
What it’s like
Jerky handheld camera and harsh, flat fluorescent light turn a cramped apartment block into a claustrophobic trap, shot in grainy low-light digital with a raw, almost documentary immediacy. The palette is sickly and sodium-yellow in the stairwells, with blue-white emergency glare and deep shadow pooling in corridors, and the sound is mostly footsteps, ragged breathing, shouting and the crackle of a camera mic, with a scattered, unsettling silence punctuated by sudden screams. Its vibe is frantic dread and mounting panic, the kind to watch late at night with the lights on or during a restless evening wanting pure tension. The pace is relentless and rarely lets up, and its emotional register is terror tinged with desperation, following a frightened reporter and her cameraman who grow more fraught as the building closes in around them. Violence is frequent and graphic: bloody attacks, gore and brutal deaths, with a steady stream of fear and cruelty throughout, not gentle at all. It is for viewers who enjoy found-footage horror, outbreak thrillers, and sustained suspense over comfort.
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