Quarantine - unoriginality of remake equates to better film?

TerrorFirmer

Went to see Quarantine last night, mostly for the benefit of my girlfriend who had never seen Rec, but also out of curiosity of a potential new slant on such a recent and well made film.

What I saw surprised me - a remake that takes the word 'remake' to new understandings, but in doing so, actually exceeds the original it's based on. Why? Because simply put they just plain don't **** with anything, as most stupid re-makes do in an effort to stamp their own branding on it. There are minor changes - and in saying so, I mean changes insignificant to the plot or direction of movie, just minor details and certain 'action' scenes fleshed out a little - and none affect the story arc to any real extent. Every remotely important scene in the movie is untouched, literally a shot-for-shot remake. Even those scenes which are slightly modified in story - such as the finale - retain the carbon copy visuals. There were countless scenes in which I had to admit that I may as well have been watching Rec, in all aspects - editing, sound, sets, direction. It's actually very surprising how much it replicates the original production.

So that's why, in my opinion, it's the better film for those who've never seen Rec - it's the same film, but this time, natively in English and with slightly more zombie/gore time added to the mix,but never overwhelmingly - this is not a gore-fest, or an action film by any means. It's nerve wrecking horror and it never attempts to be anything else, even, on occasion, leaving the 'new' violence to the imagination, highly untypical of recent formulatic re-makes.

Quite pointless to watch for anyone who has seen Rec - honestly, the two films are so mirrored that I knew everything that happened in Quarantine before it happened - but anyone who hasn't seen the original film it's based on will miss absolutely nothing by going to see this movie instead (actually, I will conceed that they are missing out on a better looking lead ).

Highly recommended for that reason - a brilliant film untainted by it's remake for once. Maybe lazy film making, but I just consider it the same movie now much more accessible for everyone - lets face it, not enough people saw Rec. If this is the way to bring a brilliant film to the masses....

Top notch film.

MisterAnarchy

Its a pretty scene for scene remake but boy its a bad film.
It looks like it was shot on a video 8 handy cam by a film student kid with ants in his pants and was made on a shoe string budget in a tiny studio.
I thought it was an atrocious effort at film making.

Mr E

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

It looks like it was shot on a video 8 handy cam

I think that was the intention.

I thought it was a pretty good film. I know I was expecting alot worse. Jennifer Carpenter annoys me sometimes in Dexter, but she was pretty good in this and very likeable (in the first half anyway!)

I thought the last third was let down by OTT camera shaking, but the last sequence (with night vision) made up for it. Having seen the original, I thought this was a pretty damn good attempt at a remake, and doesn't deserve the slating that its getting.

DirkVoodoo

Could we possibly be referring to the likes of Tim Burton's "Planet of the apes" whereby trying to be inventive and altering the famous twist of the movie he ends up making a complete pile of garbage?

Then again I suppose it depends on the quality and breadth of the source material. Where Schumacher saw Batman as the reinvention of the camp 60s classic, Christopher Nolan created an entirely different movie by (wisely) pursuing the graphic novel of Frank Miller. I may not be fair in comparing a one-off movie script to one of the most famous comic book characters of the last 70 years.

I have to say I saw the ads for this and though "oh no, not another shaky-cam Cloverfield/Blair Witch" but I may go see it after this.

Not The Real Scarecrow

Don't mind the odd remake here and there, and generally if its a remake of an old movie that could do with a bit of a rejig, but the constant remaking of foreign movies really pisses me off.Recently saw Let the Right One In, guaranteed not everyones cup of tea, but I though it was a perfect movie.The reason I thought it was perfect was because the world created was extremely plauasible because it was set in a small scandaniavian town.When I heard a remake was being rushed, I got totally pissed off, cause the movie is being critically aclaimed and is going to be shown in the USA and could possibly get an oscar nod, so wtf is the point of remaking it the same year it comes out, just because there is a percentage of cinema going morons who can't read subtitles so they'llgo to the Americanised version rather than the superior original.I understand it makes commercial sense but it just pisses me off.

Irlbo

BAD BAD BAD movie,a solid 40 mins at the start of pure nothingness,I thought filmmakers would have learned from Blair Witch not to use crappy 8mm camcorders to make horror,the ending was freaky Ill admit but didnt make up for the rest being a boring mess,people in the cinema were hurting themselves laughing at the stupididy of it

Peyton Manning

It was never going to match up to original in my opinion, due to serious lack of Manuela Velasco.

shakespeare

saw it...thought it was brilliant...
terrible film....acting and all that craic...

but had the desired effect...was scared senseless at then end...

CyberWaste

Saw both [Rec] and Quarintine, and Rec is by far the better film, the presenter girl in Quarintine is feckin annoying, and isnt a very good actor, where as the presenter in REC was a good actor and didnt just scream like the generic horror girl. Also in Quarintine, I noticed that they added alot of horror clichés and the caracters seemed to be dumbed down aswell, probably to make the story more simpler for USA audiances.

And why did they change the ending, in that in REC when the played the Tape recorder in the attic, the man explained what he was doing with the testing etc, but in Quarintine it was just like a pig noise, seemed a bit stupid to me, as people might not understand it. And they seemed to me that they somehow made the ending not scary, I think it was the fact the girl was in front of the camera whininjg and you couldnt see the monster. REC's ending was better.

Quarintine was by no means a bad film, it just wasnt as good as REC, no where near it, and falls into the catagory of a bad horror remake of a foreign horror.

spiritcrusher

Thought the middle section of Quarantine was better than [REC] in places but the ending didn't match the original. Still, decently done but I thought [REC]'s was much more tense and creepy. Prefered most of the characters in [REC] too.
Overall though, I very much enjoyed it and think it's actually quite a decent remake (even if large sections were done shot for shot, and sometimes line for line).