An estimated 6.7 billion people on the planet, conversing in thousands of different languages, and all Hollywood seems to speak is remake.

Unless it’s a prominent director such as Ang Lee or Guillermo Del Toro, American audiences shy away from subtitles, providing filmmakers with the perfect excuse to plunder foreign shores for inspiration.

Asia remains fertile ground for ghost stories and here, writer-director John Erick Dowdle rehashes the chilling Spanish horror film [REC].

Quarantine adheres closely to the template of Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza’s gory, suburban nightmare, employing the same faux documentary style a la Blair Witch Project.

Indeed, sections of Dowdle’s film unfold almost shot for shot, word for word, scream for scream and splat for splat.

The screen still shakes furiously as the heroine dashes up a spiral staircase to escape blood-crazed, zombie-like residents, and the final scene – bathed in the sickly green hue of night vision mode – is just as contrived second time around.

Television reporter Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) is despatched to a Los Angeles fire station with her regular cameraman Scott (Steve Harris) to make a behind the scenes segment on life for these brave men.

The TV duo shadows Jake (Jay Hernandez) and George (Johnathon Schaech) through the night shift, including an apparently routine 911 call to rescue an old woman, who is barricaded inside her apartment.

No sooner are the fire fighters, Angela and Scott inside the building than agents from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) seal off the exits, preventing anyone from leaving.

‘We need to show people what’s going on in here,’ whispers Angela as the trapped residents learn they are in the midst of an outbreak of a rabies-like contagion, which incites deadly aggression in victims.

As the virus spreads in the hothouse of stairwells and apartments, Angela and Scott continue to film their hellish experience, joined by stressed cop Danny Wilensky (Columbus Short), vet Lawrence (Greg Germann), mother Kathy (Marin Hinkle) and her daughter Briana (Joey King) and building manager Yuri (Rade Serbedzija).

Quarantine will only interest audiences, who didn’t see [REC] earlier this year.

Dowdle and his screenwriter brother Drew invest more time in light-hearted scenes before all hell breaks loose, including a sortie to the station locker room where one naked fire-fighter emerges from a shower, grins wolfishly at the camera and quips, ‘God, I hope you’re using a wide-angle lens!’ Transplanting the carnage to Los Angeles necessitates some tweaks.

The Dowdles add an elevator to the central location and employ the claustrophobic car for a couple of breathless set pieces, one involving an unfortunate resident and a dog.

Violence is more graphic, including a fire fighter with a repulsively gammy leg and a radical approach to tackling the building’s rat infestation.

No animals were harmed in the making of the film; human protagonists are a different matter entirely.

• Release Date: Friday 21 November 2008
• Certificate: 18
• Runtime: 89mins

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