Inside My Head – Angie’s Sunday Morning Sketch Cinema: Quarantine (2008)

Angie’s Sunday Morning Sketch Cinema: Quarantine (2008)

With so much going on over the past week, it took until Monday evening for my ADD to finally surrender to watching this week’s SMSC pick – after a long, indecisive struggle to even choose a feature. I’m coloring outside the lines this morning, as I bring you a sketch newbie that’s just been released to DVD, John Erick Dowdle’s 2008 masterpiece, Quarantine.

Usually, I bring to you the best of the worst in sketchy film. With snarky regularity, I load up on the cheesefactor when searching out the movies I wish to share with you. Not this time, dear reader.

Having been on pins and needles since its theatrical release, falling victim to the incredibly well-selected trailer clips and being left to wonder just what kind of mayhem is going on in Quarantine’s Los Angeles apartment complex, I anxiously awaited the film’s DVD release knowing that this would be one to be seen only in the comfort and security of my own home. That, and there would be no packed movie theater full of bystanders that might get a chuckle out of me screaming like a 12-year-old girl at various points throughout the experience.

Reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project in terms of the movie’s seemingly true-to-life, documentary-type cinematography, we witness, in real-time, a television reporter and her camera guy, who, while shadowing some L.A. firefighters, end up trapped in the seedy, run-down apartment complex after tagging along for a call. No one, including the dozen or so residents who meander the lobby, can quite ascertain just what is going on within the building, and why there are military blockades keeping them from leaving.

Unlike Blair Witch, however, this movie actually delivered on both psychological sketchiness (often imagining what I would do, should I happen to be in the same situation – merely adding to the overall sketch-factor by involving a plot line that could actually happen), and horribly graphic detail that makes the viewer forget that it truly is a work of fiction.

I really don’t want to divulge much of this film to you, as you are better off experiencing this one for yourselves. The film’s cast of relatively unknown actors beautifully depict the shock, panic and horror one would naturally experience in such a situation, especially Jennifer Carpenter (as Angela, our would-not-be heroine and TV presenter), whose portrayal of hyperventilating mental demise is so true life that you want to take her by the shoulders and slap her, telling her to get a handle on herself.

So keep your children inoculated, your doggies away from strange attic-level apartments, lay down the rat traps – do whatever you need to do, and remember – if your elderly neighbor is foaming at the mouth and delirious, do not try to help her. Just help yourself. But in the meantime, I leave you with this week’s Sunday Morning Sketch Cinema quote of the week: