REVIEW: 'Quarantine' leaves its viewers sick with fear

Let's face it, horror movies aren't what they used to be. No one remembers "Dracula" for that time when Dracula was really quiet and waited until everyone was in the room then jumped out of a closet at them.

That being said, there is only so much a horror film can do nowadays and still be entertaining to watch. "Quarantine" is a movie that provides some cheap thrills and chills, but maintains a level of dignity that the audience can respect.

A spunky news reporter, Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman, Scott Percival (Steve Harris) are assigned to document the lives of the local Los Angeles firemen.

One 911 phone call later, the firemen, as well as Vidal and Percival, find themselves in an apartment complex with a very peculiar tenant. The resident has been infected with some kind of virus, but before any help could be reached, the building is quarantined and the people inside are trapped.

Vidal and Percival keep the camera rolling, providing the only evidence for what really happened inside the complex.

In terms of general scariness, this movie does what it needs to make the audience sink low in their seats and casually cover their ears. The other residents are interesting, though not overly so; and most are more likable than Vidal who runs around yelling and almost over-acting. Aside from some moments of extreme melodrama, the dialogue is not atrocious and for the most part, believable.

The climax of the movie is a great payoff for the hour of tension that precedes it - a continuous shot of a sprint through the complex, where literally all hell breaks loose. It is a wonderfully delicious moment, and it almost redeems the movie for throwing in so many cheap jumpy moments prior to that. The movie is riding on "Cloverfield's" coat tails with the whole first-person perspective view - but fortunately it works well enough in the context of the film. Still, there are some blaring questions that come from watching this movie. Like, 'how does the cameraman zoom in dramatically on all the scary things?' or 'he had his camera on for like 10 hours so how did it not run out of batteries?' But it doesn't matter, because "Quarantine" should be taken for what it's worth and be allowed to provide the good time it is capable of.