Summer Fest Supplemental: Quarantine 2 - Terminal

 My initial enjoyment of 2009's Quarantine diminished rapidly after seeing [REC], the film it remade almost shot for shot. Quarantine wasn't necessarily bad, it was just unnecessary. Find a way to dub [REC] if people really have such a hang up with subtitles, but if you're going to just make an English version that's otherwise identical, then please don't cast recognizable actors from Dexter, Snatch, and Ally McBeal. It really diminishes the whole "found footage" concept when you can say "hey, I know ____ from that show!" I had trepidations when I found out that Quarantine 2 was on its way; there was no reason to assume it would be anything other than a direct remake of [REC]2, which was an audacious one-up of the first film.

 The Good News -  Quarantine 2: Terminal is not a remake of [REC]2. It's not even attempting to be the same kind of movie, down to the fact that it's not a "found footage" subgenre entry. While it finds ways to shoehorn some of those tropes in (more on that later), Quarantine 2: Terminal is its own film, not attempting to copy the narrative of Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza's sequel.

 The Bad News - Quarantine 2: Terminal is an average (at best) continuation of the first Quarantine, opting to make what is basically the same film in a different location. In this case, instead of an apartment complex, it's an airport terminal that was shut down for security reasons. Instead of vaguely relatable characters, the film is populated with stock character "types":

 There are the two stewardesses (Jenny and, um, the other one), who you can distinguish because one says she's getting married and the other one isn't. There are the two pilots (one is old and the other is bald and sick), there's the Army Medic, the Fat Guy, the Unaccompanied Minor (George), the old couple (one of whom has Parkinson's and can't talk), the Horny Couple, the Asshole Couple, the Cat Lady, the Guy with a Laptop, and the Nice Guy Who Seems Awfully Suspicious Because He's Part of the "Doomsday Cult" Responsible for the Disease.

 Oops, I guess there should have been a (SPOILER) on that last one, but if you can't figure it out as soon as you meet him, then you'll have lots of fun with this movie. Anyone else is going to notice right away who seems the most suspicious when his "hamster" bites the Fat Guy and then everyone gets sick. Eventually the movie adds a Boarding Technician and some CDC agents, so that we have someone who knows the building and some more people to kill. Again, my apologies for the lack of (SPOILER) alert there.

The film attempts to connect to Quarantine with some news footage of the apartment building, and then a cursory explanation from a CDC Agent about why the terminal has also been quarantined, and then that whole "Doomsday Cult" thing. This part is where I was probably the most disappointed, because I really liked how [REC]2 took a simple infection plot line and took it in the craziest possible direction. Quarantine 2 settles for being a watered down version of 12 Monkeys, right down to what the bad guy is planning to do to help spread the man-made disease. Putting a human face on the problem works against what did make Quarantine (and for that matter [REC]) work. We don't need some speech about how "the world needs a good plague" when I already have a far more batshit explanation from a better movie.

 (I won't spoil [REC]2 for you because I really think you should find out for yourself where the virus comes from and why, so watch [REC] and [REC]2 as a double feature when the second film hits DVD shelves soon. They're both great movies and you'll have much more fun than you would with Quarantine and Quarantine 2: Terminal)


 Quarantine 2: Terminal isn't awful, per se, but there's nothing original about the film. If you've seen [REC], Quarantine, or even the SyFy Channel's Terminal Invasion, there's absolutely nothing about this film that's going to surprise you or put you in a state of suspense. The gore is okay, the acting is uniformly terrible, and the plot is predictable to the last shot. It's a competent, if derivative film, one that has a rough start, finds its footing, and then quickly decides just to be a remake of Quarantine. The difference this time is that instead of changing the language, they change the location.
 It's nice to know that director John Pogue (who wrote The Skulls and Ghost Ship) takes an already poorly lit terminal and further renders any sense of geography pointless. Not only did I have no idea where most of the stock characters were at any point, but there was little sense of tension anywhere outside of the airplane. Quarantine at least gave you a clear idea of the layout of the apartment building, of where things were and where the characters were going in relation to each other. When it isn't painfully obvious what's going to happen to characters or they're simply behaving in a manner contradictory to what they just said, it's almost impossible to see what's happening until Pogue gives up and pulls a page out of the [REC] / Quarantine playbook: night vision goggles.

 The play is one of desperation, because since Quarantine 2 isn't a "found footage" movie, there's no point previously in the film where the camera is subjective for more than one shot. When Pogue switchs to Jenny (and later George)'s night vision POV shots, and then back to a third person camera shot, one can't help but feel like the director is cheating in order to milk the tension for as long a possible. It's also really just there for the final shot, which moves the film from being 12 Monkeys-lite to being 28 Weeks Later-lite, and promising a Quarantine 3: Vegas that I can't say I'm all that interested in after the second film.

 So I guess the bad news kind of outweighs the good news. I mean, it's not exactly a remake. Well, it is, but not in the way I was expecting it to be. Having seen Quarantine 2: Terminal, I kinda wish it had been a remake of [REC]2, because I'd love to see an American horror film be willing to go crazy, even if it was the same crazy I'd already seen. At least that'd be something worth watching. As it is, Terminal isn't going to be of much interest to fans of the originals, or even fans of Quarantine. People who haven't seen the first one certainly aren't going to be lining up to check this out, so I don't know who that leaves.