Movies: [REC]'s-n-Effect.

Let's get the comparison issue out of the way. Though I'm fairly sure that this will brand me as a boorish Philistine, I have to say that Quarantine, the 2008 American remake of [REC], the Spanish 2007 outbreak horror flick, is generally superior to the original.

No doubt my decision is partially influenced by the fact that I saw them in reverse order. I saw the remake first. Both films hit so many of the same notes, with almost exactly the same inflection, that the impact of whichever flick you see second is going to be muted. But, honestly, that only partially explains my disappointment with the original. More than a perhaps unfair sense of over-familiarity, what struck me about the original is how slight it is.

To explain this, a plot summary and a comparison between the two flicks might be helpful.

[REC] begins with a young Barcelona news reporter, Angela, and her cameraman, Pablo, doing the latest installment of the human-interest series: While You Sleep. This series follows around folks whose jobs drag them through the midnight hours the rest of us blissfully sleep through. This particular episode covers a firehouse. The reporter is assigned to tagged along with firemen, Manu and Alex.

After some "life-at-the-firehouse" footage, a call comes into the station. Manu and Alex are dispatched to a nearby apartment building to help an elderly woman who is, according to dispatch, trapped in her apartment. Angela and Pablo dutifully follow. Once they arrive, they find the residents of the building in a fit. The shrieking of the trapped woman has freaked them all out. Two police officers, who arrived before the fire truck, has tried to scope out the scene, but have been unable to enter the apartment.

The emergency personnel bust down the door and find the "trapped" woman. She's pale and dazed and, as soon as one of the cops gets close to her, she bites a big ol' hunk out of the officer's neck.

And everything starts going downhill from there.

The old woman suffers from an unknown strain of crazy-people disease that turns folks in 28 Days Later style violent madmen. Because the government can't risk the spread of the infection (as our prtogs were figuring out the disease inside the house, the health officials were following the evidence trail from an infected dog that was wigging out at a vet's office) the house is sealed off. Trapped inside, the uninfected must fight to stay alive until either help comes or they find a way to secret slip under the government quarantine.

For those who have only seen one version or the other, here's some of the bigger plot differences betwixt the original and the remake. Be warned, here be spoilers.

1. The cast of the Spanish version is smaller. There are fewer residents. Most notably, the gay resident who runs the attached textile business has, in the American version been broken up into two roles: the landlord and the gay opera instructor. The opera student from the American film has no Spanish equivalent. Max, the infected doggie, is mentioned in the Spanish film, but he's present and a threat in the American version.

2. The relationship between Angela and Manu is less involved then relationship between the lead firefighter and the reporter in the American flick. In the American flick, they start off playfully flirtatious and develop into a sort of cooperative team. Not so much in the Spanish flick.

3. In [REC], the government appears more plodding and incompetent that sinister. In the American film, the government ruthlessly threatens and then executes some of the film's victims as they try to bust out of the apartment building.

4. There are fewer "escape" attempts in the Spanish film. In the American version, the trapped protags cook up two or three different schemes to get out of the building. In the Spanish film, only one of these plans – escape by sewer drain – ever features as a plot point.

5. In the American film, the fact that the government cuts the building's power and communications is a big deal. Part of the plot involves the prtoags puzzling out for themselves what exactly is going on. In contrast, the government acts as an explication device in the Spanish film, communicating needed information through the cop.

6. The doomsday cult responsible for the creation of the super-rabies plague in the American film is replaced with a vague Vatican cover-up plot. Some have suggested that the infection in Spanish flick is supernatural in origin, a theory that tenuously supported by news clippings that suggest the disease's "Patient Zero" was initially thought to be demonically possessed. I personally don't see it. Rather, I think the implication is that the Vatican stumbled across a girl who became a kind of religious celebrity. They found out she wasn't a miracle, but just hinkied up with some weirdo disease (which the screenwriters repeatedly call an enzyme in defiance of germ theory). Fearing fallout, they hid her away for study. If the doomsday cult of Quarantine didn't satisfy you, the ending of [REC] is even less sensible.

Visually, the films are curious in that both make compromises with their loyalty to the first person/real time horror concept, but the makers of each version decided to make distinctly different sacrifices. The Spanish film has the matte, flat look of a real local television show. By relying on natural lighting, on-location filming, and muted digital colors, and keeping their shot set ups shallow with a steady focus on the close and mid-range, the Spanish film was really made as if it was intended to be shown on the small screen. In contrast, the cameraman in the American film seems to be working with a film camera on a set. The American film combines the lush lighting design, evocative and clever sets, and a deep color palate for a look that, while pleasing to the eye, couldn't be mistaken for found footage. Though, oddly, when it comes to staying true to the first person shtick, the Spanish flick barely bothers while the American flick busted its hump to maintain the illusion. By the 20-minute mark, the Spanish flick is throwing in montages, cutting out footage to keep the pacing tight, and otherwise throwing out the conceit that "you are there." (Frustratingly, the Spanish flick seems undecided on whether or not the camera is indeed digital or tape – like the magical devices that littered Diary of the Dead, it behaves like both when the filmmakers needs a certain effect.) In contrast, the American version works extensively with disguised cuts and swipes to avoid the sense of that anything beyond the most basic "editing in camera" is going on. The American version is also less fond of inexplicable sonic artifacts. The Spanish film plays pretty fast and loose with the aspect of first-person sound, including several incidents where the camera is recording sound even though it appears otherwise to be off. When the Spanish film loses sound, it seems like a nakedly "artistic" move; when the American movie plays with sound, there's almost always some obvious diegetic reason. Indeed, one of the main reasons for American film's extended flirtation and background scenes in the firehouse is set up ground rules for the camera's behavior, visually and sonically.

Though, honestly, the plot differences and differing visual approach aren't what win me over to the American film. Instead, it's the narrow intensity of the Spanish original that goes beyond narrative efficiency into a brutal reductionism.

The directors of the Spanish original, Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, claim that their film was built to be "pure adrenaline." To achieve this effect, Balagueró and Plaza keep their story lean and plot-driven. The fashion a rollercoaster ride of a flick at the cost of characterization and thematic richness. Their movie is very much a movie about placing the viewer into the middle of an event. That event, and not the people in it, is the central focus of the movie. The results are not all the dissimilar from a video game. The American film, which adds just 11 minutes to the overall screen time, efficiently adds gravity to characters we meet. They have friendships and blondspots, flaws and surprising strengths. We don't want them to escape because that would "win" the movie. Rather, we don't want to see real people suffer. With out bloating the film unnecessarily, the American version teases out themes about cooperation, the meaning of family, and even achieves minor hints of tragedy.

Movies: Re-[REC]-ed.

I have not actually seen [REC], the 2004 Spanish outbreak horror that provided the blueprint for 2008's Quarantine; but the idea of remaking a highly improvisational "you-are-there" subjective camera flick brings up an interesting conceptual problem. Namely, do you reshoot what ended up on the screen or do you try to recreate the conditions that produced the final film?

To clarify things, let's abstract this problem from the films at hand and look at a hypothetical situation. Pretend, for a moment, that you've been tapped for a remake of The Blair Witch Project that is "faithful" to the original. For now, ignore the question of whether or not the film should be remade and ignore the fact that, even in context of Hollywood's chronic novelty-drought, it's still too soon to be disinterring that particular flick. Instead, think about what it means to remake that original flick.

Famously, The Blair Witch Project was created by giving a trio of actors a couple of handheld cameras, giving them a character design rather than a script, dropping them off in the middle of the woods, and then messing around with them until the produced enough raw footage to make a movie in editing. As I see it, you've got two distinct and somewhat mutually exclusive choices before you.

Option 1: Reverse Engineer the Final Product
Your first option would be to take what ended up on the screen – which was a combination of improv and cutting room choices – and work backward to produce a script and storyboard that would lead, if followed, to a recreation of the finished original. This would, in essence, plan for the accidents and randomness that formed the first one. Unlike the original flick, your film would actually have minimal improv. The words the original actors made up on the spot would, in your version, be carefully scripted. Mercifully, you can also avoid hanging out in the woods and being miserable for several days: you won't have to just shoot the crap out of everything and dig a movie out of it all in post. This would give you finished product that was indisputably faithful to the final film; but, be honest, it seems kinda to miss the point, doesn't it? It is less a faithful remake than a sort of po-mo simulation: a perfect copy of an imperfect original that wipes out its imperfections. Arguably, there's nothing for viewers inside the original film itself to suggest its origin story. On a pragmatic level, our awareness that BWP is a sort of experimental, open-process flick is really a product of the marketing surrounding the film – making of docs, interviews, content from other reviews, etc, - rather than result of the content of the film itself. The original BWP could have just as easily been a cheapo indie horror with a tight script and deftly handled shakey-cam work, and the whole origin story could have just been another level of the film's Byzantine publicity machine that was, at the time, as famous and popular as the actual film was. Still, on a more emotive level, its hard not to say that this remake would be somehow both extremely accurate and completely wrong-headed.

Option 2: Recreate the Conditions that Produced the Original
This option involves finding three actors that are willing to be abused, loading them up with camera equipment and power bars, and the getting them lost in the words. You hassle them semi-randomly for a number of days, gather up their footage at the end, and then see what you can do with all that coverage in editing. On a literal level, this would pretty much ensure profound levels of "infidelity" on the big screen. Unless your actors were conspiring, of their own accord, to recreate scenes from the original film, then it is unlikely that you get much of the same dialogue, few of the same shots, and little of the improved "plot" that occurs in the first film. You could very well end up without, say, the famous hyper-close-up of the repentant and horrified Heather apologizing to viewer. That said, there is something about this approach that feels more true to the spirit of the original, regardless of the fact that it guarantees the lowest possible level of "accuracy."

Of course, you could try to fuse the two approaches. I think you'd find that the combo didn't work. I assume that the more you genuinely allowed for the second option, the harder you would find it to believably apply scripted segments to the flick. That's my guess anyway.

I bring all this up because I found this question the most involving thing about the well made, but very thin Quarantine.

For those who have seen neither version of this flick, the film involves a local news reporter, Angela, and her cameraman, Scott, on a gig profiling the firemen at a local station house. Angela is gamely played by Jennifer Carpenter – a.k.a. Dexter's sister – whose playful tomboyish looks work well throughout light-hearted set up of the flick, but work against her when the fit hits the shan. The two fireman leads are played by Johnathon Schaech, sporting a truly impressive 1970s-porn-star-worthy moustache, and Jay Hernandez, the dreamboat hero of the picture.

The firehouse tomfoolerly that gives the film an up opener comes to a screeching halt when the firemen and crew are called to respond to a medical emergency at a slightly decaying apartment building. Turns out an old lady in the apartment building has turned nutso. She attacks her rescuers, killing one of the cops who responded to the 911 and putting Mr. Moustache the Fireman on death's door. Seems that she's got a hyper-virulent form of rabies that makes you go all rage-virusy within minutes of contracting it (unless, apparently, it would be more dramatically powerful for you to inexplicably hang about with the sniffles for a little bit before becoming all nom-nom-nom on people flesh – the virus, oddly, has a real flair for building tension).

To make sure that the residents of the apartment complex are truly and thoroughly screwed, the CDC and slew of military types put the building under quarantine – truth in advertising! – with standing orders to meet any effort at escape with extreme prejudice. The CDC/military industrial complex also cuts their television cable, their power, and cell phone reception. You see, being trapped in a building full of rabid psychopaths isn't panic-inducing enough. The CDC really prefers its subject to be crawling-up-the-walls, brain-each-other-with-hammers crazy.

Once we've handled all the grunt work of establishing the cast and unleashing the virus, the flick kicks into overdrive. About two-thirds of the way in, Quarantine becomes a ruthless and minimalist plot engine. This relentless narrative drive is both a blessing and a curse for the movie. It's hard to deny that the film is compelling on a gut level. The seasickness of the camera work, the score-less soundtrack of breaking tings and people, the crying and vomiting – it all has a numbing, gripping power. The scares hit when they should and the occasionally successful human counter-attacks get the blood racing. The creature design is also properly creepy. Plus, we've got a rabid monster child – evil children are horror gold.

Unfortunately, what it isn't is involving. The moment director John Erick Dowdle takes the breaks off, we lose almost everything that pulls us into a movie: Characterization evaporates, most of the visuals become a frenzied blur of action, dialogue increasingly tends towards a wall of incomprehensible shouting the general volume of which becomes the chief method communicating the mental state of the characters. In fact, with its rigorously delineated field of play, concern with keys and weapons, literal use of higher and higher floors/levels, and the sense of an over-the-shoulder floating camera, the whole thing resembles a super-high rez survival horror video game.

Quarantine is like one of those angular, minimalist pop dance singles from the late 1990s. Dance-floor oddities like Missy Elliott's remake of "I Can't Stand the Rain." On one hand, the aggressive inorganic feel suggested some experimental post-rock work, but the ethos driving the thing was pure disposable pop. The same odd dynamic is at work in Quarantine. The meticulous simulation of subjective camera work (this film is more like Cloverfield in that it is a very carefully staged simulation of what BWP made its method) requires an almost absurdly fanatical attention to craft. In it methods – the lack of a score, the sequential shooting, the reliance on elaborate and subtle lighting schemes – the film flirts again and again with something truly weird. But all this curious flirtation with experimentalism doesn't distract it from its main goal, which is to act as a thrill ride. That it ends up a dance single and not a noise rock jam is, I suspect, a boon or a bust depending on each viewer's inclination and mood at the time. It's nothing game changing, but it's got a good beat and you can dance to it.