NEW Quarantine 2: Terminal (DVD)

I thought the first movie was lousy. I watched this one with extreme prejudice. The movie starts building the characters of 2 stewardesses. Then as they help and greet passengers we get a glimpse of the passenger backgrounds. We already know there is going to be an infection, but who? The co-pilot is sick. He thinks he got it from his dog. There is a woman on board from an apartment building. Her cat is with her. The cat had left the building which she claims is very unusual. There is a man with some hamsters. Another man helps him with the hamsters and gets bit. There is an elderly man who is sick along with his wife, and a woman who has just returned from overseas, and a few others. A man is watching the events unfold from outside the apartment building from the first picture on his laptop. This one picks up where the other leaves off except the action is in an airplane.

Once a passenger gets infected and isolated in the restroom, the plane is told to land. It hooks up to a terminal where they are quarantined. Now it is just a matter of who lives and who dies.

The first thing I noticed is they got rid of the hand held camera nonsense and had enough money to make this into a regular movie. They still jerked the camera around when an infected human attacked to give you that terror feel. The animal sounds made by the infected humans didn't seem to be real or coming from the people making them. There is room for improvement as they kept the door open for an infinite amount of sequels.

Acting was a lot better than the first one. Better story line. Quick and effective introduction of characters before the action starts.

MF/F-bomb, no nudity, some implied sex, no real sex scenes. four and a half stars.

The first Quarantine, which was a so-so remake of the spectacular Spanish thriller [REC], spawns a direct to DVD sequel with Quarantine 2: Terminal, and the biggest surprise here is that this sequel is surprisingly good, and better than the film that came before it. During the events of the first film, a plane taking off from Los Angeles ends up becoming the breeding ground for the same kind of rage/zombie virus for the crew and passengers alike, forcing them to land at a terminal and, you guessed it, get quarantined and race against the growing odds to survive. What really makes Quarantine 2 so good is that it's surprisingly well-filmed, well-acted, and even more surprisingly taut and suspenseful as well. Though it has its share of shortcomings, Quarantine 2 makes the most of its minimal budget and delivers the goods, which is something that many, many horror films of this type should take a big cue from. Check it out, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

While many people threw their usual "remakes are bad!" fit when the first Quarantine came out, I thought it was good. I liked [REC] better, but when it came down to it, Quarantine was nearly the exact same movie, shot for shot, and if I hadn't seen [REC] first, I might have liked it more instead. [REC]'s sequel didn't do anything for me and ended up disappointing me more than anything else. Quarantine 2, oddly enough, did the same thing. I had to watch this movie over the course of a week, watching about 15 minutes here and there, watching other movies instead, and coming back to it, only forcing myself to see how it ends in the off chance that something cool happened. Look, I'm not the kind of guy who oogles over actresses in a movie, saying that they make it worth watching, but this is one of those few times where I'll say that the best thing about the movie is the leading lady. Quarantine 2 tones down everything that made the first one worth watching. Unless you have a fear of flying, and maybe airports too, there's nothing here that'll scare anyone who's seen a horror movie before.

Rather than picking up where the last one left off, we meet a new group of characters as they board a plane. Everything starts out as normal, until a man brings on his kindergarten class' hamsters. No one checks to see what's in the cage, and he's allowed to put them in the overhead storage with other luggage. The plane's full of a bunch of clichés: a couple that can't keep their hands off eachother, the seemingly nice guy who flirts with one of the stewardesses, an arrogant jerk (for lack of better word), quiet computer guy, the obligatory overweight guy, an elderly couple, an elderly woman with a cat, and the lone angsty pre-teen boy who chooses to keep his hood on for 95% of the movie, no matter how bad things get. The flight goes on as usual until a man is bitten by one of the 'hamsters' when he helps move the cage. Soon after, he goes nuts. His eyes change, he makes weird sounds, and he tries to kill everyone in sight. After biting a woman, he's restrained and locked in the plane's bathroom until they can make an emergency landing. Once they land, no one's there to greet them or go about the usual protocol. Instead, everyone's locked in the terminal with armed guards outside the building. They've been quarantined.

The name of the movie might be Quarantine 2: Terminal, and give away where most of the movie will take place, though I think it would've worked better if more time had been spent on the plane. Not a lot of time, but enough to really get things rolling. The first third of the movie was doing just fine. It wasn't anything special but I was curious to see where they were going with it. As soon as they arrive though, everything became stale. The terminal is nowhere near as scary as the huge apartment from the original, partially because not enough time is spent with the location. The massive apartment building was thoroughly explored, and it seemed like a maze with very few chances for escape if you got cornered. Here, everyone seems pretty capable in the terminal, finding little passages easily in the dark. What got me the most however, was how tame the kills are. More gore doesn't make a good horror movie, I know, but the director chose to go with less is more, with a couple of the victims getting bitten off-camera. There's no memorable kill to be found in this movie, and that's part of what got me so bored. Most of the characters aren't likable either, which I guess isn't anything new since your average horror movie doesn't get you too involved with them. Quarantine 2 isn't a disaster, it just could've been a little bit better with enough effort.

As far as the good goes, Mercedes Masöhn as stewardess Jenny, is gorgeous. Does that make me sound like the average guy? Probably. Did she make the movie a little easier to get through? Absolutely. She's also one of the only characters that has a little bit of personality and does her best to take charge of a situation where there's no leader. The only other pro I can think of is that they chose to not remake the second [REC], scene for scene. This is an entirely different movie, and I'm glad I wasn't watching what would've essentially been a translated version of the sequel. Even better- it's not a found footage movie! Oh, and I suppose it was nice to see them continue with the first Quarantine's plot of how the disease came to be. It's kind of shoehorned in, but it's there.

Quarantine 2: Terminal is most likely only going to win over teenagers who haven't seen many horror movies. It's a big step down from the original, and while [REC]2 wasn't that great either, it was better than this. Skip it unless you're really, really bored.