Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011)

Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011)Starring Mercedes Masohn, Josh Cooke, Bre Blair, Mattie Liptak

Directed by John Pogue

When the original Quarantine came out, people were pretty disappointed that it was, for the most part, a shot-for-shot American remake of Paco Plaza and Jaume Balaguero’s cinéma-vérité style frightfest [REC]. Still, it did manage to pull off some spooky moments, and in the end we were okay with that.

When Quarantine 2: Terminal was announced, everyone just assumed that it, too, would be a shot-for-shot American remake of [REC 2]. We’re happy to say that is not the case. In fact, the flick builds upon the first and comes into its own by developing its own mythos and direction.

Yes, demons are still out and rabies is still in as the culprit behind the infection that turns its hosts into insane blood-crazed killing machines, but once you accept that, you can move on just fine.

Quarantine 2: Terminal opens the very same night as the events of the original film, this time with a bunch of people flying out of Los Angeles who are unaware of the grisly happenings going on in the city. Without spoiling anything for you, the infection ends up aboard an airplane, where bloody chaos quickly ensues. From there we have a series of twists and turns that leads everyone back to the airport where (of course) the military quickly lock the place down.

Truth be told, Quarantine 2: Terminal is a better than expected little flick that is home to some scary, bloody, claustrophobic fun. The only problem? The lower budget really hurts the movie on occasion. For instance, you rarely ever get any good gruesome close-ups of the infected, and the gore gags end up being kind of few and far between. There are also some really horrible, and seemingly needless, green screen moments that end up as more of a distraction than an enhancement. Even so, these shortcomings don’t really hinder the experience that much.

For those who hate the whole shaky-cam thing, you’ll be happy to hear that the first-person camera approach is for the most part abandoned in the sequel in favor of a more traditional filming style so you won’t have to worry about becoming motion-sick while diggin’ on the infectious frights and fun.

It’s good to see this now franchise go its own way. We’ve certainly all seen worse theatrical and direct-to-video sequels. If anything, at least we have a newly discovered reason why being stuck in an airport can suck. Though I think we’d rather battle zombie-like creatures than sit on the tarmac waiting for hours to take off while the sleeping dude next to us continuously farts and jerks himself awake only to ask if we’re there yet.

3 out of 5

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Steve Barton
