Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011)

That was an excellent one.

Excellent but underrated film

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

I was quite upset with this movie, it failed to bring all the things that the first Quarantine brought. As with many other sequels, this one was a flop. The first Quarantine wasn't that great either, but that one at least scared me quite a bit. This one maybe scared me once or twice, but not like the last one. The shaky camera and Jennifer Carpenter's acting made the first Quarantine scary, whereas this one didn't have any of that. Anyone who has seen the first one and liked it for it's scary qualities would be let down. If you are one of the people who wanted to watch this because you actually wanted something more than a scary, jumpy movie, that's not what I got out of it. I enjoyed the first one for just a simple scary movie and the second one for a simple scary-ish movie. This sequel was not very original, nor did it have a really good plot. In my opinion, I would say just keep moving.

Although the original film was a direct reproduction of the Spanish movie "Rec" this picture is not a clone of its sequel "Rec2". This film essentially starts on the same night the building is being quarantined in Los Angeles to a flight that is outbound from there to Kansas City. At first, other than a few people with symptoms of a cold or the flu nothing is out of the ordinary. However, "Co-Pilot Willsey" (Andrew Benator) does mention to two of the stewardesses, "Paula" (Bre Blair) and "Jenny" (Mercedes Masohn) that animals in his neighborhood have been acting rather strange lately. Then one of the passengers is bitten by a hamster. Not long afterward things begin to happen very dramatically. That same passenger gets violently ill, goes berserk and tries to force his way into the cockpit before being subdued. This causes the pilot, "Captain Forrest" (John Curran) to make an emergency landing at another airport. Once there the passengers and crew find themselves locked inside the baggage loading section underneath the terminal with no way out and a virus which is turning the passengers into raging maniacs. At any rate, rather than summarize the entire movie I will just say that this film was almost as good as the original. It has plenty of action and gore which should satisfy viewers looking for those kind of things. The acting is straight-forward and the story moves along rather well. And even though some people may argue over the technicalities of whether this is a zombie movie or not, it's still worth a view for those who enjoy that specific genre.

I enjoyed the first Quarantine which was a faithful remake of REC and therefore decided to give this a try. I expected it to be a remake of REC 2 but this has nothing to do with that film and is instead a film in it's own right. It's set initially on an Airplane as a virus breaks out and follows what happens as the virus spirals out of control. This is a fast moving film which supplies effective scares from early on. There is a nice air of tension throughout and the characters are more rounded than the average low budget horror. I wasn't familiar with any of the cast but they all do a very good job with no amateur performances so often associated with these films. It may occasionally be a little predictable but it actually has a plot that makes sense and is very entertaining. This is far superior to most low budget horrors and indeed better than many with a higher budget. Well worth a watch.

*Spoilers!* I went in not expecting very much of this, thinking it was a straight-to-DVD mess or something barfed out by SyFy totally unrelated to the original. Not so! Not only did it nicely dovetail with the original (introducing through a laptop video of a newscast), it was superior to the original. The new setting allowed for more plot/situation expansion, though I did give it an overall eight for some definite stupidity in character behavior/plot which certainly could have been improved, which we also saw in the original. With a threat like this, and a limited number of possible threats, combined with having trained emergency personnel on hand, there's no reason why they couldn't have formed a defensive perimeter and shot or otherwise taken care of any that came near. Then most everyone would have gotten out alive when the quarantine was broken, after proper testing. Barring that, the character behavior in this was generally realistic, and the acting wasn't bad. The Shilah character was ridiculous and a true detractor from the movie - she's a member of the armed forces and a medic, and she doesn't even think to pick up a weapon until long after the surprisingly competent flight attendant grabs a wrench.Also improved was not viewing through a camera lens, making for a much less shaky movie-watching experience. Overall an excellent watch on an otherwise quiet evening if you're interested in horror/thriller with a touch of infected/zombies. The ending also demands a Quarantine 3, which will hopefully expand the universe in a 28 Days Later-like fashion. It's not often I want a sequel!