Quarantine is Cloverfield meets Night Of The Living Dead -- a creep show filmed up close and shaky.

If you like the idea of rabid humans biting the crap out of each other in frenzied attacks while other people run around screaming in the dark, this movie is for you.

Quarantine is well-made and sickening, literally, so it should appeal to fans of the genre. (Why there are fans of this genre is the great mystery, but never mind about that.)

Quarantine is rather sweet at the beginning.

Jennifer Carpenter stars as a local TV reporter named Angie Vidal, and she and her cameraman (Steve Harris) are assigned to shadow a group of firemen for the night. Angie is obviously a rookie, and the movie begins with her making friends with various firemen and waiting around for something to film. She and her cameraman go along with the firemen when an emergency call finally comes in.

They're sent off to an apartment building where terrible screaming has been reported. The police have also responded to the call.

They encounter a disoriented older woman in her apartment; no one seems overly concerned that she's frothing at the mouth. Hmmmnnn ... don't you hate when that happens? Then the woman attacks one of the cops and starts gnashing and chomping away on his neck, and all hell breaks loose.

Angie and her cameraman continue to film everything they can, but the bodies begin to pile up fairly quickly. Worse yet, everyone inside the building is forced to stay there, as various SWAT teams and other officials on the outside make sure nobody can leave.

A vet inside the building says that the wounded are all showing signs of rabies, but that's about as far as anyone goes with regard to pretending that this thing has a plot.

The rest of the action involves running and screaming and hoping not to be bitten in the dark, and it's both disgusting and frightening. And that would seem to be the point.

Quarantine is a film in which men, women, children and household pets all get equal treatment in the way of having their heads bashed in and whatnot, so it seems fair to say that the film is not for the faint of heart.

The frantic, hand-held verite filming style is a bit annoying for people who like to look closely at gore and bone fragments; on the other hand, what your imagination fills in might be even creepier than anything the filmmaker can show you.

So have a lovely time.

Quarantine is a remake of the Spanish film [Rec].

(This film is rated 18-A)

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