Quarantine

** - This 2008 American remake of the fairly decent 2005 Spanish-made horror/thriller “[REC]” pretty closely follows the basic plot of the original and has quite of bit of verbatim (translated, of course) dialogue but is unable to capture quite the same spooky vibe that its predecessor had. While it did alter the weird religious-themed ending of the first film to something a little more scientific and believable, I would have to say that most of the changes made did more harm than good. The most glaring of these changes was a seemingly near-universal boost to the lighting that detracted quite a bit from any potential shocks. Also, the beginning part of the movie - in which the premise was set up - was dragged out significantly longer than the ten or so minutes that the Spanish version took to get into the action, and was littered with dialogue that was rife with insulting sexual innuendo and cheap attempts at humor. Also, the lead part of the female television presenter (whom I did not recognize, but according to her bio is apparently a fairly major character on the acclaimed show “Dexter”) was much more obnoxious than the girl in the original, and I found it very difficult to have any sympathy for her at all, despite her very tight pants and revealing tank top. Certainly, this is a step downward from the original, but I guess I’ve seen worse.