Quarantine - Drew Dowdle
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Quarantine is a horror movie based upon the Spanish language film, Rec. It comes out on October 10, 2008.
From Screen Gems: Television reporter Angela Vidal and her cameraman are assigned to spend the night shift with a Los Angeles Fire Station. After a routine 911 call takes them to a small apartment building, they find police officers already on the scene in response to blood curdling screams coming from one of the apartment units. They soon learn that a woman living in the building has been infected by something unknown. After a few of the residents are viciously attacked, they try to escape with the news crew in tow, only to find that the CDC has quarantined the building. Phones, internet, televisions and cell phone access have been cut-off, and officials are not relaying information to those locked inside. When the quarantine is finally lifted, the only evidence of what took place is the news crew’s videotape.
For our special set visit report, recounting what our reporter, Staci Layne Wilson, observed, please click here. For individual Q&A interviews with the director, makeup effects expert, and cast, please read on:
Interview with screenwriter and coproducer Drew Dowdle.
Drew Dowdle: We’re basically rapping on the 17th. One full week left, so we’re about three quarters of the way through the movie. The building’s been quaranteened. The threat is also coming from the outside. The scene we’re gonna show you is one where the snipers have just attacked their temporary safe haven.
Staci Layne Wilson / Horror.com: How does shooting in order benefit you guys?
Drew Dowdle: In this movie, there are so many continuity issues that its been great shooting in order. And all of our actors, once they’re inside the building, they all stay the entire shoot. Even if they seem to be dead, they’re infected and they come back, so we basically use all our actors throughout the entire show. It’s one of those rare occassions where it makes perfect sense to shoot it in order. And there’s continuity issues in wardrobe and hair/make-up and the building itself, so it’s been a great luxury on us all.
Q: Can you talk about the freedoms of shooting on a stage, where everything is at your control?
Drew Dowdle: It’s been great being able to control every aspect of lighting. At one point, pretty early in the movie all the lights come down and we’re basically regulated to emergency lights and the camera light and the flashlight, so it’s been really nice having that all under control.
Q: How do you work with your brother?
Drew Dowdle: This was a different process for us, adapting a screenplay. We had never done that before, so this one we just batted back and forth quite a bit. We stayed pretty true to the original. The original was very good and it wasn’t very long. It was less than 70 minutes, so that gave us an opportunity to add some scenes of our own and really beef it up. I think everyone at Screen Gems and Vertigo went with a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality, so we stayed true the original in many ways. But my brother is very much the director and I’m the producer. We divide and conquer that way.
Q: So how do you beef it up? CGI?
Drew Dowdle: No, we wanted to add more scenes. We thought the original was very good but once you get in the building and this stuff happens, it didn’t really elevate as much as we thought it could, so we added more scenes and adding more threats. We also wanted to keep it more grounded in reality. The original was a little bit more supernatural.
Q: Was this the first film you guys were offered after Poughkeepsie Tapes?
Drew Dowdle: It was. We had some other things that were thrown our direction that were not formal that we could’ve gone after. But this one was right on the heels of The Poughkeepsie Tapes. We premiered at Tribeca and Roy Lee called us while we were still in New York and had this project at Vertigo and wanted us to come in and meet him. At that time it wasn’t at Screen Gems, Roy and Doug [Davison] and Sergio Aguero were just looking for filmmakers to attach to it and once we came in a met them a couple of times, they picked us. We went to Screen Gems and a couple of other studios and Screen Gems ended up making a move for it.
Q: Was it pitched before you saw the film?
Drew Dowdle: We did not see the film. We saw a two minute promo and we had the Spanish script. Just the two minute promo alone, we said just this was absolutely what we want to do next. We looked at some other projects but this one just jumped right out. We really wanted to do this one.
Q: What were your initial reactions when you saw the final product?
Drew Dowdle: It was really good. The script was more supernatural than the final film ended up being and they did a really amazing job. Once everyone saw the Spanish film, they said “OK, let’s keep it really close to this. This really, really works.”
Q: Have you met the original writers?
Drew Dowdle: We have not, but I know they’re visiting next week and we’ll get to meet them.
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Staci Layne Wilson reporting