Oh the joys of low budget horror films. Sometime they can turn out great and be revolutionary. Most of the time they end up like 'The Quarantine Hauntings' (2015). This film was a joy to watch. It is one of those films that is entertaining in it's ineptitude. Oh yeah, this film is pure shit. It has very little redeeming about it. But my god did it put a smile on my face. It is definitely not on the same level as films like 'The Room' (2003) or 'Troll 2' (1990), but it is definitely knocking on the door. Don't expect a long review for this one. The film follows Jasmine Anderson (Lauren Clark) who is struggling to get over the death of her father. One night she is left with her best friend, Skye (Elizabeth Wiltshire), to look after their younger siblings.They decided to take them to the haunted quarantine facility in town. While there they decide to scare the younger siblings by pretending to recite a ritual that would wake one of the ghosts that is said to haunt the facility. However, it turns out this ritual is real, and the ghost starts haunting the group and specifically posses Jasmine.
Lets start with the positives of the film. I laughed out loud several times. Now lets point out the negatives. Everything. This film is horrible. First of all look at that synopsis. Seems pretty simple right? Well this films narrative is confusing as balls. There are so many random events that prop up just to be dropped, I had no idea what the relationships between all the characters were and the characters also seemed to know stuff before they should or just appear in places when they shouldn't. There were a lto of 'what is going on' happening during this film. Technically it's shoddy (and that's putting it lightly). The lighting is horrific with every scene being far to dark or far to bright. The special effects are cheap as all hell and take away so much from any scares the film is going for. The cinematography is horrendous, with the film flipping between standard filmmaking and found footage style filmmaking on a whim. And speaking of the found footage sections, most of these scenes are just shots of the fucking ground as someone walks. I'm not kidding. And the editing. Oh dear lord the editing. This is mostly the reason why the film is so hard to understand because the editing is so shit. We jump from scene to scene without any kind of explanation. No transitions, no nothing. It also means that your unsure on where everyone is in relation to each other in scenes because people just turn up out of nowhere with a single cut. It is horrific, and I loved it.
Acting. It is a skill that not everyone has, and even those who do may not hit it out the park every time. This actors did not have it. Everyone without exception is horrific in this film. The line reads are terrible and unnatural. Everyone is monotone as shit. Emotion seems to not be in the lexicon of any of these actors. The only actor I would give any credit to would be Elizabeth Wiltshire, and even then that is because she is surrounded by people who are even worse than her. I don't wan't to be to harsh because these are all teenagers in this film and they were probably just having fun. But as a critic I must critique, and the acting in this film is more than worthy of criticism.
'The Quarantine Hauntings' is just the film I needed right now. It is horrendous from top to bottom, but that is what made it so enjoyable. Sometime I just need to watch a film that is horribly inept, I get some sort of joy out of it. And in these times that is something we could all use. So would it recommend it? Hell yeah! I don't care that it is one of the worst films I've ever seen it was entertaining god dammit. Maybe it was the mind set I was in going in to the film ans you may not get the same enjoyment out of it that I did. But give it a go if you're bored of actually well made films. And besides, its about 1 hour 15 minutes long so you hae almost nothing to lose.