Less than a year after of the Spanish horror hit [Rec], John Erick Dowdle’s remake, Quarantine, has arrived. The director chatted to Bryan Cairns about the genesis of the project and how he managed to maintain the claustrophobic atmosphere.

How did you become attached to Quarantine?

We had done a film called The Poughkeepsie Tapes which premiered at Tribecca 07. Roy Lee and Doug Davidson from Vertigo Entertainment were looking at doing this remake of [REC]. They saw a promo for [REC] and read a review of our film the same day saying we were good at ‘reality’. They invited us to come in, pitch for it, and we just went for it. We had ideas on how to rework parts of the script, we had storyboards and images, and so we were able to go out and shoot it. They loved the direction we wanted to go in and we went with Vertigo to places, but Screen Gems just jumped on it. A couple of months later, we were shooting.

Were you familiar with [REC], which the film is based on?

Actually, [REC] wasn’t even done. When we were hired to adapt it, we had a trailer and a script, but they weren’t done with their cut. It wasn’t until we had handed in our draft of the script that they actually completed their film and we got to see it for the first time.

Is it strange remaking a movie that only came out in 2007?

I know! Roy and David at Vertigo are so on top of it. They know everything that is going to happen for years. It was exciting for us. After doing The Poughkeepsie Tapes, this was a big jump in budget and scope. My brother Drew and I are a filmmaking duo so we co-write, then I direct, he co-produces, and when we saw the promo, we knew this was exactly what we want to be doing.

Did you have much freedom with the material?

It was an interesting challenge for us. Once we saw the original, we loved it. [REC] was a really well made movie. The original was about 70 minutes and there was about 15 minutes right in the middle where everything slowed down. We wanted to use that movie as a template and say, “We have something awesome here but how can we take it one step further?” We also wanted to protect it from getting a complete overhaul and wrecking what was so great about it in the first place. We tried to find a balance and hopefully we achieved it.

Can you set up the premise for Quarantine?

A reporter and a cameraman are following a fire department for an evening. They enter an apartment building to answer a routine distress call. Something is happening to the tenants of the building and they are quarantined in it. The whole film is told from the perspective of the cameraman’s camera. The only edits in the movie are when he turns off the camera and it all plays in real time and space.

The trailer makes this look a zombie movie, the title ‘Quarantine’ suggests a disease is the catalyst, yet something else could be behind all this mayhem. Did you intentionally keep the cause a mystery?

That’s an interesting question. It was important. Our film is definitely in the zombie world but we take a much more realistic tone with it. People don’t get back up. If you die, you are dead. As far as the trailer goes, we were excited it doesn’t give any definite answers to it. Because we are only the story from the camera’s perspective, you never know more than they do. There are no answers. Nobody says, “This is why we are locked in the building.” They are in the dark as much as we are.

How difficult was it filming Quarantine using the live feed camera device?

Our film was basically done in a series of five-minute long shots and we stitched them together. We wanted our last 40 minutes to look like one big continuous shot. It was really hard. We had animals, children, stunts, visual effects and stuff blowing up. To put that altogether and have every actor nail their lines was really hard. The way we filmed it was basically rehearse for eight hours and then shoot for two hours. With the actors, we allowed a certain amount of improv, especially in the background.

The movie has a very claustrophobic feel…

Over the course of the film, we went from wide angle lenses, which makes you feel like spaces are really deep, to more telephoto lenses, which compresses the space, and then the lights end up getting shut down. Then all you can see is what the camera illuminates, and then we are in night vision. As we go, you can see less and less around you so it feels like the walls are slowly closing in. That was very intentional and really makes it feel like “Ahhhhhh…!”

The videotape is viewed after all the events have transpired and presumingly, plenty of that ordeal remains unresolved. Do you have a sequel mapped out?

That is an interesting question. We do have some ideas for it but we’ll see what the studio and producers think. We definitely have some ideas where things can go from here.

Quarantine is released in UK cinemas on 21 November 2008.