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Just like a hit pop song, if it’s played out – it fades out. It seems the once intrigueing genre of horror (“The Blair Witch Project,” “Cloverfield”) is already fading out. Critics and viewers alike point out the disappointing mistakes in the film “Quarantine.” Photos and video below.

Doug Jones in “Quarantine”

The film opens with television reporter Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman (Steve Harris) 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 screams coming from one of the apartment units. Unbeknownst to them, one of the tenants has contracted a rare strain of rabies. After a few of her neighbors are viciously attacked, they try to escape with the news crew in tow, only to find that the Centers for Disease Control 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. The group of survivors get picked off one by one as the resident attack victims become flesh-eating zombies.

So the obvious flaw in a flick like this is predictability. As soon as the crew gets the call to the apartment building where the woman has been screaming and behaving strangely, it’s not rocket science to guess the rest of the film to be a zombie movie “with a culprit disease that, when initially identified, might elicit laughter.”

Mistake #2: Underestimating the surprisingly strong cast. One of the main characters is reduced to a whimpering, hyperventilating mess of a human being. Although, if I was surrounded by blood thirsty zombies, whimpering and hyperventilating would be me handling it well.

Mistake #3: As the LA Times says, “shame on the advance marketing department for blowing the end of the movie in ads, thus exorcising any ghost of a chance “Quarantine” had of issuing a surprise.” Seriously, by showing the main character alone with the camera getting dragged away by something, doesn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination as to how the movie ends.

Despite these mistakes, “Quarantine,” Screens Gems’ $12 million remake of a Spanish film called “REC,” managed to take the No. 2 spot at the weekend box office with estimated sales of $14.2 million! It just goes to show that the public loves the thrill of being scared and we will always be on a mission to find such a flick.

More photos of the cast and the trailer for “Quarantine” below.

“Quarantine” cast photos

Photos: WENN