Quarantine - Johnathon Schaech

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 actor Johnathon Schaech.

Johnathon Schaech: I am a fireman. I’m from engine twenty-two. I am one of the heroes.

Staci Layne Wilson / Horror.com: Yeah… Can you talk about your character a little bit?

Johnathon Schaech: I’m one of the firemen, if you remember that from the original. This is set up a little differently. We go into the building. We get a medical call and we go inside. First, they follow the medical crew. There is a camera crew that is following a fire company. We are a twenty-four hour fire company. We go on platoons every three days. We stay there, and then the next one comes in. And the cameraman is staying there with us. We get a call. We slide down the pole, jump in the truck, and go on this medical call. All of the firemen are EMTs, so that is why they go on these medical calls. When they get there, this lady is freaking out. She has blood all over her. Something is very wrong with this woman. We go to treat her, and she turns on one of us. She physically takes control of one of the officers and takes him out. Me and Jay have to seduce her. Wait. We don’t seduce her. We sedate her. That would be a totally different movie. So, then it goes chaotic from there.

Q: Going from “Prom Night”, which was relatively blood-free, to this…Have you become a horror fan?

Johnathon Schaech: Yes. I am going to go see Tobe Hooper [horror director] after this. I think I am going to go hang out with Tobe. But this here is a completely different style of storytelling. It is absolutely frightening. It is based on reality. If they can pull it off, there is a sense that this could actually happen. Nowadays, we have youtube. We have the news constantly coming at us. The visual images are compelling us. We can’t turn away from the television. When we saw that plane, we had to look and see if it hit the building. That stuff is stuck in our subconscious. If you can grab onto that with horror, I think you can scare the shit out of people. Some of it becomes about what you don’t see. That has always been one of the rules of horror anyway, right?

Q: How was the filming technique different for you on this movie?

Johnathon Schaech: I went to the fire station because I wanted to make it as real as possible. We were given a speech by Clint Culpepper that he wanted to make this as real as possible so that people would really enjoy the experience. We wanted to blur the lines between what was real and what was not. That is why I grew this mustache. I didn’t want anybody to recognize me. I went into the fire station, and more than fifty percent of those guys have big mustaches. Just like this. I stayed there with them, and tried to find all of the nuances. What they had to do every single night. I tried to bring as much realism as I could to the piece.

Q: They are filming this in really long takes. Does that change the way you approach a scene at all? Or how you prepare for it.

Johnathon Schaech: I think the performance mentality is always about the other actors that are there. What the give and take is of the two of them. You don’t get your close-up. But you have to be very camera aware so that you can tell the story as you go along. If that makes any sense. The acting is all about the other person. The interaction. If they capture it. If you are on camera. This is a lot more fun. Knowing that you are not getting a close-up, you don’t have to prepare for it. You just have to go. It is like a play. It takes a long time to set up. A lot longer than setting up something on the stage.

Q: The Dowdle Brothers are fairly new to the horror scene. What is it like to work with these guys that are still a little wet behind the ears?

Johnathon Schaech: Exciting. Both of those guys are really, really smart. I got to see their The Poughkeepsie Tapes movie. Has anyone seen it yet? It is frightening. It is a whole different world. It is about bending reality, but scary. This stuff could totally be real. Tobe Hooper did that years ago with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it wasn’t shot through a video camera. Because the concept was real. And they made a movie about it. These guys are doing the same thing.

Q: With the aspect of the rabies, how quickly does it happen?

Johnathon Schaech: I think it takes six weeks to really kick in. It is a very real, very deadly disease. If you are infected and you don’t get it taken care of right away, you will die. It affects your oxygen intake. You are not able to swallow. It grabs at the brain and makes the thought process unbearable. It really makes people aggressive and agitated. That’s why dogs and squirrels are so aggressive when they have it. I swear I was attacked by a squirrel one time that had rabies. They are just so angry. They become very angry with you.

Q: Is it accelerated in the film?

Johnathon Schaech: In the movie, it is a real disease. They have taken it and made a hybrid version of it. It happens really fast. It turns people into this zombie like person that is trying to eat your flesh. These guys try to have human qualities. They have emotions. I have had fun being a rabid person. Trying to ask for help, but being so agitated by the moment.

Q: Did you study the YouTube video with the rabid kid that everyone has been talking about?

Johnathon Schaech: It was always at the back of my head. It is so hard to describe it. It is so sad. His eyes roll into the back of his head. I guess the thought of water is so horrible. They are like vampires. They don’t want to be touched by the holy water. That is real.

Q: It's interesting to me, because right now I'm in the middle of the Chuck Palahniuk book, Rant. It's about characters with rabies. So I'm curious; How does that affect you, physically? Is portraying someone with rabies taxing?

Johnathon Schaech: I had to walk on a broken leg. That was pretty taxing. As I was moving forward, the leg was shattering more and more. It is a great moment. A really great horror moment that I can’t wait to see. It is fun. You get to make these physical choices, and then follow through with them. See if you can actually do them. The breathing, and the noises. The twitching, Which, I am really good at twitching. I haven’t had a problem with that.

Q: Why do you think you have been gravitating more towards horror lately?

Johnathon Schaech: My partner is Richard Chizmar. He owns a company called Cemetery Dance. He is one of the leading publishers of independent SciFi and horror in the country. So, my world is all basically horror. We are finally going to make this Stephen King book <a href="/movies/film/89/5589/summary.php" class="film">From a Buick 8</a>. I don’t know if the strike is going to kill it or not. But my whole world is wrapped around it. It will also be Fear Itself this year. That will be on NBC. We had written the script for that prior to the writers’ strike. We had note sessions on Friday at midnight with the deadline being that Sunday. I was literally at a club, looking down at my blackberry going, “Oh, shit! I need to get home and start writing.” That is why my world has gone towards horror. My world is mixed with Richard’s world. That isn’t the only thing, though. I have a film opening up next weekend down in New Orleans. It is about the Cajuns and their lifestyle. It is a vastly different experience. It is a human drama. But yeah, I keep getting cast in things like “Quarantine” and “Prom Night”. I love that stuff.

Can you talk about just working on the set? It's so chaotic-looking.

Johnathon Schaech: Yeah, I watched this thing get built. They built it so fast. I want to get these guys to build my house. You get a contractor to come do your house, it will take more than four months. These guys would get it done in three weeks. It is good quality too. A lot cheaper. The set just adds such a quality to it. It is taken from the original film. Everything keeps getting smaller and smaller in terms of what you get to see.

Q: Do you guys find yourselves getting into some clumsy moments on set, especially with the cameramen being right on top of you?

Johnathon Schaech: It is a free for all half of the time. Someone got stepped on yesterday, and his ankle is all swollen up today. I don’t know who did it. They were pointing fingers. “You did it!”

Q: Can you describe your experience working on the film “Prom Night”? I mean, it was shot right here too, just a few months ago. We were here then, too.

Johnathon Schaech: Well, when you play a bad guy, you don’t actually play the guy as bad. You play it to the root of what he is all about. He was in love. And everyone kept trying to interfere with his love. He was looking for a way to get past his problems. He wanted to get the person he loved to be with him. He wanted her to see how much they needed to be together. It is a little twisted. But, that is what every single day was about. My character was a schoolteacher. He was horrible. I don’t really want to talk about it.

Q: What do you think is scarier? A film that has a villain? Or a film like this, where there really is no villain? People are just trying to survive.

Johnathon Schaech: The disease is the villain. The unknown is really the scariest. And I don’t think these characters know what they are dealing with. That is what is scary. When they start to figure out who the villain is in “Prom Night” it isn’t as scary. You don’t know what this is. And the unknown is always scary. I think. When I am walking into my house, and my door is open. If I knew that this guy Fenton was in there, I could do something about it. But if I don’t know what the situation is, that is a lot scarier. Right?

Q: So, you will be working with Tobe next?

Johnathon Schaech: Yeah. Tobe is going to be shooting “From a Buick 8”. Of course, the strike is very scary. We were already supposed to go into production. If the strike doesn’t come to an end, it might not happen.

Q: You wrote that film, right?

Johnathon Schaech: Yeah, I called Tobe and said, “This one writer sure does have one hell of an acting career going. Maybe you should hire him.” No. Not right now. I am not acting in it, but I co-wrote it. It would be great if I could be in there. It is an ensemble cast, so I will probably be in there. Richard and me are producers on it also. I have to be on the producers’ side of it, because I can’t be on the writer’s side of it right now. There are no more story ideas. Just production ideas. What’s the difference?

Q: What is your Fear Itself episode called?

Johnathon Schaech: Eater. I don’t remember the writer’s name, but it is really scary. It is like Hannibal Lecter. Just a little bit. It is Hannibal Lecter meets “The Thing”.

Q: I talked with a couple of the other writers, and they said that NBC has been vary lenient on the gore factor. That there is a lot of blood.

Johnathon Schaech: You know why? Because they are going to sell it on DVD. They will edit it down for TV. You won't get to see the flesh getting ripped off the bone. But they will save that for the DVD. Then they will have something else to sell. It is smart from a marketing standpoint.

Q: In terms of this film, how would you compare it to a script where you don’t have something to compare it too?

Johnathon Schaech: Like when I played Harry Houdini? I could take things from this real person I was playing. I could identify with this person. His voice, his mannerisms. But I don’t want to do that with a remake. I want to create a new character. This is a remake? “Prom Night” was something that we redid completely. This is similar to the original. This is an Americanization. Yeah. That seems to happen a lot nowadays. Especially in horror. You want to get across the same parts of the story. I can look at that character that I am portraying. But I don’t want to steal from him. I would never mimic someone else. Especially since I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. I had to read everything he was saying. Actually, they are different characters. They wanted to make my character more boisterous and outgoing. Smiley. A moustache guy that was really confident. You think everybody is going to be okay with him, and then shit hits the fan.

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Staci Layne Wilson reporting