If you can tolerate subtitles, and a very shaky found footage style, “REC” is a fun and effectively scary horror flick.
The Spanish film has garnered high praise in the horror community since its release in 2007. It was written by Paco Plaza, Luis A. Berdejo, and Jaume Balagueró. Balagueró and Plaza would share directorial duties.
A US remake titled “Quarantine” was released a year later, and we’ll cover that next year despite it being universally panned by critics.
Prime era for the found footage genre.
The filming component is believable. Ángela (Manuela Velasco) is a reporter for the fictitious TV show ‘While You’re Sleeping’ (not to be confused with the Sandra Bullock movie). This particular episode sees Ángela following a crew of firemen overnight as they patrol their section of Barcelona.
The reporting starts out playful, as one would expect. Ángela speaks to the camera at one point advising “It’s not only fires that get them moving.” This proves true as they are dispatched to a seemingly routine call at a high rise. Things quickly turn when it is discovered to be a highly contagious and thoroughly deadly virus spreading throughout the building.
At 78 minutes, “REC” beats the sweet spot for horror. It starts slow, which is consistent with the benign nature of what we are supposed to be watching. It’s a routine evening, and no one is expecting to get what’s about to unfold. It’s interesting that the film came just 6 years after 9/11, and we can appreciate the firemen who are hoping for a boring episode of Ángela’s show.
Manuela Velasco is the person we are watching the entire time, and she does an excellent job at keeping us invested – despite having to read subtitles. We can appreciate her character; cute and quirky TV star flirting with head firefighter Manu (Ferrán Terraza) to hardnosed reporter working with limited resources to figure out what exactly is going on.
Pablo Rosso plays the cameraman who records the entire evening as the events unfold. One moment sees him rewinding his own footage to catch a second glimpse. It was something I have never seen in found footage and is a really cool idea. The other characters are interchangeable, save for María Lanau playing an attractive woman trapped in the building with her daughter.
Total Chaos
When the *bleep* hits the fan, it really hits. “REC” captures the primal chaos that explodes parallel to the movie unfolding. The occupants of the building turn to xenophobia and mistrust once the true reason for their quarantine is leaked.
It effectively uses the limited view of the camera with both light and dark shots. The violence is brutal, the images quite bloody. Normally I stay away from gore, but here it makes sense and while being heavy, never exceeds normalcy.
“REC” has really good scares. The only knock I give is the subtitles, which isn’t the fault of the movie. If you can handle that, and highly jumpy fond footage, this is a fun one.
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