REC is one of the best horror films I’ve ever seen, it is terrifying, fast paced and refuses to adhere to many of the clichés that plague modern horror. Sure, there’s several telegraphed jump scares here and there, but they never felt forced or out of place. Actually, the fact that in the back of your mind you knew it was going to happen just improves the overall sense of dread that runs rampant through the film. I’ve been watching fright flicks since I was a child, weaned by my mother on Alien, John Carpenter’s The Thing and anything else I could get my tiny hands on. From there I’ve spent the majority of my thirty plus years watching every horror film I can get my eyes in front of and it’s extremely rare that any movie ever scares me. I’m not saying this to sound like a badass, but to express how desensitized I am to “scary movies.” That being said REC scared the fucking shit out of me. I was up until two or three in the morning following my initial viewings (I watched it twice, back to back) convinced that every creak of the ceiling or neighbor’s cat was one of the zombies breaking into my house. Thank god I don’t live in an apartment complex or I may have ended up shooting one of my neighbors in the face.
REC is a Spanish film that premiered overseas in late 2007. While it is filmed in the increasingly popular faux cinema verite style popularized by recent horror films like Cloverfield, Diary of the Dead and The Blair Witch Project it is miles beyond those films in both quality and substance. The plot centers on Angela (Manuela Velasco) a Spanish reporter and her cameraman Pablo who are doing a ride along with local firemen for the news show While You Were Sleeping. Angela and Pablo travel with a fire truck responding to a call from an apartment building where an elderly woman needs assistance. Pablo and Angela follow three Barcelona policemen and a fireman into the old woman’s apartment, they find her standing covered in blood and shaking from head to toe. Within seconds she is on top of one of the officers and proceeds to rip apart his neck with her bare teeth. One of the other cops pumps her full of bullets as everybody else makes a break for it back downstairs, dragging the injured along behind them. One of the other officers decides to find a faster way down and falls through the center of the spiral staircase to the ground level where he is gravely wounded.
The remaining policeman and fireman attempt to gather the other residents and get everyone to exit the building. The only problem is, that while they were upstairs with the old woman city officials had all of the building’s doors locked and giant tarps have been deployed that coat the entire building. Everyone is informed by a bullhorn amplified voice outside that the building has been placed under quarantine and that if anyone attempts to escape the building that they will be dealt with severally. In an attempt to try and waste some time and possibly embellish this news story that Angela has unwittingly become a part of, she and Pablo proceed to interview several of the residents on camera. We come to find out that one of the resident’s young daughter is sick and feverish awaiting medicine that cannot be delivered by her father who is trapped outside. A health inspector wearing a hazmat suit is allowed entrance into the building for the purpose of taking a blood sample from all the inhabitants to see if the infection can be isolated. While examining the two wounded officers they spring back to life and at that point everyone realizes that this is on ordinary type of infection. The only choice the people have is to either attempt escape and be gunned down like dogs or remain inside and be feasted upon like cattle.
I would love to go into deeper explanation for REC and explain the relevance of the sick child or the locked penthouse but in doing so I would be doing both the film and you, a future viewer of it a great disservice. REC is a film best viewed with little or no knowledge of the way it unfolds, the scares are incredibly legitimate and there is some truly chilling cinematography on display in this eighty five minute long modern masterpiece. Comparisons to other fake documentary movies like Diary or Blair Witch are impossible to avoid but in the end REC has far more in common with 28 Days Later or the excellent yet overlooked Mulberry Street. The only parallels between REC and other movies like Cloverfield is the fact that its shot on a handheld camera, everything else about it feels fresh and shockingly new.
REC is the best movie I’ve SEEN this year and had been granted an American release in theaters or on DVD it would have been hands down my pick for favorite movie of the year. But apparently whatever American distributor picked up the rights to it is waiting until after the American remake comes out this month to unleash it upon us with a proper release. It’s a shame that many people will never see REC due to the tainting of it by its connection to the horrible looking remake being shat out by the hackmeisters over at Screen Gems.
REC is among the top tier of horror movies and deserves a proper release and should be seen by anyone remotely interested in sitting through Quarantine. It is absolutely terrifying and I guarantee you the horrible scream like howls these creatures emit will haunt you for weeks. To be fair the film does have one glaring fault; it doesn’t necessarily hurt the film but the plot begins to unravel towards the end when the survivors enter “overexplanationland” as the filmmakers attempt to explain how the outbreak occurs. An explanation was totally unnecessary but it’s only for a few short moments towards and incredibly satisfying ending which wraps the film up perfectly. I was lucky enough to stumble across this film under a friend’s recommendation, I highly recommend anyone with a region free DVD player to order a copy of this online immediately and those that don’t find a way to see this film. I’m not saying that anyone should go to google and type in the words “REC” “Spain” and “download” but I bet if you did one could find it easily enough. I watched it twice last night and I wish I hadn’t lent my copy out today so I could give it a third viewing right now.
10 out of 10 crappy ass Screen Gem remakes
