In [REC], you the viewer are watching the raw footage of a show called “While You’re Asleep” hosted by Angela and shot by the cameraman, Pablo. For this episode of “While You’re Asleep” Angela and Pablo follow Manu and Guilliem, two firemen from the Barcelona FD who go out on a call to an apartment building where an old woman has fallen down inside her locked apartment. The neighbors reported hearing screams and the police have already arrived. Once the crew is in the apartment to help the old woman, she appears covered in blood and attacks one of the officers. The other officer, the firemen and the camera crew retreat to the foyer where they are confused to discover that the building has been quartantined and deemed a BNC (Biological, Nuclear or Chemical) hazard. As the inhabitants and the officials try to workout what’s going on, they slowly discover what the BNC hazard really is.

While the First Person style is becoming ever more popular and thus played out, the creators of [REC] have pulled it off very well, maybe the best yet. The movie works on so many levels due to all of it’s parts coming together perfectly. While it’s difficult to judge a persons acting ability while you’re reading their lines from subtitles (this is a Spanish flick), I would say that the actors did a superb job of conveying the emotion, tension and drama in this film. REC is a fast paced film that takes place over the course of just a few hours and is kept to a concise length of 75 mins. The tension is kept high once the action starts and the camera work fantastically captures it without making you question the validity of the First Person experience.

The zombies in the film were excellent, more of your rabid infected type than your shambling masses. The special effects make-up was wonderful, very realistic with none of the gratuitous over the top gore shots, yet still gory as hell. They were able to deliver a very believable amount of gore without hamming it up, thus keeping the fright level high.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie. It had a fast paced, no-frills attitude with all the suspense and spills that you’d expect from the best horror movies. I was on the edge of my seat whenever I wasn’t jumping out of it. The creators of [REC] managed to make a very scary and cool zombie flick that could have easily been done on a slim budget, without the hang ups of such a slim budget. It hasn’t been released in the States yet, but they have started (if not finished) an American remake called Quarantine. If you find yourself in a position to view the original Spanish [REC] take advantage of it, because I believe it would be tough to top as a remake.

Comments(2)

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to our  RSS feed!     Bookmark to: