I've Been Watching: [Rec]

Okay so for those of you that don't know [REC] is a Spanish horror film, and a bloody good one at that! I won't ruin any major plot points but I have hard time actually classing it as a 'Zombie' film per se, however I will ignore that fact since it's on my list of films to review (Yes I have a list... Yes it's f@cking gigantic.) and I actually really enjoyed it.

Anyway the plot for this one is believable and sets up the 'shakey-cam'/POV style very nicely. Basically there is an anchor and her cameraman filming a documentary; 'whilst you're asleep' which is about the local fire department. Whilst filming this they accompany the firemen on a seemingly mundane call out that leads them into a apartment building, once inside they find nothing is as simple as it seemed as the situation rapidly spirals out of control they find themselves sealed in the building with no information given to them as to why.

The characters in this are all pretty good, not one of them was poorly acted or thought out, so top marks there. My personal favourite character was the Fireman called Manu, damn can that gentleman wield a sledgehammer! Seriously, he's a beast.

Manu!

Then there is the reporter (her name escapes me at the moment, not a mark on the movie but I rarely remember character names I simply assign them nicknames in my mind, why for a good length of the film Manu was simply 'Baldilocks' in my head) who starts off fairly annoying but I actually grew to care about her and the cameraman as the film progressed, something I view as a hell of an achievement when I normally get bored of films fairly easily. I think I watched [REC] about three times in total over the course of two days, twice to get to grips with it to write this and once to show my friends how cool it was.

Angela (That was it)

Right oh, so the 'zombies' in [REC] (ignoring [REC]2 at this point) are pretty comparable to the infected from the likes of 28 days later. They start of as regular people and being bitten or otherwise savaged by the infected quickly leads to the afflicted turning into one of the infected.


The infection is never fully explained in the events of [REC] but things are certainly alluded too (if you want to know what is alluded too watch the film I won't ruin it here). I think this is good, in fact this is the best approach! As soon as something is fully explained and understood it loses most of it's ability to be truly scary and get under your skin. I mean it's okay to hint at things and tease the audience with little bits of information but never give everything away about your monsters... Jeez.

As for the technical side of [REC] I found the camera style added to it more than anything, whereas I'm normally not a fan of POV style things (Cloverfield for instance), purely because although realistic it gives me a friggen headache and motion sickness when shit hits the fan and people decide to run around like mad bastards.


So in conclusion, bloody amazing movie with just the right amount of mystery and really good characterisation. Well worth watching... Just gotta watch Quarantine now and see if it really is a straight rip off or not.

Good Job!

4/5 brains, no less.