[REC] 2 (2009)

More a continuation (in a Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings way) than a sequel to the excellent [REC], [REC] 2 opens with the famous night-vision shot of Manuela Velasco being dragged off into the darkness and picks up the story moments later with the building being stormed by a SWAT team.

The armed police have been assigned to escort a sinister, scar-faced "government representative from the Ministry of Health", Dr Owen (Jonathan Mellor), into the quarantined housing block.

As with its predecessor, this Spanish-language horror is filmed in the shaky-cam style of hand-held cameras - whether carried by the SWAT team or a trio of juvenile delinquents who come into the story about half-way through.

Very quickly we are reminded that this is not your Uncle George's zombie film, but something a whole lot more supernatural, as it fills in some of the questions left hanging by [REC].

Imagine a tower block full of Regan MacNeils! This is the Aliens part of the story after the scene-setting Alien-ness of [REC].

The religious backstory makes for interesting meat, but the truly clever tricks come towards the end when the nature of the hand-held camera medium is used to brilliant effect.

[REC] 2 works on its own merits, although it may come across as a bit of a 'do-over' of [REC] when looked at like that.

However it's when you take the two halves as a single film you realise that this is an amazing, original horror movie that, in a market saturated with cookie-cutter zombie movies, has found a unique spin.