It must be a nightmare trying to conjure up an entirely new idea for a horror film these days, but the Spanish writer/directors of [REC], Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza, took a good stab at it.
A TV reporter (the amazingly cute Manuela Velasco) and her camerman are filming a "day in the life" documentary about a local fire crew, when the call comes in to rescue a woman trapped in her apartment.
Unfortunately this routine job turns out to be anything but when the old woman suddenly attacks and bites one of her saviours.
Things spiral out of control from there, when the people in the apartment block find they have been sealed in by the police and special forces - because of a "possible infectious outbreak".
As with Cloverfield, The Blair Witch Project, Man Bites Dog, Diary Of The Dead and probably several others I've missed, the film is entirely seen from the point-of-view of the unseen TV cameraman, making the audience very much a part of the action, limiting our knowledge of what's going on to what the reporter sees and hears.
It's superbly paced from the get-go, with events almost happening in 'real time', with thrills and spills snowballing as the 'outbreak' in the apartment block gets increasingly out of control.
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| Manuela Velasco |
[REC] drip feeds the clues as to what's really going on, but it doesn't long for a savvy audience to grasp the fact that we're seeing a zombie outbreak up close and personal, which is why it's mystifying - and intriguing - when the plot takes a sudden and unexpected left turn into Exorcist territory towards the end.
I love films that let me figure out what's going on for myself, but this sudden shift from scientific reasoning to supernatural weirdness caught me totally off balance.
There had been mutterings from an elderly couple earlier, that hinted at there being more to this than meets the eye, but this was a major leap of faith by the film-makers that I wish had been developed slightly earlier.
Nevertheless, [REC] is a brilliant zombie flick, and a major change of pace from the usual Romero fare (not that there's anything wrong with that), so is well worth checking out if you're into zombie action horror... or just want to watch a really cute Spanish woman running around in a vest top for the better part of 75 minutes.
[REC] was remade in the States, for audiences who can't handle sub-titles, as Quarantine.
I love films that let me figure out what's going on for myself, but this sudden shift from scientific reasoning to supernatural weirdness caught me totally off balance.
There had been mutterings from an elderly couple earlier, that hinted at there being more to this than meets the eye, but this was a major leap of faith by the film-makers that I wish had been developed slightly earlier.
Nevertheless, [REC] is a brilliant zombie flick, and a major change of pace from the usual Romero fare (not that there's anything wrong with that), so is well worth checking out if you're into zombie action horror... or just want to watch a really cute Spanish woman running around in a vest top for the better part of 75 minutes.
[REC] was remade in the States, for audiences who can't handle sub-titles, as Quarantine.
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