[REC] was one of the most memorable horror movies of this century’s maiden decade : a relentlessly intense and superbly crafted entry in the still-active first-person-camera sub-genre of fake-reality horror. It was transformed into modern classic territory by virtue of its extraordinarily frightening final 15 minutes. Co-directors Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza – whose movie has already been remade, effectively, by Hollywood in the two year gap between [REC] and its sequel – have taken a smart approach to the sequel and come out all guns blazing.
The second installment of what promises to be an ongoing franchise is one of a minority of horror sequels that begins right where the previous movie left off before finding a fresh angle on the material. That unforgettable final image of the 2007 movie is reprised before we are thrown back into the quarantined building again, this time from the helmet-mounted perspective of a SWAT team sent in to figure out what the hell is going on. They have been joined by a priest who is specifically seeking a vial of blood from the Medeiros girl, the apparently demon-possessed young woman responsible for the devastating contagion. He feels her blood could provide a potential antidote, but getting it involves a deadly traipse around infected territory, including repeat appearances by some of the memorable victims of [REC] back when we thought it was merely an extra-grim case of rabies.
As the SWAT team gets ever more depleted and the quest for the blood ever more fraught, Plaza and Balaguero provide an alternate perspective : a trio of misbehaving youths fooling around with inflatable dolls and fireworks on the rooftop. Realising something major is going down, they find a way into the building and enter just as all hell is breaking loose. In other words we get to view a good portion of the events of [REC] from a new point of view though, unlike, say, the later SAW sequels, this fresh perspective is deftly enough used (and tallied with the SWAT scenes) to further the story rather than tease the viewer with an endless circular plot.
This bravura sequel, which finds nerve-wracking threats in air ducts and on ceilings, does a lot of familiar horror sequel stuff, including the belated return of the original’s heroine as a shell-shocked, shotgun-wielding, ball-busting survivor figure, and the re-use of the most memorable “monster” from [REC] for a climax that reinstates the night-vision nightmare that made the original’s finale so sweat-inducingly tense. However, when you think you know where it’s going or where the true frights are coming, [REC] 2 pulls the rug out in a startling fashion.
Everything great about the 2007 movie – the ominous sound design, the inventive use of the format (here suspense is enhanced thanks to failing batteries, audio drop-out, dropped / upside down cameras / cameras seeing what characters cannot) – is again present in the sequel, to powerful effect. It’s just as relentlessly scary, employing shadows, pools of darkness and confined spaces to great effect, while setting up scares that never happen so as to surprise us with unexpected jolts. The gore is used cannily and superbly : heads explode, possesses upchuck in Linda Blair style and brutality is meted out in just the right, well staged doses.
The extension of plot points only sketched in the first film also means that the demon-possession angle takes the movie away from familiar 28 DAYS LATER virus territory and into more chilling post-modern EXORCIST stylings, complete with mocking, blaspheming demon-hijacked kids.
The sequel’s tour-de-force, however, turns out, like its predecessor, to be its final 15 minutes. The overwhelming sense of dread that escalates throughout reaches its apex with another nightmarish venture into the Medeiros room, this time resulting in a jarring twist involving [REC]’s heroine, some voice recognition technology established earlier in the story and the prospect of the demon possession infection running amok in the outside world. If the final images don’t wig you out in the fashion that Plaza and Balaguero are so adept at doing, probably nothing will.
– Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
