The renaissance period of Spanish horror cinema continues apace with a film that joins the hitherto American-dominated cycle of first-person, faux reality handheld horror movies. The trend was effectively initiated by THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and recently taken into blockbuster territory with CLOVERFIELD. [REC] is tough to fault as a pure exercise in cinematic dread, though it admittedly suffers from being beaten to UK/US release by two other first-person verite zombie flicks : Britain’s THE ZOMBIE DIARIES and George A Romero’s DIARY OF THE DEAD, a reboot of his endlessly influential undead series for the You Tube generation.
Despite the very modern technical approach, [REC] is closest in cynical spirit to Romero’s original, 40 year old NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Claustrophobically containing its outbreak to a single interior location with all exits blocked by sinister faceless authority figures, its one significant wrinkle on that film’s set-up is that the zombies are already on the inside from the outset. Otherwise, it cannily reworks the story dynamics of NIGHT as the fraught, gradually depleted characters argue with/blame each other for the unfolding crisis rather than joining forces to boost their survival chances. [REC] also features a nose-biting, creepy-assed zombie kid sequence to rival the unforgettable matricide interlude in NIGHT.
Intense and pared down to a lean running time, the movie focuses on the sexy front-woman of a show called “While You Sleep”, that follows the nightly routines of hardworking ordinary Joes we routinely rely on. Accompanying two firemen on their nocturnal rounds, she hopes for juicy dramatics and ratings-friendly fire action (the pic is fashionably satirical of ambulance-chasing modern TV though doesn’t over-sell it). Responding to a call about an ill old woman in distress, the cameraman, presenter and firemen head to an apartment block to find the resident unusually aggressive. She represents the beginnings of a highly contagious zombie-like virus – as in 28 DAYS LATER, the “z” word is never mentioned – that spreads rapidly through the building while the nervous powers-that-be enforce a strict quarantine procedure.
Co-director Jaume Balaguero (in collaboration with Paco Plaza) has already made a strong name for himself in the horror genre with stylishly shot ghost stories like FRAGILE and TO LET, a brutally intense psycho-chiller. His take on handheld horror has much of the disorientating shaky cam “reality” of its peers but also reinforces Balaguero’s gift at evoking potent chills from nothing more than a shot of an empty corridor. Capturing only fleeting glimpses of zombie gore, the movie’s format enables a frightening portrayal of a fast-spreading disease at work, while making the undead truly scary again – a considerable feat that wasn’t quite pulled off by the otherwise impressive DIARY OF THE DEAD and the ambitious ZOMBIE DIARIES.
Authentic performances and evocative use of sound help sell the movie’s sense of escalating panic. Sometimes breathlessly suspenseful, [REC], like CLOVERFIELD, captures a dire situation spiralling horribly out of control and exploits the post-9/11 audience’s knowledge of what it’s like to powerlessly watch mass carnage unfold on a TV set. Its efforts to credibly convey the first-person gimmick echoes THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT as, at various points, the camera cuts out, falls over or gets put on the floor to offer a prolonged view of feet.
[REC] really comes into its own during the final 15-20 minutes. A genuinely terrifying denouement offers a neat homage to THE EVIL DEAD (a plot-explaining reel-to-reel tape recorder), visual quotes from BLAIR WITCH and a suffocating intensity. The heroine and her cameraman venture up to a hitherto sealed, unoccupied room and learn of the origins of the virus (unlike Romero, the script is specific in its back story)…but they’re not alone.
When this already chilling sequence switches to the camera’s night-vision mode, both the audience and the cameraman character can see the shuffling grotesque ghoul in the room with the heroine…but she can’t. This scene is truly the stuff of nightmares, expanding on the great climactic night-vision set piece in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and exploiting our ever-present fears of what may be lurking in the dark.
In the continual absence of any original ideas, [REC] has already been remade for dumb-fuck cinemagoers unable to read subtitles, in the Hollywood form of QUARANTINE (due for release at the tail end of 2008). Be warned that the teaser trailer for this remake actually gives away the final, chilling shot of [REC].
– 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
