Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Well, well, well; so after taking the remake rights, remaking the film for illiterate American consumption, retitling it Quarantine, milking the built in horror box office numbers, and releasing the DVD they are finally releasing the real film now that all of the money to be made off of this one has been snapped up by the major studios. Refusing to release a film in the USA until they can remake it and scrape up every last penny to be made just to deny the original creators their fair share of the profits for their work is vile, people. I hope you were smart enough to leave Quarantine alone and wait for the real thing. This is why hardcore film fans own region-free players. Don't settle for a copy of a copy of a copy or that is what we will continue to get. Support the original works so they can get the theatrical runs and treatment they deserve some day. Subtitles will not scorch your precious little eyeballs, foreign languages will not harm your ears, and watching a non-American cast should not upset you that much. A great film is a great film and it shouldn't have to be re-shot, dumbed-down and rendered creatively bankrupt for you to enjoy it.
Oh, right; I was going to review the movie. Sorry about that.
"REC" is a Spanish horror film that follows the trend of films like Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project by having the entire story told through the lens of a constantly-filming camera and throws in some of 28 Days Later's mad intensity to create a film that is annoyingly familiar in execution, but still a must-see. The execution here is fantastic and the end result is as frightening as any of the films mentioned above.
In "REC", a young, beautiful reporter hosting a late night show is doing a story about firefighters working the graveyard shift entitled "While You're Asleep". After a meet-and-greet and a few fluff segments our heroine Angela and her cameraman, Pablo, follow the firefighters on a routine call. They end up inside of an apartment building where a call was placed about a disturbance. They head upstairs to check it out and see an old woman standing motionless in the dark, her clothes bloodied. This sort of thing seldom ends well. After some doings transpire, the residents, firefighters, policemen, and reporter duo find that the building has been sealed off and is surrounded by police threatening deadly force. BNC (Biological, Nuclear, and Chemical) protocol is in effect on the entire building and nobody is getting out. Nobody seems to know what's going on. Then the killing starts.
"REC" is unoriginal on several levels; essentially a hodgepodge of concepts and techniques that have come before, but it is damned effective because it only steals the best. If you didn't like the style of "Cloverfield" or Diary of the Dead then you are unlikely to enjoy this either. In fact, the camera might be even shakier on this one. You'd think with a supposed pro handling the camera, the picture would be more stable. While there is nothing approaching the deep, dark, cutting social statements of Romero's work, there is a little bit to chew on. While interviewing residents, Angela finds one man matter-of-factly rambling about his "Chinese" neighbors (they're Japanese) and their disgusting eating habits while essentially implying that they must be the root cause of the rumored infection. This is so very true to life it almost hurts. Blaming the foreigners never gets old no matter what country you live in. A very nice touch. As the story unfolds and the characters start to unravel, the pace of the film picks up substantially. The result is several minutes of pure chaos. The mystery infection can take minutes, hours, or days to manifest symptoms, making everybody in the building a liability. Talk about tension.
While the pacing is a bit slow at times, there are some amazing scenes. Before I saw "REC", there had been only a few children in cinema history that truly frightened me. Add another to that list. Jaw-dropping performance. The final act is a masterpiece of suspense and intensity. With the power cut and the police outside practically waiting for everyone inside to die, Pablo and Angela -with their camera as the only available light in the building (genius)- attempt to escape upstairs, hoping to find an attic leading outside. What they find is a supposedly abandoned room that contains the answers to the story's mysteries and one of the most terrifying apparitions ever seen in a horror film. There are some amazing shots, genuine scares, violence with a little gore, and plenty of screams along the way. My God, are there screams. I have to say that in spite of the fact that much of this had been done in previous films, I wanted more of "REC" and am looking forward to the sequel. Not the inevitable remake sequel. The film is a short hour and fifteen minutes and the ending was annoyingly abrupt and ended with lame music, but hey nobody's perfect.
Either you enjoy these kinds of films or you do not. For fans of the emerging shaky-cam horror genre, this is for you. If you're not a fan, either skip it or take some dramamine beforehand; this one's not for the faint-hearted. A lesson in low-budget intensity is this movie. It is unexceptional considering what has come before, but it is executed well enough to make it well worth a watch. Consider "REC" a rec.
Additional message from the soapbox, incoming...
Let's face it, people: foreign horror is kicking our tails. It has been for a decade at least. If we want America's sleeping horror giant to wake up again, we've got to stop supporting the sub-par recycled garbage that is piling on top of it. That means saving your cash for the films that deserve it -independent, controversial, hardcore, R-rated, uncompromising HORROR- and forsaking all others. No Tara Reids or Paris Hiltons, no PG-13s, no Paul Andersons or Michael Bays, and no more God-cursed remakes. Take the money for that ticket and again I implore you to go buy a DVD of the original works instead. It'll make you a real American hero.
Click Here to see more reviews about:
From Executive Producers who brought you Quarantine, comes the movie that inspired the terror. A beautiful TV reporter (Manuela Velasco, Law of Desire) and her cameraman are doing a routine interview at a local fire station when an emergency call comes in. Accompanying the firefighters to a nearby apartment, the news team begins recording the bloodcurdling screams coming from inside an elderly woman's unit. After authorities seal off the building to contain the threat, the news crew, firefighters and residents are trapped to face a lethal terror inside. With the camera running, nothing may survive but the film itself.
Get 20% OFF
Click here for more information about
