[Rec]
by Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza
![[Rec]](/images/Rec-B0028DRGDQ-L.jpg)
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Actor: David Vert, Ferran Terraza, Jorge-Yamam Serrano, Manuela Velasco, Pablo RossoDirector: Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza
Brand: Sony
Writer: Jaume Balagueró
Writer: Paco Plaza
Producer: Alberto Marini
Producer: Carlos Fernández
Producer: Julio Fernández
Writer: Luiso Berdejo
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Original Language); English (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 78 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-07-14
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of [Rec]
DVD Review: Four-And-A-Half Stars - Ferocious Horror With An Unexpected Ending
Summary: 4 Stars
[REC] is the movie the 2008 Quarantine was based on, and while I liked Quarantine, I feel that the original is superior.
A female reporter with a Spanish nightly news show regularly goes on assignment with her cameraman, taking the viewer behind the scenes of some profession or situation; in this case, a night in the life of the firefighters at a local station. Thus the movie begins as if it were an unedited reel of this kind of documentary, complete with mistakes and start-overs that would have been excised if the tapes had ever made it to air in a conventional fashion. Most nights the firefighters don't end up responding to an actual fire; sometimes they're called out for an animal rescue, or to assist a person who's taken a bad fall, or something else of that nature; other times the entire evening is spent at the station hanging around, playing basketball in the court, making small talk. The prospects of the reporter, Angela (Manuela Velasco) following the crew on anything especially splashy seems low, although the firefighters themselves seem good-naturedly enthusiastic about having a young, attractive reporter in the firehouse to be interviewed by, relieving the repetiveness of most nights's routine.
When a call comes in for assistance to a nearby apartment building where an elderly lady is apparantly either ill or injured in her apartment and unco-operative (perhaps highly confused) with the neighbors trying to coax her out, the station sends a truck out on this routine call, with Angela and her cameraman along for the ride. Little does anyone know that this call is going to end up being anything but routine, and in the most terrifying way. The firetruck arrives at a scene where the situation is already beginning to spin out of control; the police are there and aren't too thrilled to see reporters on the scene, and the situation with the woman upstairs is about to turn ugly. Angela senses some kind of story in this, and instructs the cameraman to keep filming.
Now, here's where the movie jumps its first big hurdle. When this technique of 'recovered tape capturing everything because the character was filming it' started to be used frequently, back with movies like The Blair Witch Project, it worked because it was fresh. The reasoning of keeping the cameras going seemed to work in that one, where it was a student documentary project, and keeping the camera going somehow kept the strange happenings on somewhat familiar ground, made it slightly easier because there was something else to focus on, gave them film to go over later and try and find their way out of the woods they were increasingly lost in, etc. But the 'camera' theme has been used a few too many times. I liked Cloverfield, but thought it would have been better if they hadn't used the videocamera theme, or, perhaps, had used it for say, half the movie and gone the rest of the time with a more conventional approach (i.e. maybe having a surviving character recount events to the authorities for that part, and use the videocamera angle for an earlier portion of the movie representing a character who doesn't survive?) Anyway, even though this technique has lost a lot of steam, '[REC]' made it work again, and it pulled out every trick it had to to get it working. There are times when the scene is pitch dark, and the night light on the camera's eyepiece is the only way for a character to find their way about - they can then try to guide other characters who still can't see clearly. There are times when the camera has actually been turned off and left on the floor, and a little child comes over to play around with it, turning it on in the process, and then leaving it running where it ends up filming things nobody even intended to film. Even the way when the cameraman is running he'll end up hitting the camera on the wall and the audio goes out for some time, until a second bump jars it back on. All this helps [REC] completely clear the hurdle facing movies like this, which is the "Why don't they just forget about the bloody camera and Run?" hurdle. Working especially on this point, Angela and several others begin to think that some kind of massive coverup is going on, and then there's a tangible reason why documenting everything is so important.
The reason a coverup is suspected is simple: just after the abrupt, violent confrontation with the supposedly ill (but now ragingly homicidal) woman upstairs, the building is abruptly sealed off by security forces from the outside. It's supposedly strictly a 'precaution' until health officials can arrive. The firemen, the police, Angela and her cameraman, and the residents of the apartment building soon have more to fear than trying to figure out why the authorities are doing this, as other people - starting with a cop who was bitten by the berserk woman, start to turn the same way. Unable to leave the building - police riflemen are actually in position to shoot if anyone tries to break out through the upstairs windows until they're covered over with some heavy barrier - the situation escalates into total pandemonium.
Quarantine followed this movie very closely - not shot for shot all the time, but a fair bit of it - right up until the last fifteen minutes or so, which is where [REC] really distinguishes itself. Looking for shelter and means of defence anywhere they can find it, several characters find themselves in a long-unused apartment on the top floor. This happens in both movies, but what they find up there - and what it reveals or implies about the origin of this situation - in my opinion, [REC]'s end stage is incredibly potent and makes the movie even scarier; Quarantine's is a bit anticlimatic. [REC]'s final act is totally horrifying and surprising on multiple levels. Not trying to bash Quarantine, which was well done, and as for the fact that the ending was different - well, if you're not going to do Some things different, why do a remake? The Ring (Widescreen Edition) and the 2007 Halloween - Unrated Director's Cut (Widescreen Two-Disc Special Edition), for example, changed some things around and took different paths here and there, so they and their predecessors are similar but distinct. On the other hand, Ju-On and the 2004 The Grudge are practically the same movie, just one's in Japanese and one's in English (the sequels to each were Very different to one another though). But while Quarantine was a good movie, I think [REC] is definately the stronger and scarier of the pair. Tremendous special effects, fine acting and characterization, and some of the most unnerving, unnatural Howls erupting from the bestial killers you can imagine, make this a great addition to the powerful recent crop of Spanish horror. Incidentally, although [REC] only got its North American debut recently, [REC] 2 has already been filmed and is going to start playing overseas within the next couple of months, so we can hope it won't take as long for this one to be released worldwide.
Description of [Rec]
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