[REC]
Plot:Angela is a young reporter for a local TV channel and goes around with her cameraman every night in search of different collectives of people. Tonight they’ll be covering the local firemen and she secretly hopes for an opportunity to capture the story of a great fire. But the night remains very calm. When they finally receive a call from an old lady who is trapped inside her house, she has no other choice but to follow the firemen and cover their “rescue mission”.When they arrive, the see that the neighbors in the old lady’s building are very frightened. They have been hearing horrifying screams from inside the old lady’s apartment.

The firemen break down the door of the apartment and are followed by Angela and her cameraman. They find the old lady semi-conscious and surrounded by dozens of cats. Suddenly, the old lady jumps on a fireman and starts to bite him like a wild animal to the astonishment of his colleagues… and also right in front of the camera lens. It’s just the beginning of a long nightmare and of a uniquely dramatic report never seen before on TV: when the other firemen take away their wounded colleague, they discover that the only exit in the entire building has been blocked by the authorities. The building has been quarantined. Apparently, a strange virus has spread inside the building.

The fire squad, the neighbors and the TV crew are stuck inside the building, where new victims are slowly becoming infected due to the propagating virus. It’s turning them into vicious, bloodthirsty beings. The key to everything seems to lie in one of the apartments, only there less and less sane people left and time is running out. Angela and her cameraman finally have the opportunity of a lifetime to cover the most important report of their careers… but, what price will they have to pay in order to record it all on camera?

Cast:Manuela Velasco, Ferran Terraza, Jorge Serrano, Pablo Rosso, David Vert, Vicente Gil, Martha Carbonell, Carlos Vicente.

My Thoughts:"28 Days Later", meet apartment building. Apartment building...meet "28 Days Later".

Review:For all the great talk and hype about the Spanish horror film "REC", after seeing it, I am glad I did not buy into all of the hype. The film deals with a news reporter who tags along with the local firemen hoping to get a good story and catch some heroic in-the-line-of-duty footage. Unfortunately when her, and the firemen respond to an emergency inside an apartment building, they wind up caught in the middle of a deadly viral infection. It seems some of the buildings tenants have contracted a nasty little bug, one that basically turns them into raving flesh-crazed maniacs (basically 28 days later extras).

They display the same sort of symptoms, screeching, a far away look in their eyes, and of course...a nasty habit of biting the shit out of people who later become the raving dead themselves. "REC" is nothing new, and I really don't see why people who've seen it so far dig this film so much. If you've seen "28 Days Later", and it's sequel, you'll probably snooze all the way through "REC". It's a combination of both movies, only it keeps the action inside the building to give the film that feeling of deep paranoia, no escape, and scared people trapped like rabbits, up against something they have no clue about.

But in the end, it's just too similar to the "28 Days" series to be taken even remotely serious. The good guys run, the bad guys chase them, some people get bitten and turned, the beat goes on. The only thing that sets "REC" apart are the main characters who are a reporter and a fireman, instead of random strangers who arebrought together when everyone in their part of town becomes infected crazed zombies. "REC" is also alot more annoying because it uses that whole video-camera method of filming things.

The action is caught on the reporters video camera the whole time, so it's similar to how "Cloverfield" was filmed, which makes it even less original seeing as how "Cloverfield" was leaps and bounds better. If you watch this film close enough, particularly the ending which I assume was intended to terrify the viewer but failed miserably...you'll even see a little "Blairwitch Project" sprinkled about this film. Yeah, that's really how "REC" goes. Most of it's tricks, plot devices, and visual techniques are all things we've seen before, and done a whole lot better might I add.

I am starting to think of all the foreign countries who make horror fils, the Spanish have absolutely no clue. I mean "The Nun", "Fragile", and now "REC". They are basically remaking our films every now and then, and then hen they do their own original works...they wind up being terribly boring. The only thing scary about "REC" was the makeup. I have to admit, the raving lunatic dead were definitely dressed up well enough with blood and gore fx to make them look menacing, but beyond that this film has nothing going for it.

It's really a retread of too many movies, too many old horror movies might I add. If "REC" was released back in 2001, maybe it might've had a shot with me, but in 2008, this film simply made me yawn and hope for it to be over soon. And indeed itwas, this film clocks in at about an hour and 15 minutes, which lets me know that even the writer and director knew that they really didn't have much to go on here. I've seen C-grade horror films released direct-to-video that have ran longer than "REC", which in itself is embarassing.

The movie does try and get smart at the very end however, throwing out a second option for why the raving undead are running loose in the building, but it comes off as more ridiculous and thrown together than clever and scary. "REC" will eventually hit the states either on dvd or in theaters, but either way I doubt it will amaze too many. It certainly didn't amaze me. The remake had better deliver because otherwise, this franchise is toast.

Positives:The raving lunatic dead looked decently menacing and scary.

Negatives:Too much like the "28 Days" series which I cannot stress enough. Also very shalow characters.

Overall:YAWN.





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