[REC] (2007)

REC is zombie horror brilliance!

REC is one of the best found-footage and zombie movies ever made. The panic, chaos, and terror that grows and spreads through a small apartment building as residents fall one by one to a zombie plague is overwhelmingly suspenseful and believable. REC starts slow but exponentially builds into a bloodcurdling frenzy with horrified characters frantically struggling to survive. This low-budget horror film belongs in the hall of fame for creativity and genius in the genre. I saw the American remake, Quarantine, many years ago, which is very similar to this film, but REC edges Quarantine with originality and a franchise of 3 other films following it. Any zombie or horror fan needs to add this to their watchlist immediately!

"Ángela" (Manuela Velasco) is a pushy television reporter who is with her cameraman "Pablo" (Pablo Rosso) doing a feature about some local hunky firemen. When they are called to an emergency, they accompany the crews but upon arrival the find themselves subject to a terrifying lock-in as the raging fire proves not to be their most imminent danger. It seems that there is also something afoot that is hungry, and that hunger breeds more hunger... It's filmed from the perspective of the camera and has a lot of "Blair Witch" (1999) to it - and that's where I lost interest. The intensity of the photography in the dark and winding corridors of this expansive apartment block works quite well for about ten minutes, thereafter the hysterical acting, constant screaming and overdoses of ketchup just made me think that they hadn't the budget or the imagination to make something different or memorable. If Velasco's plan was to make the audience dislike her character intensely then she hit the nail on the head and if I'd been one of the fire crew trying to save lives amidst her increasingly annoying histrionics, I'd have happily sacrificed her to their tormentors. It doesn't hang about, but even at just eighty minutes I was weary of it's repetition. Not for me, sorry.