REC - 2007

REC passed me by at the cinema, but it may have been just as well. Its a film which is so small and intimate that watching in the confines of your own home may in fact make it much scarier than it would have been in the cinema. The story is simple, as they usually are in the zombie genre. A reporter and cameraman are at a local fire department making a TV show. After a light hearted opening where we meet the firemen, see how our heroine Angela, Manuela Velasco, feels about such an assignment and tries to find a story in the quiet station, then alarm sounds and the firemen set off to answer what seems like a simple problem.

And then it happens. And for a genre which, like the vampire sub genre, is very close to becoming cliche ridden and lacking in inspiration, REC delivers one of the most terrifying scenes in the film. An old lady, covered in blood and seemingly disorientated suddenly bursts into life, or death depending on how you look at it, attacking a policemen, and setting this horror tale in motion.

REC follows the current trend of handheld reality cam - think Cloverfield, Blair Witch Project - with Angela demanding her cameraman Pablo continue filming. We never see Pablo but as the horror escalates and Angela loses her calm, cheery style, his voice sounds from behind the camera, trying to reassure her.

When dealing with a concept set up in REC; a bunch of people are trapped in an apartment complex, with nothing to protect themselves and the zombie infection spreading fast, one of the key concerns is how the filmmakers deal with keeping the characters confined. At first the idea seems a little contrived, but gradually, as morsels of plot are revealed it actually becomes a rather ingenous idea, and reveals the terrible handling of the situation by the authorities.

It's not long before the film descends into a long stream of terror, cannibalism and classic zombie sequences, including a homage to Night of the Living Dead. The directors, Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza, make excellent use of the single camera viewpoint, as Pablo attempts to capture the events, we are given shocks which occur slightly out of focus or just off screen; a character talks to Pablo only for the zombie to appear behind him, and as the film progresses, the inevitable lack of light prompts the use of the camera light and finally night vision as the film becomes claustrophobic and scary as a hell.

And despite following the traditional path slowly but surely reducing the camera, and so audiences perspective, and with it the characters, the film still manages to be scary, mainly because all the performances, the hysterics, the fear, the denial, the in-fighting all seems completely genuine, and naturalistic.

A solid, in occasionally cliched zombie film which makes great use of the single camera, handheld, verite style. With REC 2 coming and Quarantine, the US remake having already been made, this could be the beginning of another zombie franchise which deserves it. REC is equally inventive, terrifying and brilliant, with strong acting, a good lead and some memorable scares.