Review #252: REC (2007)

This review was originally written in October 2023.

Gabe's Horror Movie October Review #6 - REC (2007)

I'd never seen REC, but I saw its American remake, Quarantine (2008) way back when the word "quarantine" evoked a much less visceral reaction. The two movies are pretty similar- not exactly shot-for-shot but pretty close- and I'd heard everyone say that of the two, this was the superior version. I haven't re-watched the remake since it came out so I can't really comment on which was better, but I'll say right off the bat that this was a solid film that didn't overstay its welcome.

REC is a Spanish found-footage film that follows Angela, a news reporter, and her cameraman Pablo. The movie begins with them doing a late-night news segment about the local Fire Department, and she goes along with the Firemen with the camera rolling to see what their job is like. But when they're called to an apartment building to help rescue a woman trapped in her apartment, the building becomes the staging grounds for a viral outbreak that needs to be quarantined with extreme prejudice.

This is a fairly short movie (about 70 minutes), but the filmmakers used every second of that runtime to great effect. The plot moves along at a nice clip, with the tension ramping up steadily until it reaches the climax. I really don't feel like any time was wasted at any point, which is a lot more than I can say about most other movies I've watched. The characters all act pretty naturally (I appreciated how so many people seem to be reacting to the fact that there's a TV camera in their faces, either by telling the cameraman to stop recording or by trying to squeeze their way into the shot whenever they can) and all of the interactions between them made sense given the situation. (The only thing that bothered me in the whole movie, really, was how much Angela acts impatient and frustrated with her cameraman, like when she's constantly asking him for updates when he's peering through a window even though there's no updates he could have given, but even that reaction from her could make sense given the tension of the situation she's in.) The special effects are understated for most of the film, but they pull out all of the stops during the climax, when the movie really needed to look good and believable. So all in all it was very well-made.

In the end I have two takeaways from this film: The first, is how genuinely terrifying this scenario is- the characters in this film were just going about their night, minding their own business, when suddenly their building is completely cut off from the outside world while all hell breaks loose inside. (How do I know this hasn't happened? I live near a big city, I'm sure there have been times I've driven by buildings that were surrounded by government officials and I paid them no notice. If there was some sort of viral cover-up, would I have known?) And the second takeaway deals with the juxtaposition of the main characters, who (at least for most of the film) are uninfected by the virus, and the rest of the characters, who one-by-one succumb to its effects and become bloodthirsty, raving beasts. When the sane, healthy people are running and screaming and killing just to stay alive, how do you tell them from the monsters?

Overall Rating: 8.5/10 Fireman's Poles

Interesting Filming Trivia: Apparently, the actors weren't given the entire script when filming, so none of them knew their characters' fates until the time of filming. This led to each of them acting more apprehensive and uneasy than they might have been otherwise.