ViewGuide

Created Sep 13, 2009 12:26AM PST • Edited May 27, 2010 10:08PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   Finally after months and years of being told to watch this film I did and WOW! This is THE BEST horror film made in the last 5 years HANDS DOWN!

   I am a fan of the strange, bizarre, macabre and yes, the schlock that emanates from the horror industry. From silent, Black & White classics like Nosferatu and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, to the more modern Scream and SAW. Horror is constantly changing…sometimes for the better, but mostly for the worst. I don’t love ALL horror films but I can appreciate and enjoy most of them while there are only a select few that I love and REC just earned my love with 1 viewing.

   “The film follows a Spanish late-night television reporter,Ángela Vidal, through the lens of her cameraman, Pablo. During one report of the happenings in a local fire station in Barcelona, the duo follow a team of firefighters who get a call from an apartment building nearby about a trapped woman. When they arrive, they find the apartment’s residents huddled in the lobby. They go upstairs to find a woman who is obviously distressed. What follows is a night that none of them will ever forget.”

   -courtesy of imdb.com

   Rec isn’t very long with a running time of approximately 70 minutes but rest assured that if the film were any longer, your heart would jump out of your chest. The film is VERY intense and while it didn’t “scare” me as much as it “creeped me out”, I have to say that even reading the English subtitles didn’t take my focus away from the action or the characters. Well shot, well edited, well made….a solid horror film which is a rarity these days. If you’re looking for a movie that is no holds barred, out of control, and frightening as all hell….REC is the movie you’ve been looking for.

   I recently watched the Blair Witch Project for the second time two days ago and while it’s a good horror film, REC is twice the movie both Witch AND Cloverfield are. Now sure Witch and Cloverfield are two entirely different styles of horror but REC utilizes and involves the POV (point of view) filming technique to not only show the movie but to add to the realism and suspense of it. The camera’s loss of focus from time to time preventing the viewer from seeing what’s going on may frustrate some. As for myself, it only heightened my senses and had me on the edge of my seat because I wondered what I’d see when the camera became focused again. The use of the camera’s light and night vision are more elements that are realistic and natural but they also help achieve some of the most suspenseful moments of the movie. Aside from the style of filming, the story moves on relentlessly (much like the antagonists), never letting up keeping the main characters on their toes and the viewer glued to the screen. No useless scenes of dialogue, no long and drawn out shows of emotion, just one thing after another. Everything in this film serves a purpose. If you watch this film, really watch it, and you don’t get scared or creeped out, then please admit yourself into a mental hospital because you are a danger to society!

   Of course most people don’t know about this film because they’ve had the recent US remake named Quarantine shoved down their throats.

   Now I haven’t seen Quarantine, but I may check it out just to see how bad we (Americans) messed up this perfect film like we have with other great foreign films like The Ring and The Eye. REC 2 is already finished and due for release in the US later this month which which I’m interested in seeing. Frankly though I’m surprised that we’ll be able to see the movie and that the studios over here aren’t going to try and keep it hush until they decide if they want to do a Qarantine 2. If they did, then we’d have to wait until OUR remake of it is released in theaters before the US would distribute copies of the Spanish version (which is what they did with REC).

4. Acting

   Perfect 5.0

   For a POV film, the acting is to perfection. I really liked the performances in both Blair Witch and Cloverfield, and REC follows in those footsteps without missing a beat. You really feel like you’re watching this all unfold as if it were live TV with REAL people and not chracters in a fictional movie.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Perfect 5.0

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

    REC is a horror masterpiece. Nosferatu, JAWS, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, REC….it has earned its stripes. It has all of the instensity, shock, and great filmmaking that has turned those films into cinematic classics. It’s the mystery of trying to figure out what is going on, feeling sympathetic for the heroes as they are mercilessly pursued by the bad guys.

    The movie starts off a little slow but it helps the viewer comply with our main character’s plea for “something exciting to happen.” Once the excite-I mean terror begin, it doesn’t stop until the very last frame. There’s no music to my recollection until the end credits which was fine by me because it allowed the soundtrack of the movie to be the chaos and madness that the survivors were surrounded by. That alone was more effective than any musical track could have been. The majority of REC takes place inside one building so it doesn’t give the viewer much to see which is good because it allows the claustrophobic feeling to set in and you begin to feel trapped like the characters.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Perfect 5.0

13. Music Perfect 5.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Horrid 3.7

    Is it the most violent and obscene film I have ever seen? Not even close. HOWEVER, the eerie factor is off the charts. The violence and bloodshed are savage in that people are being bitten, torn apart, shot, etc., but it’s not on the same levels to that of a bloodbath. There is no sex in the film but there is a scene that features a topless female. Rudeness is a factor in REC as it endangers a little girl and then goes the George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead route.

17. Sex Titillating 2.1

18. Violence Savage 3.9

19. Rudeness Vile 5.0

21. Reality

    Natural 1.0

22. Circumstantial Natural 1.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0