“[Rec]” is a Spanish horror movie, released in 2007, directed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza. It’s got great recognition among the critics and the public, to the point an American remake has been filmed recently. Generally speaking, the movie fits into the zombie genre quite well, presenting most of the category’s strong features and even adding some original aspects to the mixture.
The story follows a television reporter, named Angela Vidal (Manuela Velazco) and her cameraman Pablo (Pablo Rosso) as they cover the nightlife on a fire station. After some almost annoying minutes of Angela, who at this point starts to get on your nerves, just going round the mostly deserted station, the alarm sounds and the crew joins Manu and Alex, two firemen dispatched to help an old lady that apparently has fallen in her apartment. Once they arrive there, they are joined by two policemen and the building tenants. All seems quite ordinary at first, but soon things get out of hand, as the old lady attacks one of the policemen by bitting his neck, and even worsen when they find out they have been quarantined inside the building by the military forces with no explanation as to why.
The plot is simple enough as to not get in the way of the action and gore, but that does not mean it isn’t there, with an interesting twist at the end. It is filmed in the almost cliched hand-held style, that in this case adjusts well to the story and adds a lot to the terror of the movie. The acting is good, as far as the genre allows, you won’t see any award winning moment, but it won’t anoy you either.
To sum things up, [Rec] is an excelent zombie movie that will greatly surprise any genre fan and that might even convert a lot of non-believers.
