Rewind to [REC]

[REC]



With Zombieland and Paranormal Activity tearing up the box office, I thought it would be a good time to review a film that combines some of the best aspects of both; zombies and the faux documentary style.


[REC] (the symbol for ‘recording mode’ on a camcorder) a Spanish film released in 2007 has a two person documentary TV crew following a Barcelona Fire Department team on a “typical” night. The crew respond to a call in an apartment building, and get trapped inside amidst a zombie infestation.

The simple plot is one of the film’s greatest strengths. There really isn’t a lot of time wasted on subplots or melodrama. And while most of the techniques used in [REC] we’ve seen before; Blair Witch Project style hand held camera work, the ubiquitous green night vision we’ve seen in everything from The Silence of the Lambs to The Descent, not to mention heaven knows how many “ghost hunting” TV shows; but none of them together nearly as well as [REC].

Of course, just like The Ring/The Grudge, etc. there was the requisite watered down, big budget Hollywood version made, Quarantine, for the masses who refuse to see any foreign film, under any circumstances, ever. And, while the trend continues there will probably be more big budget Cloverfields and District 9s, but sometimes all it takes is a small crew who cut their teeth on documentary TV to make an focused faux documentary with the intensity of [REC].