[REC]: The review

Dark. Sweaty. Scary. And I'm not talking about Rosie O'Donnell's undewear drawer... 

[REC]/2008

Directed by: Jaume Balaguero

Starring: Manuela Velasco, Ferran Terraza, Pablo Rosso

The Plot: A TV reporter and her cameraman follow a crew of Barcelona fire-fighters during their night shift for a show called "While You Were Asleep". I guess while we all were asleep some heavy, heavy stuff went down in an apartment building in Spain. Stuff like possible viral contagion, dead-ish people attacking and biting live-ish people, and a few other ghastly surprises. I was half-worried about even revealing the plot to [REC] but I realize that I knew most of the plot going into the film, (through advertising and most horror fan sites) and it didn't spoil the film for me at all. In fact let's get to...

The Good: The bad is that being a fan of horror movies means that there are only really four or five of these films released every decade that are of any quality. Movies like Session 9, the 28 Days/Weeks/Months franchise, The Descent - these films are as rare as Siberian catfish. The American horror scene has been driven off the rails by dope-fiends like Rob Zombie and Eli Roth hellbent on proving the theory that Ass+Gore+Trash-Dialog= Horror. What they fail to understand is that the 70's/80's horror scene, though fun and nostalgic, can never be re-created. It's 2008 boys, horror movies should be scary. If I wanted to drop some money on seeing blood, boobs and bad dialog I would have caught that last Siegfried and Roy show.

The Good is that [REC] - confusing title and all, (you know as in short for [Record]?) is the big Siberian catfish. A real rarity in the horror market. A movie that actually earns its reputation. A horror movie that actually horrifies. [REC] is all of these. It's also one of the leanest, (80 minutes!) meanest horror flicks to be released in quite some time.

Director Juame Balaguero has had his critics since starting his foray into the horror genre. Not because his films were poor quality, but because he seemed to be a better filmmaker than his often misguided films would indicate. (Darkness, Fragile) Thankfully he finally realized that bigger is not always better. In [REC] he trimmed the horror experience down to its most basic fabric. Leaving no fat in the film, hiring no recognizable actors, (well unrecognizable here in the States) and using the "reality-documentary" style narrative that The Blair Witch Project originally exploited, but never perfected, that is until now.

I've always been a fan of this gimmick, especially in the horror movie genre. It's just that I've often felt, though I liked Blair Witch and Cloverfield, (I won't mention the OG reality documentary flick The Last Broadcast - or the awful Zombie Diaries and Romero's new Diary of the Dead) it's never really delivered that really believable, visceral, spooky film experience till now. [REC] capitalizes on the gimmick. It also has a clever enough reason as to why during this nightmare situation someone would still keep the camera running. (they're paid to... duh?)

The final ten minutes of this film are absolutely knuckle-biting in the fright department. This is how the original Blair Witch should have ended horror movie fans. This is that kick-ass horror ending we should have got back in 1999, but didn't.

Last I just want to recognize those unrecognizable actors I mentioned. This cast really made this flick work. It's easy to suspend belief and even feel fear when the people you're watching on the screen behave and act like real people would, and you actually care about what happens to them instead of just ticking off the minutes till they die... This isn't the abattoir stockade of the Friday the 13th franchise. I can honestly admit that I actually wanted these people to make it. Another horror genre rarity.

The Bad: Didn't I already discuss The Bad at the beginning of The Good?

The Ugly: God Bless American film producers! We can't make a decent scary movie in the fifty States anymore, so what do we do? Buy the film rights to a great foreign-made horror flick and remake the bloody thing. I hear that Quarantine, ( the cheap American knock-off) is pure Irish sh!te. Ugly indeed. Skip it and enjoy the real thing. It's the Coca-Cola thing to do.

The Verdict: [REC] is tight and scary - sort of like this dude's jeans. This is a flick for people that like getting a solid case of the goosebumps. If you're just as fed up with the current American horror market as I am [REC] is a reminder that other people in other places are taking the genre seriously enough to actually create quality horror films instead of gory frat-party films parading around in grandpa's Dracula cape... 

[REC] kicked my ass. I would put a "Nuff Said" here but that's just the kind of fratboy thing I just got done raging about...