[REC] review

Chances are, you’ve probably already seen the trailer for Quarantine, the shot-for-shot American remake of the Spanish horror film [REC], set for release in October of this year. But why should horror fans bother with what’s more than likely another pointless and poorly rehashed version of a great movie when the original is not only an enormous critical success, but is actually bloody terrifying?

Shot in verité-style, [REC] tells the story of a young reporter named Angela and her cameraman, who are shooting a profile of Barcelona firefighters for a television show called “While You’re Asleep”. Frustrated at the absence of activity at the firehouse, Angela is ready to call it a night, but when her subjects respond to a distress call at a nearby apartment building, she and her cameraman become witnesses to horrors far more appalling than a five-alarm fire. When they arrive at the building, panicked tenants are milling about in the lobby. An elderly lady has barricaded herself in her apartment, and she’s been screaming for hours. The firefighters and police officers go in, and a series of horrifying events leads to the authorities sealing the building off with everyone trapped inside, desperate to escape.

Winner of numerous awards, including two Goyas (the Oscars of Spain) and the Public Prize for Most Innovative Film (Silver) at this year’s Fantasia film festival, [REC] is easily the most genuinely scary movie I’ve seen in years. It starts out slow, and builds to a heart-stopping crescendo, but there are so many surprises and jumps along the way that the viewer is left not just frightened, but a little exhausted as well. We’ve seen this kind of shaky-camera-first-person-account horror film before, but [REC] succeeds where many have failed, largely because of its utterly believable cast and brilliant directing by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza. The special effects are gruesome without seeming over-the-top, the pacing is fantastic, and there are wonderful little touches scattered throughout the story that make [REC] truly stand out as a great movie. (My particular favourite of these skewers the rampant xenophobia present in contemporary Spain, when the desperate tenants inexplicably blame the newly arrived Korean family for the horrific chain of events that has unfolded in the building.) The last five minutes of this film alone rank as some of the most uncomfortable I have ever experienced in a movie theatre.

The first trailer I saw for [REC] was just a clip of terrified audiences reacting to the picture, which pretty much mirrors the reaction I witnessed in the crowd at the Canadian premiere of the film at Fantasia. Then, a few weeks later, I saw the preview for the American version, and I have to say, the lack of creativity of the second when held up against the first does not bode well for theatergoers come October. While some may say it’s too early to judge just yet, I say skip Quarantine and scare yourself silly with [REC] instead.

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