REC

[REC] – Little White Lies

Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and The Blair Witch Project (1999) may have set the ball rolling, but it was the terrors of 11th September, 2001, recorded live by amateurs at the scene, that made reportage the vehicle of choice for today’s horror films, from Diary of the Dead (2007) to Cloverfield (2008) to any number of lower-budget faux-reality horrors to have come out the other end of 9/11. The frightening events of Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s [REC] (2007) similarly purport to be raw documentary footage – and in case anyone misses the connection between contemporary anxieties and the film’s handheld medium, [REC]’s disaster scenario sees a two-person television crew following firemen into a building…

Documenting the humdrum working lives of a local firecrew, reporter Ángela (Velasco) and her unseen cameraman Pablo ride along on what ought to be a routine trip to help an elderly woman out of her locked apartment, only to find themselves trapped in the building, with an infectious evil spreading rapidly through the small population of residents, and with security forces outside preventing any escape. Armed only with their camera, the two will bear witness to an unfolding apocalypse that they cannot stop – and cannot stop filming.

[REC] wears its debts to Night of the Living Dead, The Blair Witch Project and The Exorcist on its bloody sleeve, but these are recombined into something quite original and, more importantly, nerve-shreddingly terrifying. [Rec] idles disarmingly through its initial scenes, but then, from about a third of the way into its economic 80-minute duration, viewers are suddenly wrenched into a shaky-cam nightmare that escalates with each floor climbed by the hysterical survivors, until, in near total darkness, the film reaches a frenzied ending that not even the most hardened genre fan will either see coming or watch unruffled. Cut!

Anticipation:
Well, I liked Blair Witch, but isn’t this reportage approach to horror just a cover for lousy production?
3/5

Enjoyment:
Hey, how did I end up on the edge of my seat? And how long have I been here? Too scared to ponder…
4/5

In Retrospect:
From cosy beginnings, [REC] builds its terror to a hysterical pitch, and then just keeps on going further until the shock ending is finally in the can.
4/5
Anton Bitel

[REC] – Screen

It’s Blair Witch. With zombies. In a building. Briliant…

Out 11 April. Many people have tried to emulate the cinema-verite/home movie trick of The Blair Witch Project…but few of them have succeeded. This year, though we’ve already seen a similar style employed to good effect in Cloverfield and now there’s [REC] – sure to be up there with The Orphanage as one of 2008’s scariest.

The set-up is beautifully conceived and simple. A film crew, bubbly blonde reporter, Angela (Manuela Velasco) and unseen, behind-the-lens cameraman Pablo – are following a late-night fire crew around for a TV show. When a call comes in about an old lady trapped inside a Barcelona apartment, firemen Manu (Ferran Terraza) and Alex (David Vert) respond to the emergency, with Angela and Pablo tagging along to film proceedings. What they find are coppers already assembled at the scene, the building’s other residents gathered in the lobby, and the woman, herself, rabid and covered in blood. When she takes a bite out of one rozzer’s neck, all hell breaks loose and the place is soon quarantined, trapping both living and dead inside, with no way out. And that’s it.

While Blair Witch relied on the power of suggestion for its scares, [REC] serves up horror that’s frenzied and hardcore. Spanish directors Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza show everything through the filter of Pablo’s camera, plunging the audience directly into the chaos. It’s immediate and effective and even Cloverfield’s minor, “Why is he still filming?” flaw is overcome by the fact that Pablo’s a professional – of course he’s still shooting. Still he’s only human and as the terror increases so the camera becomes increasingly shaky and the images served up are harder to focus on. Then the power goes out in the building, blackening the frame and leaving the camera spotlight as the only illumination. Then that fades, night-vision mode clicks in and things get really creepy…

Balaguero and Plaza know better than to inject anything beyond a hint of character, preferring to amp up the terror, tension and claustrophbia, with regular explosions of viscera and violence. More of a rollercoaster white-knuckle ride than a movie, at barely 80 minutes [REC] is too frantic to overstay its welcome. You will leave the cinema shaken and scared…Meanwhile, the Hollywood remake is already in the can.

IN SHORT: Gripping, unsettling and truly horrific, [REC] is much more than the gimmick suggested by its title. Prepare to squirm, wince and wonder at how a potential Blair Witch knock-off is quite so grimy and engrossing. And don’t eat dinner before you see it.

Mark Salisbury

The News of the World
‘A horror masterpiece’ ******‘
Robbie Collin

Daily Mirror
‘Terror turned all the way up to ten’ *****‘
David Edwards

Empire
‘A short, swift, terrifying ride’

Front
‘Blair witch meets 28 days later’

viewlondon.co.uk
‘One of the best films of the year’
Matthew Turner

Total Film
‘Gripping, unsettling and truly horrific’