'REC'

Whenever I can, I try to follow Fantasporto. I never actually go there because it's held three days behind the sunset from here, but I try to follow it nonetheless. See, it's a highly acclaimed movie festival that doesn't suck yet. And unlike Cinema X, it actually gets very good contributions.

In the past, Fantasporto was responsible for bringing us movies such as Scanners (1983), Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1991), Cube (1999) and Janghwa, Hongryeon (2004). And the 2008 festival was no exception in delivering a good film: REC, by Jaume Balangueró, a spanish movie which drop-kicked both The Blairwitch Project and George A. Romero in the same go.

As zombie movies go, we've pretty much seen it all. They've been around for a good while. We've also come a long way from Night of the Living Dead (1968), which pretty much defined the zombie apocalypse genre. In fact, Romero himself seems to have thought having a bunch of reanimated recently-dead corpses walking about like sleepwalkers was no good. The modern zombie runs and doesn't just mindlessly grab its victims: it goes right for the neck. Some of them can use weaponry as well, or improvise weaponry. We've also seen that Romero-style zombies seem to be able to think now, plan ahead and work as a team. They seem able to communicate too, in fact, if you go by Land of the Dead (2005). So, if even zombies are turning into semi-conscious beings, is it worth to even make more zombie movies? Romero pretty much covered it all, and Resident Evil, as shitty as it was, took the scraps, right?

Wrong. And REC is here to demonstrate why.

Shot as if by an on-scene reporter camera (which at times, unfortunately, reminds us of painful moments such as The Blairwitch Project), REC tells the story of a pair of reporters covering a story about the life of the common fireman. When the firemen are called to an emergency on an old building, the reporters go along, hoping for a great scoop. Unfortunately, very soon, they find out they aren't the only ones aware something is wrong, the building was sealed, and now it's them... and the recently departed. Now, I'm going to be tossing about a lot of spoilers, which you may not want to read, so if you're still going to watch it, you may want to stop now.

Most people agree that The Blairwitch Project sucked. It was headache-inducing, had no specific content or a plotline, most of the times you didn't know what was going on and the fact they tried to publicize the movie by making believe it was actually a tape of three stranded teenagers was... laughable at best. This is how they tried to publicize Cannibal Holocaust in 1980. Only in 1980, the director got arrested for playing with serious stuff, and in 1999, people rolled their eyes and groaned. However, The Blairwitch Project nearly nailed something that had never been done before as filming went: a first-person recording, an amateur-camera style of movie. This was pretty new. And REC made use of the same technique: low budget, not a lot of flashy stuff needed. In fact, on the course of the whole movie, I counted one CGI and a whole deal of makeup. That's it. And it feels real.

Another thing that contributed to the "reality" feel was the fact there are next to no cuts. It was all done in one take, possibly with a lot of improvised dialog, and a credible panicked state. You have a group of people under house arrest (because authorities are quick to put the whole building under quarantine) and they're about to lose their minds. The actors are next to unknown, and were quite acclaimed at the festival, in fact. The lead actress, Manuela Velasco, won Best New Actress in Goya Awards, and it was pretty well-deserved.

So, is this worth seeing? Yes. Definately yes. It's quite well-done, from what I've seen of Spanish TV shows, it's an accurate portrait, and it's an interesting movie. It might even chill you once or twice (didn't do much for me, but I've been watching stuff like this since I was a kid). What probably isn't worth seeing, is the American remake for it. Yeah. Hollywood's working on a remake of this already. It's called Quarantine.

Allow me to show exactly how much of a remake it is. I'm gonna link you to two trailers. This is the trailer for Rec.



Cool huh? Now this is the trailer for Quarantine.



... see what I mean? Which do you feel like watching more? It's pretty much the same thing, isn't it? And REC has this sort of.... I don't know. If nobody told you, and you were watching this without sound, you'd know it's not set in America. It has a sort of... trait to it that makes it all the more real-like. If you want to watch a movie with a complete idea it's a movie, I'd recommend Quarantine, but if you want to watch something and not know it's a movie (which the amateur recording style aims for, actually), REC could fool you better for the first half hour of the movie.

It's something a lot of people criticized, in fact, that REC is slow. It takes time building up a sense of danger, it takes time to get to the action, and once it does, it lasts briefly before going back to slow-mo. I kinda like it, it's not long enough to bore you and sets up the mood for the shit hitting the fan afterwards.

So what makes this work where The Blairwitch Project failed? Well, to begin with, you are aware of what the heck's happening. In The Blairwitch Project had this was a major problem: nobody was ever sure what was going on. You'd be watching it and wondering, "What the heck did they see?", "What was that?", "What're they doing?" The scenario isn't half as confusing and the characters have a lot more personality... and a lot more variety of them, not three copies of the cliché teenager. It has everything to triumph over The Blairwitch Project, or Cloverfield, which pretty much had the same problems, plus the assumption a common domestic cam has a lot of resistance to damage. Go ahead and watch it, it's worth it.