Sunday 29 March 2009

Film: [Rec]

I finally watched Rec last night, a Spanish horror film that apparently 'is what Cloverfield dreamt of being'. Well I still like Cloverfield better, but Rec was creepier.
The film follows a TV crew filming firemen out on a job, in which they get called to a house where an old woman has gone crazy. I won't ruin it too much, but the firemen, journalist and all the tenants of the building find themselves locked in, with the building sealed off by the authorities, with no explanation.
It is filmed on a handheld camera by a character we never get to see, and we are taken through the action by the very cute TV reporter, who seems more excited than frightened by the turn of events for the first two thirds of the film- the latter part, she's perhaps wishing they'd gone to rescue a cat from up a tree.
There was definitely a lull in the middle where nothing seemed to happen for at least 15 minutes, but then when the action started again, it was horrifically relentless. I screamed very loudly at one point so I'm glad I was in my bedroom rather than the cinema.
The ending reveals a character who is is creepier than anything the Blair Witch project could offer up and whom I'm sure will be featuring in my nightmares very shortly.
The end seemed inevitable, and I guessed the cause of the mayhem, but was well executed, and genuinely frightening. A million times better than The Orphanage, if you don't mind subtitles it's definitely worth watching.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

[Rec] is brilliant, hadn't been a film like it since the Ring/Blair-Witch era almost a decade ago.

The presenter reminded me of Gail Porter.

- JOTV