Story: Hey there!  I’m a reporter covering a 24-hour beat with the fire department who came to check up on a disturbance in your apartment complex.  So your dog is at the vet because it’s sick?  And that crazy lady upstairs has a weird rabies-like illness? Hmm. Oh well. I’m sure there’s no…hey wait, why are the cops quarantining our building? And did someone just say that crazy lady just bit one of the firemen? We’re screwed.

Scares: Just enough. Genuine chills even if it’s the jump atcha variety. Well done.

Splat factor: Believable gore, and like the scares, just enough of it to really get the zombie-esque infection teeth. (Get it?) Since this is a zombie/”infected” film, lightweights should know that “just enough” means “not dripping off the camera lens”.

Closing scene “shocker”?: If you’ve seen the film Quarantine, which is based on this film, you know what’s coming.  But even so, the ending? You know exactly what the survivors are gonna find, but it’s still eerie as hell.

Remake, Sequel or OG (Original Ghoul)?: The original. This is the first of the [Rec] series, and  as per the point above, it’s what the Quarantine series here in the States is based on.

Trick or Treat?: Zombies! Oh wait, maybe they’re infected? Posessed? Who cares! [Rec] is a blast, from the stupid people doing stupid things that get them killed, to the crazy conspiracy-theory-lovers quarantine of an entire building By Any Means Necessary.  There’s even a shout-out to the usual human response of run like hell if threatened.  Hey look; these Spanish characters don’t give a shit that the infection the government is trying to contain is crazy communicable. Must leave noooooow, who cares if we’re disease vectors? Just like Americans! Kumbaya!

This is obviously the film Quarantine was based on; several scenes are eerily similar,right down to the final shot. However, [Rec] is much better. There’s an eerie, ever-present sense of dread, and creepy but believable infected.

The film ditches it’s chemical infection for a supernatural cause at the end, but there’s still plenty of spooky. And gotta say, the idea of a demonic virus? Kind of an interesting spin on the usual zombies. The “rec” in the title of course means that this is a found-footage film, though it’s got a decent way of keeping the cameraman character filming without making it feel like a fakeout.

Onto [REC]2!

Score:

4.5 out of 5 pumpkins.  Half a pumpkin off because the demon stuff felt a little tacked on. What?