[REC] (2007)
Review by Jeffery J. Timbrell
I have to make a confession: I’m really enjoying this new brand of horror movie.
The recent genre in the vein of “amateur footage” has a back to basics approach that has potential to be the shot in the arm that indie horror directors have needed for a long time. The approach has a similar grassroots “do it yourself” vibe that movies like Evil Dead, ReAnimator and Texas Chainsaw Massacre once generated; a fresh enthusiasm for a new kind of filmmaking that can reinvigorate genre movies.
In The Blair Witch Project we saw the traditional horror film from the perspective of the hapless victims, in Cloverfield we experienced a giant monster attack at ground zero, in Diary of the Dead we’re trapped in Romero’s zombie apocalypse. In [REC], the audience is placed in the shoes of a bystander in the middle of a siege horror film, ala John Carpenter’s The Thing, Evil Dead, Night of the Living Dead or Prince of Darkness.
The story focuses on a young reporter who has been given the job of chronicling a day in the life of a couple of fire fighters. In the middle of the night the alarm goes off and the fire fighters are sent to an apartment building where a woman is said to be trapped in her room. Rushing in to help her, the fire fighters get a lot more then they bargained for, as the woman goes insane and savagely attacks her rescuers. While the attack is going on a full-scale quarantine seals off the exits, trapping the reporter and the audience in the apartment building with a group of very scared people and a mounting threat.
[REC] (which stands for “RECORD”) is the best of the recent crop of “found footage” films; the mixture of its directing style with the siege-horror archetype is a perfect fit for a solid horror movie.
Horror fans go into this type of movie with all their built in expectations and the baggage of the genre, but with [REC] they’ll soon realize they are missing all the safety nets. [REC] has no musical cues to announce when something scary is about to happen, there’s no stylization to hide the violence, there is very little in the way of comedy, the effects are mostly practical staying away from CGI’s lack of realism and the edits are very cleverly hidden. There are times when the scariest thing about [REC] is the fact that the viewer, doesn’t have peripheral vision. The camera has to make a “turn” to see what’s going on down a hallway, and that can transform any scene into a “jump out of your seat” scare. Which means nothing is safe and by the ending of the film that helps to build a thrilling and suffocating finale.
That brings us to the biggest strength of the movie: the direction of Jaume Balagueró. Jaume’s clever choices in framing and camera movement, not to mention his control over the action both in and out of the shot, displays a masterfully crafted horror film within what is suppose to look like RAW source footage. And he makes it look easy. Balagueró embraces the medium, using outtakes, improvisation and the low-tech approach to help define the characters, tell the story, and break out of the conventional horror film mold. At the same time [REC] is a love letter to the genre featuring nods of the head to Evil Dead and Evil Dead II, a great cult film atmosphere in the same vein as Argento’s Demons, a mixture of action and paranoia that recalls Carpenter’s The Thing and an internal character dynamic that is an obvious nod to Night of the Living Dead.
Balagueró, much like Álex de la Iglesia and Alejandro Amenábar, has always been a criminally over-looked talent on this side of the pond. Balagueró’s films, while not always strong in plot, have shown an exact and precise sense of composition, making him a director to keep an eye on for fans of genre cinema. Balagueró is also clearly in love with genre films and is unashamed of working in the field; he is equally brave in attempting many different things and respectful towards the roots of horror cinema as well as its fans.
Balagueró’s movies are quickly becoming cult hits in underground cinema and [REC] is a breakout hit with a hugely positive reaction from fans and critics alike. [REC] has already won the Sitges Prize of the Public, the Critics Prize, the Best Director Award, the Best Actress Award and the Fantastic’ Arts Jury Prize and it has been picked up for the inevitable North American remake.
The studios in Hollywood took one look at [REC], saw dollar signs and wet their panties in joy. Faster than you can say “The Grudge“, they’ve bought up the rights for [REC], remade it and are releasing it as “Quarantine” (review). You can check out the trailer for it online, and you can also check out the mountains of pissed off horror fans ripping the trailer a new one.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter; remake or not, the cat is out of the bag. [REC] is one of the best horror films in recent memory and Balagueró has cemented his place as a talented and versatile genre filmmaker worthy of our attention.
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