Rec

After many recommendations from friends, and I suppose getting sucked into the hype surrounding REC, I finally got round to watching it.

Unfortunately, I was left a little disappointed. I love my horror movies so was expecting something special. I get the fact that it's filmed on a camcorder, but some scenes, particularly the first half, seemed to be just people running around unnecessarily. It became quite hard to focus on what exactly was going on.

There were a couple of jumpy moments, but I never felt like I properly engaged with the actors and their characters. It got to a point where I didn't care if they were killed or not! (Because I didn't really get to know them).

I'll give this movie 3 stars out of 5. It does redeem itself in the last 15 minutes! The movie is short, so you can easily make it to the end.

There's a lot of good Spanish horror movies, directors and script writers. This movie doesn't live up to the hype. We've seen a lot of camera first person movies after the advent of Blair Witch, which face it, wasn't that good to the hype.

Cue Rec. Now this movie kinda has EXACTLY the same ending as BWP which I think is its let down. Knowing Spanish movies well [I live in Barcelona] I'm criticising this movie as the notion of surveillance is absent from the majority of horror movies [as YOU the camera]. Its got poor dialogue and scripting. Yeah there's a few creepy parts and yes I did immerse myself in the movie.

There's far too much space between the action, the characters are alike to those in Cloverfield. This is a pity as they are so annoying or stupid you WANT them to die. The pacing of the movie is poor. There's no 'real' tension from the beginning. It builds up to the last 5 minutes and one then questions - why exactly did you do that exactly?

The rest of the scares are the kinda CHEAP scares you get in any Hollywood movie. It would have been better paced with creepy camara angles [a la Resident Evil video game genre] to give the movie more depth. You can do this even on a LOW budget using CCTV coverage [although in Spain CCTV isn't big like the UK].

A lot of comparisons have been made to how TV is supposed to be boring and the coverage and interviews from the lead actress convey this. Sure, point taken. I'd say the only thing I like is the cameraman in shot which diverts the eye from other actions. Still this direction is okay, not the next best thing to sliced bread. Cloverfield is the best in this genre IMHOHard Life [mainly as I love halflife the game]. At least this gave a credible closure.

With the 1st person movie I've yet to come away thinking, "man that was genius". Still I think a head cam first person perspective is more credible even better as you can get INTO the action as they have hands free. Don't believe all the hype you read about this movie. It's slow, cheap thrills and people who you wanna die do die. It's a better movie than BWP, the remake Quantine and Romeros' Diary of the Dead. But that ain't exactly like saying it's as good as Alien, Ben Hur or The Usual Suspects!

If you like scares and tension, limited music then check out "Them" "ils" which is terror, supposedly based on a true life crime with next to no blood. That succeeded in frightening me!

I love Rec. When I first saw a trailer in the cinema I was intrigued by what looked like a documentary about Spanish firemen but with something waiting for them in a block of flats. I waited to see if it came out in any of the cinemas near me and had no luck. So when I spied that it was out on DVD I rented it out and arranged a night round my friends house. (If you hate subtitles then don't watch it but please don't watch the awful remake Quarantine either!)

We sat in the dark and for the first 20 minutes or so the film played just like a documentary. A journalist following a group of Spanish firemen. But then when they arrive at the block of flats to investigate an emergency call the film turns into a tight horror. I can't really say too much more but after the film ended we had to leave our friend at home...on his own. He really didn't want us to leave. Even now I still get a little spooked by open loft hatches...