[REC]2

The 2007 Spanish film [REC] took the zombie/haunted house template of horror and infested it with fresh blood, carving out a genuinely thrilling atmosphere full of heart-pounding tension and grab-your-partner shocks. Director/writers Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza return to the confined spaces of the original film in [REC]2 carrying on immediately from where and when the first film left off. While never scaling the horror heights of its predecessor – it was always going to be hard to match the visceral thrills of [REC] – with Balagueró and Plaza still at the helm, [REC]2 offers a slightly lesser yet still impressive slice of flesh-eating fireworks.

The film begins with a group of policemen heading into the apartment building that hosted the cannibal carousing of the first film when a TV crew followed firemen into the building in the hope of getting a story – that story of course soon came to a deadly demonic demise. Once they enter the now ‘quarantined’ building they soon discover that things aren’t what they seem. The film moves on from its original premise and expands its story beyond the zombie attackers of [REC]. What works well here is the fact that the action takes off from the start and the filmmakers are not afraid to get down and dirty from the off and have the skill to carry it over the film’s running time.

It is all well shot and takes full advantage of its diagetic use of the camera to crank up the terror by thrusting the viewer slap bang into the pulsating action. The use of the TV camera in [REC] is replaced here by the use of multiple cameras. For the first part of the film we see things through the perspective of the policemen’s live feed. Then the camera is that of three (annoying) teenagers who enter the building and we see things from their camera’s lense. This also allows for a different perspective on events as they occur. As in the original, the filmmakers’ unnerving camerawork, use of light and subtle editing are used effectively to provide the necessary scares that push the narrative along.

Where [REC]2 fails to match its predecessor is in its use of characters. The rather faceless band of officers that go into the building create no bond with the audience and seem to be offered up to the horrors that lie within without ever having the audience care about them. And those pesky teenagers have you hoping for their swift zombification. In this way, because of this film’s lack of character focus, [REC]2 aims to provide its thrills on a more adrenaline level, whereas the first pursued a more tension-driven narrative as the audience were taken on an emotional thrill at the expense of people they cared about.

But there’s still plenty to recommend for fans of [REC] as the sequel provides enough ample scares and effective shocks to justify itself as a healthy zombie offspring. All things considered the franchise deserves a [REC]3. Bring on the bloody carnage…

([REC]2 is released on 28th May 2010)

Film Ireland