4 out of 5

Directors – Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza

I saw Quarantine without any awareness of the plot and was blown away and admittedly freaked a bit by the ending.  I immediately watched Rec, knowing Q was a shot-for-shot remake w/ slight tweaks, and found myself let down.  Flash forward 3 years, and I rewatch Rec and am blown away by how high intensity it is and how it builds to its end, and then watched Quarantine directly after and was let down, especially by how vague the end is in comparison.  Go figure.  Rec is a zombie flick.  Nothing new there.  It’s done first person style, the genre of which obviously isn’t new, but the combination of the two was novel at the time and as these are the running zombie variety, allowed for an elevated intensity after a certain point that most POV flicks lack.  But it still suffers from the same main problem as the majority of the genre – that you run out of reasons for having the camera there.  You can only say “we must film this” so many times.  Directors Balaguero and Plaza actually cop to this on occasion, leaving the camera on the floor and filming feet, but it still feels a little iffy.  So lets amp up the scares to move past it – which the film does, once it gets going, very well.  After my repeated views I still think Jennifer Carpenter is a much more convincing freaked out than Manuela Velasco (confirmed by her part in the sequel), as she’s a bit too cute for most of the flick and never quite looks frazzled enough, and the conclusion is also very regional feeling (as was the American one), but the buildup is worth it and the set design at that point is truly freaky.  I initially rated this 3 gibbles – bumping it up to 4 for its apparent lasting effect.  Take a break from these style films and then return to Rec; you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised by how well it works.