Tonight’s Creeptober movie follows up last night’s, The Blair Witch Project, with found footage that takes a different approach to the format. Instead of chills and growing dread, this movie goes for intense, adrenaline-based fear. Tonight we watch REC.
Reacting to REC
One of the things I love most about REC is that, with one small exception, it feels like we’re watching unedited footage taken from a single video tape. It’s like we found it ourselves and are sitting down to watch an untouched record of what happened. There are obviously cuts made throughout the movie, but they’re hidden well in darkness and during frenetic action, or they happen whenever the camera is turned off by a character within the scene itself. I love how seamlessly that allows the scenes to flow from one to the next.
The only exception to the idea of us watching a tape as it was found is when Angela asks to see the footage of the old woman a second time and the screen does a rewind effect. I don’t like that part, and I wish they’d left it out. It breaks the immersion which is built so well in every other moment throughout the movie.
Despite that one quibble, I think the movie is great. Particularly great is the character of Angela. The opening scenes are rather mundane, but they give us good insight into Angela as a person. Seeing her get slightly annoyed by how boring the fire station is, and hearing her tell her cameraman, Pablo, to cut if her interviews are dull give us some good indications for why she jumps into the middle of the action later. Once she and Pablo are inside the apartment building, she is insistent that they be allowed to film despite the repeated condemnations by one of the police officers. It’s clear that she thinks she’s found an interesting story, but her resolve to continue being a reporter is tested when the danger becomes greater.
One thing that a lot of found footage movies struggle with is the logic for why people keep filming when the horror starts. In REC that logic is clear and sufficient. Angela wants to keep filming so she can report on it later, and that develops in parallel with wanting to have a record of their perceived mistreatment by the authorities who have quarantined them inside the building. So when Pablo runs towards the danger it makes sense. In many other movies like this, when someone is running into danger they should really be dropping the camera and running for their lives.
And of course, the horror action in REC is fantastic. This is definitely one of those movies where people who get motion sickness from shaky-cam might be overwhelmed, but I love it. The camera is suitably frantic for the action that is happening, but we also get good enough looks at the gorier bits to keep the fear-factor high.
My favorite moment is when the fireman, Alex, falls from one of the upper floors while most everyone else is on the ground floor. They’ve been arguing about what to do with the cop who was just bitten, and the other fireman, Manu, finally gets everyone to shut up. Then, as they’re about to decide what to do… splat! The fall is framed in the camera just right, but it feels natural since everyone was already looking at Manu. Many other films struggle with making moments like that feel organic. REC feels realistic the whole way through.
I’ve seen the sequels to REC, all three of them, but none of them come close to the original in my opinion. I’ve also seen Quarantine, the American remake of REC, but it feels like one of those completely unnecessary remakes. Just watch the original. I have. A lot. And I never get tired of it.
