Hey, Want To See A Great Horror Mockumentary?! REC Reviews Popping In!

Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. I’m a glutton for punishment. That’s the only logical explanation for why I would bring up any horror mockumentary to the larger AICN audience mere days after an angry lynch mob tried to hang me by my beanbag for screening THE POUGHKEEPSIE TAPES at BNAT. But fuck it. This sounds great to me, and I’m excited by the feedback:

Greetings from Spain. For the first time in my life, it has happened. I have seen a horror movie that has disturbed me to such a degree, I cannot go to sleep... The movie in question is Rec. A simple, small movie. But fuck me...think of Blair Witch meets Dawn of the Dead. Yeah, I know. It sounds like 28 days later, or one of the many zombie movies that have been done in the last few years. That's what I thought going into the movie...but it's the execution...the realism. You REALLY believe this is happening. I feel like I need to spread the word. Horror fans are going to LOVE this movie. It's the one we've been waiting for. That's why I ask you to PLEASE PLEASE post this review...make this Spanish movie known. People need to hear about it. The movie is already gaining quite a reputation, having received best director (Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza), best actress (Manuela Velasco) and Best Movie awards at the Sitges Film Festival. It has become a blockbuster here in Spain. It's making as much money as Bee Movie for crying out loud. The movie is about news reporter Angela and cameraman Pablo, who go to film a documentary about a normal night with the fire brigade. The entire movie is filmed by Pablo as the documentary they are making. The night starts off with no calls...no fires...very boring, just hanging out with the firemen until they receive a call to go to a building. When they arrive, they are told by the neighbours that the old lady who lives on the second floor has been screaming for the past half hour. They go up....and well, this is when disturbing things start to happen. The old lady bites the neck of one of the firemen, and so they try to get out of the building for him to get some medical help, only to find the building locked from the outside under the "NBQ" (Nuclear, Biochemical and Chemical) protocol by military men...we learn there is an unknown infection in the building...you can imagine what happens to the fireman who has been bitten... The movie has some of the most intense shocks and scares I have EVER seen. They should warn people; it really is too fucking intense. It also has the perfect balance of suggestion, and gore. It doesn't suggest waaay to much (like the Blair witch did in my opinion), but it doesn't go over the top with the gore either. It's a perfect marriage, and one I am not used to seeing in horror movies. The last 20 mins, when only a couple of them have survived (in human form...) and have to go to the top floor (I won't say why)...what they find in that apartment...think the end of the blair witch times fucking 100. The 20 most disturbing minutes I have seen in a theatre... For me, the real success of the movie was the setting. It doesn't take place in the woods...or in a distant future. It takes place in a fucking normal building in the center of the city (albeit a dark building). Anyway, please post this. Start talking about this movie. I believe it to be a horror classic already. In case you haven't seen it already, here goes the trailer with English subtitles: Imagineer signing out.

Sounds good. Looks good. And here’s another person to tell us that, indeed, it is good.

Dear Harry, Long time reader, blah blah here from Barcelona, who just came from the premiere of [REC], the brand new movie from Jaume Balagueró, whom you should know from his previous horror flicks, like Darkness (starring Anna Paquin) and Fragile (starring Calista Flockhart). Havent seen a review in your site, so here comes mine: Jaume Balagueró writes and directs all his horror flicks. While quite a lot of the latest horror films - The Orphanage, for example - try to focus quite a lot on all the history behind what's happening, usually trying to amaze us in a Sixth-sense way where all the plot is explained in a small flashback at the end of the movie, he prefers to just frighten the audience without really needing to give out much explanations, while having a light plot just to hold it all together. Anyway, let's try to get into the movie: A female reporter and her camera man from a TV show are entrusted to follow a group of firemen into their daily work. Short after we meet the main characters, the alarm sounds and they get into an old building in Barcelona, where all the residents are waiting at the building's entrance because of some horrifying screams wich come out from one of the apartments. The policemen who came along with the firemen and our main characters get into that apartment, only to find an old fat woman who's gone crazy, all ending up in her biting the policemen. The story wich follows is quite simple, and may not seem interesting at all: the building is sealed by the government because of sanitary issues, and everyone who ends up bitted by an infected person becomes some kind of zombie. Until now, nothing really makes it look like a movie with a great script. However, is the way it's filmed, the rythm and how Jaume Balagueró frightens us what makes it, in my opinion, this years best spanish horror flick. In some way, it looks kind of like The Blair Witch Project, since everything is filmed with the digital camera holded by one of the main characters. It really helps in giving a faster rythm, wich would be quite slow by the lack of an intense script. On the other hand, there's a lot of effort into making it look "real", not only by adding the kind of characters wich you would find in a typical Barcelona building, but also putting a lot of effort in making the dialogue and reactions credible. Just to finish off, it might not be one of the greatest horror movies of all times, and the technique's been used on other movies before, but it's really worth a shot, and quite interesting in a time where directors, scared of making something fresh and new, tend to stick into already known horror flick structures wich work. As said, risky, but really worth it (and way better than The Orphanage if I might say). Excuse me for my sucky english, hope the review will be understandable. Oh, by the way, call me Loki if you decide to publish it.