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cinemarts wrote:

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bugger the spoiler alert.
it ends with them all turning into birds and flying away.
highly symbolic.



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Shelly

Steve Guariento wrote:

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[REC] or, Pardon Me Señor, But Your Film Has No Ending. (2007)

Spoilers follow, of course.

The "found document" is a comparatively recent idea in horror cinema. As a literary device it has its antecedents in Poe, Lovecraft et al - the discovery of a manuscript in which Awful Events are described, posthumously, by a terrified Narrator - so it's perhaps surprising that it was not until 1979's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST that the conceit was first exploited in a specifically cinematic context. It took the world nearly 20 years to recover from the savagery of Ruggero Deodato's ultra-real tale of documentary filmmakers devoured by the Amazonian head-hunters they thought to exploit; incredibly, we have to wait until 1998 to see a revival of the technique in THE LAST BROADCAST, although it was THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT a year later which garnered all the attention, updating the conceit for the camcorder age. Since then, only a handful of films have tried to replicate the "found footage" notion - MY LITTLE EYE and the coda to the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake are all I can bring to mind until the nuclear impact of this year's CLOVERFIELD (ignoring, as audiences did, the damp fart of George Romero's DIARY OF THE DEAD).

CLOVERFIELD - the most galvanising cinematic experience I can recall since STARSHIP TROOPERS in '97 and ten years before that, ROBOCOP - energised the formula like a blast of gamma radiation, pretty much rendering all competition in the verité stakes null and void. My hopes had been high for [REC], as fanboy word-of-mouth swiftly spread the rumour that this was all that DIARY OF THE DEAD promised but had failed to deliver; sad to say, however, this underachieving Spanish zombie horror never really achieves the kind of relentless momentum that elevated CLOVERFIELD to the status of instant classic, and even at 70 minutes feels padded. Its blunt refusal (or inability) to supply a satisfactory conclusion proves that directors Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza have learned all the wrong lessons from the Coen brothers, and overall it contributes little either to the zombie genre or to the docu-horror vogue. A few isolated moments of effective suspense do not a great thriller make, and [REC] ends, or rather stops dead, on a predictable but unsatisfactory note of despair. [Note to horror directors: it's time to retire the "surprise downbeat ending" idea. It's no longer surprising. Hasn't been for years. Try doing some hard bloody work at the typewriter for once and GET SOME NEW IDEAS.)

[REC]'s generally uninspired scenario essentially revisits Lamberto Bava's DEMONS 2 (1986), not exactly a high watermark of ambition to begin with. Still, the notion of a band of desperate survivors trapped in an apartment building over-run with an infestation of carnivorous zombies could have been a winner, provided the concept had been done sufficient justice by writers and directors (incredibly, [REC] boasts three of the former and two of the latter). Trouble is, the claustrophobic setting is never excitingly exploited, content with merely traipsing its protagonists repeatedly up and down several flights of stairs. Again and again this increasingly tired formula is trotted out: slowly we creep up the stairs, all the while conducting a noisy argument of some sort (regarding which, see below), wait for the zombie(s) to leap out, everyone screams ("AAAAAAAAAH!") and we all run downstairs again very quickly. (Well, sometimes not all.)

Unlike CLOVERFIELD, whose breathless pace never flagged for a moment, [REC] suffers from an irritating stop-start structure which only draws attention to the flaws and limitations of the filmed-on-a-camcorder technique. To begin with, there's only ever a single perspective to the narrative, and while [REC]'s justification for the TV-newsreel conceit is perhaps technically more credible than CLOVERFIELD's, it simply doesn't work as well - possibly due to the limited potential of its apartment-block setting, versus CLOVERFIELD's city-wide adventuring. Second, the obvious elisions where the camera is arbitrarily switched off are an overly-transparent means of dramatic expediency, drawing attention to the technique and shattering the illusion of realism. Finally, too much of the mise-en-scene consists of characters declaiming dialogue (loudly) direct-to-camera, which is neither dramatic, cinematic, or accidentally engaging for any other reason. The final effect is of a talented group of sixth-formers mounting an amateur theatrical production, with insufficient knowledge of how best to stage the action. I'm sounding like a broken record, but the choice of location here doesn't exactly help: surely an apartment building with superior architectural qualities could have been found, offering greater scope for expanding the action. Here we're limited exclusively to a staircase and a couple of apartments (which might even be the same apartment, slightly re-dressed, for all I know). It doesn't exactly inflame the imagination beyond endurance.

So far as the cast is concerned I have no specific complaints, but one general observation. Having seen and heard more than my fair share of hysterical Spanish women of late, in the six episodes of Spanish TV horror series FILMS TO KEEP YOU AWAKE and the Mexican RING imitation KM 31, I can only advise anyone contemplating marriage with these continental hellions to reconsider their position. They strike me as a trifle, er, difficult. Trying, even. A newfound respect for the tolerance and fair-mindedness of the Spanish male began to cross my mind while watching [REC] in particular, as the long-suffering cameraman attempted unsuccessfully to hush the persistent squawking of his female companion as they explored an otherwise silent, zombie-infested apartment block. Now, one expects a horror-movie actress to exercise her lungs somewhat during the course of the film, but dear Lord, the slightest hint of tension appears to send a Spanish woman's dementia levels rocketing straight to 11. Think Mink Stole with PMT, then quadruple it. This nerve-shredding vocal hysteria becomes more than a little wearing before very long, and you may find yourself expressing relief when the shrieker-in-chief is finally dragged away to be devoured. A shame, really, since she's a real cutie when out of jeopardy, i.e. for the first ten minutes of the flick. (Manuela Velasco is her name, and if she turns up again in a quieter role I'll gladly give her a second chance.) But once characters start to behave foolishly, an audience cannot help but begin to resent them - and then the film's in trouble.

Zombie addicts will ignore the above and watch it anyway, but deserve better. Perhaps the imminent US remake QUARANTINE may exploit the potential to superior effect, but I'm not holding my breath. There's also [REC]2 on the way, which had better offer something in the way of an improvement on the first instalment or everyone here will be forced to read the above review all over again and it'll be déjà vu all over again. Quel horreur.

I rewatched Bava's DEMONS 2 a few short weeks ago and aside from being a true towering tribute to 80's fashion nightmares and music, it really did make me laugh out loud at times. The demon child being a good example of how something so horrible, could be so hilarious. With gallons of green ooze dripping from each infectious demon, it hasn't aged well. And as you remind me, the apartment block setting was never as terrifyingly claustrophic as it should have been.

Shame that [REC] didn't seem to get much beyond that.

As for screeching, excitable, annoyingly demented harpies - why not portray screaming men? Must they always remain calm in a zombie / slasher / psycho-menace crisis? I think not.

Shelly