You’ve probably not heard of it, but I bet you’ll remember the trailers for Quarantine, the movie about an apartment building that was sealed off after firefighters discovered some bad mojo. A TV reporter followed them in and recorded it all. The end of the trailer had the reporter lying on the floor and was them pulled backwards by a mysterious something. Remember?
Well, I’ve never seen it. I wanted to when it was in theaters, but never got around to it. However, just last week I read a review for the [REC]. Quarantine was just a remake. The review was glowing, so I decided to skip Quarantine and go for [REC].
The whole film is seen through the eyes of the TV news crew’s camera. This might remind you of Blair Witch Project. Though I’m a fan of that movie, this one didn’t really remind me of it. I’m not sure if the news crew camera idea is new, but it works. Throughout the flick, you never seen the camera man, you hear him once in a while, but that’s it. However, because you see the entire movie through his lens, he becomes the second most important character.
TV reporter, Angela Vidal, is in front of the camera most of the time. The producers had a stroke of brilliance here and hired a girl who wasn’t an actress, but an actual TV reporter. The movie opens as she is interviewing fire fighters at their station. In real life, this was a real fire station and these were real fire fighters. According to the producers, everyone thought that they were just making a documentary about fire fighters.
After about ten minutes, we arrive at the apartment building with two fire fighters. There it’s reported that an elderly woman is trapped in her apartment. Their job is to rescue her. Two police officers and a handful of neighbors are there to greet them.
And this is where things quickly go south. See, the old lady is sick. As one of the cops approaches, she violently screams, thrashes about and bites him, ripping out a chunk of his neck. The old lady is subdued, a firefighter stays with her as the rest, including the camera, take the cop downstairs.
The movie was shot entirely on location in this apartment building. Not sets were built. This makes the building more than just a set, but an integral character. Many horror movies attempt this, few can actually pull it off.
The main staircase that winds its way up four floors is the type that has an open center. You can see from the first floor all the way up to the third floor. After the cop is brought downstairs to be treated and the excitement dies down just a touch, we are reintroduced to the fireman left alone with the old lady. He is hurled down the open center of the winding staircase, hitting the ground with a loud, bloody thud.
Part of the fun of this scene is that none of the actors were told that this would happen. Their reactions of surprise and horror are real.
This is how [REC] was filmed, chronologically and without telling the actors what was going on until right before shooting. Because of the nature of the medium, seeing it all through the eyes of a TV news camera, the scenes play out with few edits or cuts. One scene goes on for 20 whole minutes without a cut. Many scenes play on for five or ten minutes.
This, combined with the very quick domino effect of things going horribly wrong gives us a nerve-wracking claustrophobic roller coaster. Imagine 28 Days Later happening in a tiny apartment building from which you can’t escape because the government has sealed it off.
But unlike 28 Days Later, there’s no grainy, over-exposed quick shots backed by really loud distorted guitars. In fact, it’s really the opposite of that. It’s shot very plainly, like a documentary. There is no music. There is nothing standing between you and the footage. This adds to the tension and by the end of this pretty short feature (it clocks in at 75 minutes), I was mentally drained. It doesn’t really let up.
Overall, pretty amazing movie. Please see it.
There also seems to be a sequel on its way. From the trailer, it looks like [REC]2 will play like Aliens did – same basic premise, but with a lot of guns. See it here.
