|
 Spain
gave the horror world a doozy of a film with 2007’s [REC]; a chilling,
documentary-style tale of a hapless reporter trapped in a nightmare.
Covering a fluff story for her television show, Ángela Vidal and her
cameraman find themselves locked in an apartment building after some
kind of rabies virus is loosed and begins turning the residents into
supernaturally strong, very hungry zombies. Furthering their terror is
the government’s extreme steps to keep the situation contained. Person
by person, the virus spreads and Ángela’s hopes for survival and means
to escape dwindle down to nothing. [REC] was such a sensation that it
found new life as a shot-for-shot US remake the following year called
Quarantine and the screech-worthy ending has been nicked for other
horror pieces like last year’s Paranormal Activity.
With a
movie creating that much international buzz, who could blame those
involved for dipping into the well twice, right? I can. [REC] 2 undoes
all the ingenuity that writer/directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza
displayed so brilliantly in the first film. [REC] straddled the lines
between samples of other films (- most notably The Blair Witch
Project), but added enough style and wit to make those accents the
film’s own, whereas [REC] 2 is nothing but a hodgepodge of horror movie
clichés and out-and-out ripoffs. In 2009, I disemboweled a film called
The Unborn for being an incredibly stupid Semitic version of the
Exorcist, well this time I’m filing my nails for [REC] 2 as an equally
idiotic Spanish version.
[REC]
2 picks up where [REC] ends, taking us outside the contaminated
building. We see the father of the child from the first film
frantically pleading with cops to let him get antibiotics to his little
girl. A new POV camera is put into play as a Spanish SWAT team readies
itself to enter the building. They are accompanied on this task by a
mysterious stranger who has the ultimate say on the team’s ability to
evacuate the building; a power this fellow has no problem abusing as
what at first appears to be a routine search and rescue becomes
something much more bizarre. The leader reveals himself to be a priest
and the virus the troops were geared to protect against is actually a
demonic possession that is somehow transferred via blood and saliva. In
a parallel subplot, three naughty teenagers decide to try for serious
YouTube hits by infiltrating and filming the doings inside the
quarantined flat. As the way of all things in a horror film, the worst
laid plans of everyone involved go awry and none of the participants in
this year’s film are prepared for the insanity within the apartment
building.
What
was the point of making this a movie about demonic possession? Where
was there to go, when you offer nothing that hasn’t been done before?
The whole original virus angle was fine, why add the extra helping of
religious cheese? Then, once that dubious element is introduced, nobody
bothers to explain it fully so that it makes any sense. There are
entire reams of script so artlessly lifted from the Exorcist and every
other demonic possession movie ever made that [REC] 2 isn’t so much a
sequel to the truly scary [REC], as it is a spoof of other horror films
and perhaps unintentionally, itself. There is a glaring missed
opportunity for redemption for the film, when the awful mysterious
priest premise gives way to the subplot about the three kids sneaking in
the building for giggles. That should have been where the film began
and stayed, keeping the virus idea, which worked perfectly well in [REC],
but no; we have to endure this stubborn, competent Exorcist rehash,
including projectile vomit. There’s not even a care for continuity
between the two films as Ángela, our heroine from the original movie is
returned to us (- sorry, this tripe isn’t worth a spoiler
warning) and her hair is a different colour and length than in [REC].
Mind you, the events taking place in [REC] 2 are meant to occur in the
same day. This is typical of the slapdash manner in which [REC] 2 is
constructed. Even the terrible religious angle is temporarily abandoned
for another thought entirely as we see some strange parasitic creature
enter the body of one of the victims, telling us the filmmakers think
evil demons look like the creepy ear slugs used in Star Trek 2: The
Wrath of Khan. This movie is just a hot mess and no amount of holy
water could save it. [REC] 2 is a straight-up money grab so terrible it
threatens to ruin the memory of how good [REC] was and on every level it
just fails and fails and fails.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
July 9th,
2010
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