MyRating: YY1/2Director: Jaume Balaguero, Paco Plaza
Cast: Jonathan Mellor, Manuela Velasco, Oscar Zafra, Ariel Casas, Alejandro Casaseca, Pablo Rosso
This is the sequel of the surprising horror made by Spain in 2007, [Rec], which has been adapted by Hollywood in 2008 with Quarantine. The story continues immediately after the end of the first movie. After losing contact with the people quarantined inside the apartment building, a SWAT team and a health specialist are sent inside the building to check the situation and find out what is happening. At the same time, three kids, who like to do wild stuff, find it is challenging to sneak inside the same forbidden building in order to satisfy their adrenalin. And what they all find inside is worst than their worst nightmares when they are attacked by a bunch of zombies roaming inside the building.
I like the first [Rec], it is an original, very scary and a good horror movie. The shooting with the camcorder is the main attraction, as it puts you in the first person's point of view who walk and run up-and-down the apartment building. It adds more tensions to the film than if it was merely shot in the conventional third person's point of view. The camcorder's shots were also carefully taken, so to minimize the potential dizziness usually created by this kind of movies. (Not the same as Cloverfield - the worst experience I had in cinema when watching movies shot with camcorder, because it made me really sick and nauseous through out the movie). But [Rec] is not.
This second movie actually started quite promising when the new team entering the building and exploring the inside, as we wait for their first encounter with the zombies. But somehow after the attacks and halfway through the film, it started to lose its grips. I think the way the film try to explain too much about the cause of the plague and its connection with demonic possession kind of hurt the story and the tension of the movie. I am the one who prefer to leave the zombies with the zombies, without have to link it with religious factor.
If you have not watched [Rec], maybe you will find this as something new. But if you have watched the first movie plus Quarantine, then what you will find here is more of the same, with the exactly same setting inside the apartment building and relatively same way of terrors. But it is not as scary as the first one.
If they are planning to make a third movie, I think they have to find a new setting location. It will definitely more interesting to see the plague spread outside the building. (MJ)
