Delayed Reaction: Rec

The Pitch: It's 2007 and found footage is still a new and exciting way to shoot a horror movie.

A news crew following some fire fighters for a story get quarantined in an apartment building after stumbling onto an aggressive infection affecting the tenants.

I saw the American remake of this (Quarantine with Jennifer Carpenter) nearly a decade ago. I liked it, but I noticed that people all seemed to agree that the Spanish original, Rec, was better. I don't remember all the details of Quarantine, but I think both are pretty good. There's a 30 point difference in RottenTomatoes scores. That's a bit much. That got me thinking though. Should American remakes of movies be immediately seen as inferior? The snobby or cinephile answer is "yes". The original should get more credit. A remake should, theoretically be able to improve on the original (via trial and error), so being just as good is actually not as good in a weird way. In general, I agree with this. For something like Rec/Quarantine, I'm not so sure. The cynical reason attributed to American remakes of foreign films is that Americans are too lazy to read subtitles. That's obviously true to some extent. What's also true is that if you are reading subtitles, that pulls you out of the movie some, which is the exact opposite of the intent of the found footage format. Found footage is all about pulling the audience in and experiencing it moment to moment. If it doesn't feel raw, then it fails. I liked Rec a lot, but being able to understand when people are talking over each other or pick up on side discussions would give me a different experience than being fed the most pertinent discussion through subtitles. There is value to an American audience getting an American remake of this movie.

Some of the thrills of the movie were spoiled by the fact that Quarantine hits most of the exact beats. Rec still got a jump or ten out of me though. I love that it's not even 80 minutes long. Horror works best in spurts. That's why I love horror anthologies so much. The film is unexpectedly hilarious. Manuela Velasco, who plays the reporter shooting the story following the firefighters, is gloriously careerist. Her hopes for something exciting to happen and determination to keep filming no matter what both helps to explain why the camera stays on so long and is a great source of dark humor.

There's three sequels to this movie. This one ends in such a darkly definitive way that I shudder to think of how they manage to bring Velasco back. I'm curious and I'm not. Either way, the first part is very good for fans of horror and found footage.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend