Delayed Reaction: Rec2

Premise: Rec technically ended on a cliffhanger, so here's a bunch of answers you maybe didn't need.

Despite how prevalent they are, horror sequels are really hard. The audience already knows the game, so the options are ‘escalate’ or ‘pivot’. A pivot tends to piss off the audience, so almost all sequels opt to escalate: do the same thing, only more. That's pretty much the tactic of Rec2. Since we already know about the virus, it's about increasing the number of characters, getting more cameras, and heightening the stakes. I remember there was a religious angle to the original movie, and Rec2 really leans into it. It's damn near apocalyptic. That did less for me.

I do like that there are basically two groups not in communication with each other until late. Since we don't get the surprise of finding out about the quarantine, the surprise is figuring out what this other group was up to. I've always been a fan of stories that change based on one's perspective, so that was a nice addition to this.

Otherwise, this didn't work as well for me. The religious angle felt like too much of a puzzle: “There's an evil force so we just have to find the right good force to counteract it”. Whereas the first movie had more of a defeatist view: “Well, there's this virus. What can we really do?” I still might see more of these because I have a near infinite capacity for more found-footage movies, but I do now recognize this as a franchise of diminishing returns, not deepened impact.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend