[REC]³ Genesis started off good, switching between two camera man, one who has a high def camera and another with a lower end camera, filming the upcoming wedding of Clara and Koldo. However, the film quickly falls apart once it abandons the found footage style, injects some humour and gives us a really wonky love story. [REC]³ Genesis isn’t bad, but it isn’t great either…
Release: Mar 30th, 2013
Short nitty-gritty plot description from IMDb is as follows: A couple’s wedding day turns horrific as some of the guests start showing signs of a strange illness.
Tatlock’s Quick ‘n Dirty Recap: Clara and Koldo are about to get married and boy are they in love. So in love, they can even sense when the other is still alive (ugh, what is this, Nicholas Sparks’ REC?). Anyway, as the wedding concludes and the party begins, the “zombies” show up to wreck the party and man do they ever show up fast. Jumping like crazy coked-up monkeys, biting people and just acting all crazy and possessed (so, pretty much like any other normal wedding party guests). The two love birds get split up and we spend the rest of the movie (sans shaky-cam style), watching the love-struck couple trying to reunite, cause it feels so good.
Tatlock’s Opinion: I loved the first [REC] and [REC]² was great as well. I’m not normally a fan of found footage/shaky cam movies, but somehow, those two films I could accept and just appreciate for being so scary and gory. [REC]³ Genesis, however, completely poops all over those ideas and decides to try something different and fails. Once the found footage scenario is removed, the movie loses anything that would make it stand out from all the other billion zombie movies. Add in some humour, which wasn’t needed and some sketchy acting, we get a movie that pales in comparison to its predecessors.
I’m not going to trash it completely though, as there was a bunch of stuff I did like. The party crashers are pretty crazy looking (especially when you get a glimpse of them in a mirror) and the gore is top-notch, with lots of throat rippings and beheadings. The ending also left me smiling, but more so cause I didn’t like most of the characters. Plus, it was nice for the movie to connect directly into the first two movies, showing that it is indeed taking place at exactly the same time as the previous ones. It’s a damn shame it couldn’t of had a better story to go along with the positives.
Verdict: [REC]³ Genesis is not a good [REC] sequel. It takes what was special in the first two, removes it, adds in some unnecessary humour and doesn’t add anything new to the mythology that was expanded upon in [REC]². I say give [REC]³ Genesis a watch, but see it as an onetime offshoot to the [REC] series and wait for the true inevitable sequel that will continue from [REC]².
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