 |
| Release: 2009, Rating: R, Runtime: 85 min. |
I wouldn’t say I’m a big fan of handheld shot films, but with the first [Rec] movie (a Spanish movie, with English subtitles, as is the second one), I was willing to forgive, based on the fact that it was freaking scary for the most part and pretty damn violent and bloody. Does [Rec] ² capture that same pants shitting feeling, or are you better off letting the series end with the first? Find out by grabbing your camera, as we’re going “zombie” hunting with this review…
Short nitty-gritty plot description from IMDb is as follows: The action continues from [Rec], with the medical officer and a SWAT team outfitted with video cameras are sent into the sealed off apartment to control the situation.
[Rec] ² starts off exactly on the last frame of the first [Rec] and introduces us to a heavily armored team of trained professionals, being sent in with a medical officer, with the main goal to protect the medical officer and find out exactly what is going on. It isn’t long before mayhem ensues and we get served a rather strange plot nugget, one of which may turn you off from liking the rest of the movie.
Reviewing this movie is hard without revealing any sort of plot information, as it’s actually one of the top things that bothered me at first. However, once the movie started explaining everything a little better and presenting some interesting theories, the idea started to grow on me. (Trying my best to be as vague as possible, without spoiling anything.)
I really enjoyed the continuation of the story from the first one and the idea to bring a bunch of armed soldiers into the mix was pretty awesome, but unfortunately that plot thread was half baked. The soldiers panicked way too easily and sucked pretty bad at following the orders of shooting these zombies in the head. Instead, they opted to spray their bullets all over the place, or just give up without trying. I was feeling a real good Aliens vibe at first and yes, the Colonial Marines in that movie kinda fell apart fairly quick as well when the shit hit the fan, but those were freaking Aliens with acid blood, these are just infected crazy zombies, who can be put down with a shot to the head!
 |
| Granted, they do look like this! |
We also take a little bit of a tangent with the story and follow a few other civilians who get roped up in the events of the infected and quarantined building. I felt like this side story slowed things down a little. We did get a few neat scenes with them, but for the most part, I would’ve much rather had more soldiers be in the building and just have these civvies tag along, or just be removed from the story altogether.
[Rec] ² doesn’t exactly capture all the dread and scariness of the first one. We still do have ample amounts of scares and some nice gnarly violence, but things just aren’t as scary the second time around. That isn’t to say [Rec] ² is a bad movie, as it does for the most part make an interesting and jumpy time, but when put up against the first, it pales in comparison.
Rating:
