Opening Day: 8 April 2010

Synopsis:

It has been just 15 minutes after authorities lost contact with the people locked in the building under quarantine. Nobody knows what happens inside. Outside is chaos...a SWAT unit enters the interior of the house to monitor the situation and determine what is happening. A seemingly quick and easy task. But everyone knows. Sometimes appearances can be deceiving...

Movie Review:

After getting remade into Quarantine by Hollywood, the much adored Spanish shaky cam horror[Rec] is back with a direct sequel.

For the uninitiated, in the original [Rec], viewers followed the unraveling of horror through the lens of a documentary camera man. The TV crew of one hot television reporter and the cameraman were following the Barcelona firemen for one night, documenting their nightshift work. As fate would have it, they got a call that a woman was trapped in her apartment. As fate would have it, the simple mission turned progressively zombie bad. To make matter worse, the film crew, the firemen, the policemen and the residents found themselves held captive in the apartment building that had been quarantined to hold the infected people in.

[Rec]2 starts right at where [Rec] had ended. This time round, we follow a team of special task force and a technician from Ministry of Health into the quarantine apartment building to investigate what went on inside. The technician soon revealed to the rest (and us) on what actually happened, updating everyone to what had been discovered at the end of the original film. He also revealed the actual objective of this mission was to locate the blood sample of patient zero so that an antidote could be created and that set the wheel in motion for this movie. Along the way, they discovered unexpected uninfected personals and more good old zombie horrors in their way.

Even though it's been a quite some time in between the making of both movies, [Rec]2 was able to create the feeling that it was filmed right after the first [Rec]. The cursed apartment still had that same eeriness to it and not surprisingly, some of the characters from the first movie made a comeback as zombies (Yup it's been mention that they got the original cast back for their respective roles). Fans would enjoy the same old atmospheric scariness that this film was able to generate.

One of the distinctive differences in [Rec]2 would be how the special task force utilized fancy recording devices to video their venture into quarantine area. This special recording devices (mini camera attached to their helmet) allowed the story telling to split between personals, thus allowing them to cover various area in different time.

The other distinctive difference would be that this time round, the folks going in are armed with weapons. It allowed some fun with fragging the zombie, just like what they normally does in computer shooter games such as House of the Dead.

The horror element in this installment also deviate from what was set up in the original movie. This is the part where it probably will turn off some fans who enjoy the first part for it's zombie elements. It build on from the discovery at the end of the first [Rec] and took the horror to an total different genre of horror. The mixture of the scientific virus and religious intervention provided new twists to what was establish and open things up for a boarder expansion in the future installment*. But of course it would turn some fans off as half way through, it felt that the story tellers were trying to tell another different story.

Unlike most people who commented that they enjoyed the first installment better, I found the second one to be more fun and comical. The atmospherics scare factors in both movies are around the same. If you were spooked by the first one, it's likely that they will be able to spook you for the second one. Personally, the scare tactic for both movies were pretty predictable and I was more intrigued with what's behind the spook. The first movie took a long time to establish the situation and the horror while the second one just took what had been established and had wild silly preposterous fun with it.

*Fans of [Rec] will be happy to know that there will be a [Rec] 3 is in the works. The Hollywood remake, Quarantine will be getting a sequel of it's own too but it will not be a remake of [Rec]2 and the premise will be about a outbreak on a plane instead. Yes they are milking it but it's nice to know that the original directors for [Rec] are staying on for the whole trilogy (i.e this one and the future [Rec] 3)


Movie Rating:

(Preposterous diversion from original set up but there's a lot of spooky fun in its new direction)

Review by Richard Lim Jr