Review ‘[REC] 2007’ A re-introduction to the term “horror”

The Iberian fantasy cinema is in better shape than ever. The proof is in this high-flying collaboration between Paco Plaza and Jaume Balaguero.

Angela, a young and beautiful Spanish woman, hosts a morning show. Tonight, accompanied by Paco, her Image Reporter, she shoots the next day’s show in a fire station.

If the beginning of the night is desperately calm, the brigade is finally called to intervene in a building. Nothing extravagant, only an old woman who would have hurt herself. It is the neighbors who called the firemen.
The two reporters accompany the firemen on the scene of the intervention. There, they found the old woman in a state of shock in her apartment. One of the policemen present on the scene, tries to reassure her to make her evacuate. No luck, the lady comes out of her lethargy and tears out half of her throat with a blow from her jaw. The forces of order in presence shoot the old woman. But while going down again to the first floor, impossible to make evacuate the policeman who empties himself of his blood. The building is quarantined for chemical, bacteriological and/or nuclear threat.
A long night begins for all these people imprisoned in the building.

This review has been written so as not to detract from the plot. However, the less you know about the film when you first see it, the more effective it will be. So only read on if you’ve already seen it.

[REC]. A title that intrigued me for a long time. To be honest, when the project was first launched, I was very skeptical. I thought it was just another treatment of a subject that had been done hundreds of times before. How wrong I was.
The result is beyond all expectations. Violent, visceral, ultimate. [REC] is an audiovisual slap in the face. Indeed, the collaboration of Paco Plaza and Jaume Balaguero transcends the only cinematographic medium. It goes beyond all the shackles of the medium. Some will say that “The Blair Witch Project” has already traced the path a few years ago.
It is not so. “The Blair Witch Project” suffers from choices of non realization that greatly affect the readability of the work. Instead of reaching the raw realism claimed by the directors, the film looks more like an arty experiment of a New York artist who would have confused talcum powder and cocaine. As a result, at the end of the film, a tube of aspirin is necessary. And an appointment with an orthoptist as a bonus. When it was released, the project of the witch of Blair shouted to whoever wanted to hear it, that it was a precursor of the genre. In reality, it was just a lukewarm old ganache that had not been warmed up. To find the origins of this outrageous realism, we must go back to “Cannibal Holocaust“.

Here, there is no flashy staging, no pomp and circumstance, no Hollywood headliner. Everything is done to simulate a television report. And to say that the enterprise is a success would be a sweet euphemism.
However, the case was not won in advance. The “scenario” is indeed not original. The theme of contamination is recurrent in genre cinema. It is the basis of every good (and bad) zombie movie. However, [REC] manages to breathe new life into its subject thanks to its unfailing realism. Indeed, everything the viewer sees on the screen corresponds to what the JRI (Journalist Image Reporter) has filmed. It is thus an uninterrupted flow of images that crashes in the face of the spectator. No respite, no escape. [REC] is literally experienced, it is one of those films where it is necessary to entrust oneself totally to the expert hands of the directors. By placing all your trust in the film, you let yourself be violently manipulated and the effect is all the more striking. We come out of the screening completely washed out, as if the whole technical team had stepped on our faces with safety shoes.

This approach of the subject is rather surprising coming from Jaume Balaguero. The Iberian filmmaker was rather famous for his films with a very elaborate aesthetic. But [REC] delivers a work of material very different from his previous works; the result of the meeting with Paco Plaza?

The strong point of [REC] is, as you will have understood (or else it would be very advisable to consult a specialist), its realism. Everything is right, authentic. My experience as a JRI trainee only confirms this. The zooms to focus contribute greatly to the credibility of the film. But not only that. The anchorwoman pulls the cameraman aside to encourage him to cut the camera if the interview is not interesting. Sometimes she asks him if his position in the frame is right… All these small details seem insignificant and yet they give all its consistency to the film.

The image is rough. The only artificial lighting present on the screen is that provided by the camera’s lamp. Consequently, it is not uncommon for the protagonists to be plunged into darkness or bathed in the harsh light of a neon sign. As a result, the cameraman (who is the real main character of the film, even though we never see him) is forced to deal with this. He zooms in and out, plays with the diaphragm and the focus ring… Realistic? No: real.
Then the violence breaks out and the JRI is forced to capture his images in a hurry. The rhythm of [REC] suddenly accelerates and becomes almost syncopated. The camera panics, takes donuts, constantly changes focus… Quite a performance considering the fact that the film is composed of a series of long sequence shots.

Final touch to the credibility of the film: the sound work. We are far from Gladiator and its sandal blows that shake the walls. Here, all the sound effects are put through the mill to resemble what the camera’s microphone would have picked up. Thus, when one of the police officers in the room fires a gun a few centimeters away from the camera, the sound becomes saturated and interferes.
Similarly, the camera sometimes receives significant shocks. This has the consequence of creating violent feedback and other unpleasant sounds.

Finally, the actors are quite impressive in their authenticity. And for good reason, they are freewheeling: no text, just improvisation. The rendering is screaming of truth.

In the end, [REC] is a simple stroke of genius. All its effectiveness is based on its intelligent reading of society. Today, popular beliefs are fading, so it takes more than a shadow on a wall or a wolf howling at the full moon to scare people. The society in which we live is so media-driven that reality often only reaches us through the small screen. So of course, using the television format to reach the viewer, it is necessarily effective.