Reporter, Angela Vidal and her cameraman are on assignment filming a night in the life of the Barcelona Fire Department for a late-night television show. What they actually record that night will be more than either of them bargained for.

I love the zombie subgenre, but I typically don’t find the films to be all that frightening. With that being said, [REC] is one the scarier zombie movies I’ve seen. There have been 3 zombie movies released within a year of each other that used the handheld camera style of filming: The Zombie Diaries, [REC], & Diary Of The Dead (in that order). While the other two created more of a documentary feel with the handheld cameras, [REC] used the style most effectively to elevate the level of fear.

At times, you are on the edge of your seat. At other times, the action slows to a virtual crawl, but only long enough to lull the viewer into a false sense of security before delivering the next big jolt. Of the three movies mentioned earlier, this one arguably does the best job of placing the viewer in the center of the action... big emphasis on arguably.

Aside from an annoying character or two, the acting was decent to very good. The actress who played our main character gave a very solid & believable performance. The effects, especially for a lower budget film, are very well done. One of the infected/zombies (the lines are blurred in this one) towards the end of the film looked downright ghastly (that’s a good thing).

For all of the good things I’ve mentioned, this film has one incredibly huge fault: the camerawork. Now usually I’m all for movies that use handheld cameras or even “shaky-cam” filming. That being said, this had to be the shakiest shaky-cam I’ve seen to date. As much as the filming draws you into certain scenes of the movie, sometimes the camerawork is so bad that it effectively distances the viewer from the action. Combine that with trying to read subtitles & you will find yourself in a somewhat frustrating predicament. What makes it worse is that the guy holding the camera in the movie is playing the part of a professional cameraman!

The climax/conclusion of [REC] may give you a feeling of deja vu, but it was executed more effectively in this movie than the film it emulates. Speaking of which, the conclusion successfully brings closure to the movie, but the explanation of the events is left open-ended enough to leave room for a sequel (which I hear, at the time of me writing this, is currently in production.)

I give [REC] 7 out of 10 scenes where the chorus to Drowning Pool’s song,“Bodies,” would have been more than appropriate.