I recently watched REC, a Spanish found footage horror film from 2007, starring Manuela Velasco as Angela Vidal, a spunky TV chick who is shooting some silly nighttime documentary about firemen or something in a sealed off zombie infested building. I had the opportunity to see it last year at the Icon sci-fi and fantasy film festival in Tel-Aviv, but at the time it seemed silly to me to pay 35 shekels to see something that was shot docu-style on a big screen, surrounded by hundreds of noisy little monkey geeks no less. Well, I was wrong. Not about the monkey geeks, I'm sure they would have made the experience as horrible as only Gaiman obsessed emo brats can (never shall I forgive the ones who almost ruined a midnight screening of Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter for me. thank gawd I managed to sneak a couple of beers into the theater). But REC, despite its found footage style and not unlike Paranormal activity, truly deserves to be seen in a darkened theater and on a big screen. OK, I'm not saying it could be even half as scary as PA, but it's just loads and loads of cool, creepy zombie fun. You get a heavy old zombie lady, people thrown down staircases, a creepy old building, people's faces bitten off, Asian zombies, policemen and firemen that are just as lost as everyone else, and of course a little zombie girl. You can't have a decent zombie movie without zombie kids. They're unsettling as your grandpa's dangling privates and they work perfectly every single time. The last few minutes alone, shot in intense, green tinted infra-red, are enough to make it one of the coolest European horror movies in recent years. I am not ashamed to admit that at first I thought that the scary looking patient zero was a CGI creation, before I found out that it was simply played by a tall and very skinny dude in makeup. It's just that much out of this world, saggy monkey tits and all! Manuela Velasco is very cute in the lead role. The whole time I was totally jealous of the camera guy for getting to be ordered around by her all night. I probably wouldn't have had the balls to grab her or something once the lights went out either. Probably. Maybe just a little. You know, the kind of thing you could probably get away with as an 'accident'. There are so many possibilities when you're both in complete darkness and you're the one holding the infra-red camera with the broken light. I can't say I completely understood the movie's conclusion, mainly because it was pretty hurried and all the newspaper clippings were in Spanish, but I don't think it matters too much. It's good enough a movie so even dumb assholes like me can thoroughly enjoy it.
Manuela Velasco is even cuter when she's being dragged by a scary zombie!
Since REC came out a couple of years ago it has managed to spawn an American remake, titled Quarantine and starring the lovely Jennifer Carpenter, as well as a Spanish sequel, titled REC 2 and starring Ms. Velasco again. I guess her character didn't die in the end of the first movie after all. There's also a third REC movie in the making, so I guess she doesn't die in the second one either. I do hope that that would be the last one though, because I'd love to see her get zombified as soon as possible. Hot chicks make the coolest zombies, because unlike most females, they're not too picky about who they get their mouth on, which means much better odds for the likes of me.
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