[REC] 2 (2009)

The action continues from [REC], with the medical officer and a SWAT team outfitted with video cameras who are sent into the sealed off apartment to control the situation.

SPOILERS LAY AHEAD! Please only read on if you have seen part one, (REC) – [click for my review!] as this post will spoil parts of the original. (Or if you just don’t care about spoilers that’s cool, read on!)

Ok, now I can begin 🙂

Written and Directed again by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, REC 2 begins by showing us the end of REC, where we see that Ángela was dragged away into the darkness. We then cut to the SWAT team who have now been brought in to investigate what happened in the apartment building and neutralise any threat. The team have helmets with cameras on them to record every happening inside the apartment building, so again we get to watch the action unfold from a ‘hand held point of view’ so to speak. It works better than the camera work in the original in my opinion, as now we get multiple camera views as they are all linked, and they can all see each others camera feed which gives us some cool picture-in-picture split screen action. I will try not to spoil too much, but as there is a lot more going on in this film than in the original, I want to try cover as much as I can but give away as little as possible, if that makes sense!

Nicely expanding upon the religious connotations of the first film’s twist ending, the team is led by Dr. Owen, who insists that their only mission is to search the building and retrieve a sample of infected blood from the penthouse of the building. Dr. Owen has a voice recognition system on him, and the building will only be opened when he gives the go ahead. After encountering some of the infected, Dr. Owen uses religious mantra and rosary to fight them off. It turns out that Dr. Owen is actually a priest sent by the church to get a blood sample from the Medeiros girl who we see briefly towards the end of the original. Obviously that will be easier said than done then, and there is action and scares galore as the team head into the penthouse to find said blood.

A little while later, in a nice twist to the story, the team leave the penthouse and look down the stairs and see some kids armed with a video camera looking up at them. The film then changes direction and cuts to three teenagers messing around on an adjacent buildings roof. They see the building being quarantined off and run down to street level to investigate. In a nice throwback to the original, we also see Jennifer’s (the infected girl from REC) father, who was outside getting medicine for his daughter, and he manages to convince a firefighter to take him into the building via an underground sewage system. The teenagers follow and also gain access to the sealed building; however, police have seen them and seal their exit. Inside, the teenagers find Jennifer’s father and the firefighter and soon find out they are trapped so head upstairs through the building, and eventually the two groups find each other. After some intense fighting and some scenes very reminiscent of movies like ‘The Exorcist’, the group finds Angela Vidal (Manuela Velasco), the reporter from REC. She has her camera with her and appears to be fine, just very shaken up and frightened naturally.

That’s as far as I go with the story. The final act really picks up pace, and ‘shines a light’ on the ending of REC and how things came to be as they are. The ending of REC 2 is arguably better, again another great and unique twist, and one that I certainly didn’t see coming.

Given that it is set in the same building as REC, it was nice to venture outside, however briefly, and we also get some nice nods and winks towards characters from the original. Multiple camera angles worked brilliantly and effectively I felt, and therefore visually it was a step up from REC. The directors know what scares to use and when, again delivering some great horror moments mixed in with genuine twists and turns, and another great storyline. REC 2 is very reminiscent of a video game at times. As the zombies come thick and fast a gun is the only way to take them down, and watching from this point of view is like playing Call of Duty!

The biggest problem that I can say about REC 2 is that while characters in the first film were well-developed and memorable, especially having such a great lead in Angela Vidal (who again was superb in her albeit smaller role here!), you don’t get that with these new characters. It’s not that they’re bad characters at all, but none of them really made me think about them afterward, and they ultimately just became SWAT man #1, SWAT man # 2 etc. I just couldn’t really identify with them. Dr. Owen was a good character, but he just seemed so set in finding the blood that it didn’t matter how many casualties there were, he just had to find the blood. The kids were fine, but again not really given enough time to become memorable, despite one of them giving a pretty good ‘possessed’ demonstration once something took hold.

When it was all said and done, after the credits rolled I couldn’t wait to see what happened next, and hoped that REC 3 would address it. It didn’t. 😦 BUT REC 4 will do so I can’t wait for that next year! I absolutely loved REC, and REC 2 was so good just not quite at the same level, I think mainly down to the characters. Still, it was a great watch and one that I recommend fully not only to fans of the franchise but to horror fans in general. Scares, blood, twists, turns, zombies, the devil – REC 2 delivers the lot.

Posted by Tysoncarter182 on August 9, 2012

https://headinavice.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/rec-2-2009/