[REC] DVD Review

Ángela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) is a reporter whom along with her cameraman Pablo (Pablo Rosso) are spending the night with a Barcelona fire crew for a TV program called while you sleep; my guess is that it is supposed to be one of those documentaries that shadow a group for a period of time to give an insight into their lives. Whilst at the station a call comes in about a woman trapped in an apartment and they all jump in the fire engine to assess the situation.

Once their they join two policeman who are already onsite and they make their way to the apartment that the lady lives in, once there they find a crazed, bloodied and distressed woman who attacks and bites one of the police officers. Panic ensues as they carry the wounded cop to the entrance of the building only to find that the entire building has been sealed and Ángela, Pablo and the residents of the apartment block are trapped inside with infected people they show very aggressive tendencies.

Before I start anyway I will tell you that this film is a Spanish film with a Spanish soundtrack (either Dolby 5.1 or DTS) although you can pull up English subtitles. The reason I viewed it was because I recently reviewed a film called Quarantine and when doing my research for that film found that it was supposedly almost a shot for shot remake of this Spanish movie called REC, however a lot of reviewers seemed to think that this film was much better than the remade American counterpart… so was it?

The simple answer is no. See, Quarantine is almost a shot for shot remake of REC, obviously with different actors but if you have seen one then you most certainly will recognise pretty much everything that happens in the film. Also as the acting in each film is very good and on par with one another, I cannot see how one film can be classed as superior to the other. I just think it is a case of people being aggrieved that the film was copied in the first place and the obvious reason for that is because generally people prefer to see an English speaking film, not everyone appreciates a film with sub-titles no matter how good the movie.

Actor wise, unless you’re into Spanish films you will not have heard of anyone, but the acting from the main characters was very good, everybody seemed well cast for their role and nothing really stood out as unbelievable which is always a bonus. For me not knowing the actors involved at gave it a real documentary feel to it, I felt that it we were seeing these events unfold in front of the camera, the mother of the small girl was particularly convincing as someone panicked and on the verge of hysteria. And it did all come across as a bit scary when everything starts out all relatively calm and ordered before degenerating into a panic fuelled mess.

I thought that the editing maybe slightly superior in REC, I am sure there were a few scenes and cuts sprinkled in that just seemed to handled a little better than the US remake, but saying that I think that the location used in the US version was superior to this one, particularly in the foyer areas, whereas the apartment and the penthouse at the top all looked pretty good no matter which version you view. The only other real area of differences was the soundtrack. I ran with the Spanish DTS track with English Subtitles and found the bass to be nice and rich, definitely adding to the atmosphere and making certain scenes that little more jumpy. As a final point I don’t understand why all the healthy people didn’t lock themselves away in a abandoned apartment once they realised how it was caused. 7/10

Extras
Extras are totally lame on this particular disc, consisting of 4 trailers for Waz, the escapist, one missed call and shutter. 0/10

Overall
Apart from these small differences I thought that both films were really just as good as each other, both told a story well, both had good scary jumpy moments but the American remake edged ahead for me only because it had an English soundtrack and I personally prefer English sound tracks, but even so i couldnt mark down the score on that. 7/10

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