[REC] 2 (2009) Divinely Horrific

If Prince of Darkness married The Exorcist and they conceived a bouncing bundle of terror while watching Bava’s Demons, its name would be [REC] 2.

Zombos Says: Very Good

[Rec] 2 picks up immediately where [REC] left us, only this time we are with a 4-man SWAT team waiting to escort another Ministry of Health official, Dr. Owen (Jonathan Mellor), into the locked-down building. Only he knows more than they do.

With one skittish hand-held camera and three helmet minicams worn by the heavily armed police, directors Balaguero  and Plaza criss-cross the action across apartments and up and down the stairwell with reckless abandon, informing us and terrifying us with what we fully see, partially see, and don’t see.

Under Dr. Owen’s insistence they head to the attic, stepping over pools of blood as they climb the staircase, guns poised. When they reach the attic, he tells them to record everything, including the newspaper clippings taped to the walls. A frightened voice played from a reel to reel tape recorder hints at an experiment gone out of control. Distant screams prompt an argument when the police want to investigate and Dr. Owen tells them not to. Over the doctor’s protests and warnings, Martos heads down the staircase and enters one of the apartments. We see what he sees as his helmet minicam switches on. What he sees in the dim light rushes towards him with ill-intent, leaving his helmet on the floor and him fighting for his life. They rush to his aid but it’s too late–“He was fine a couple of minutes ago. What kind of a virus does that?”–He’s now infected and attacks them. Dr. Owen stops the attack in an unexpected way and they lock Martos in another room.

How the doctor did it leads to an explanation for what is going on, who lived in the attic apartment, and why they must return there to find a potential cure. The police officers are incredulous and fraying at the seems by the minute. The infected tenants want to pry those seems apart even more. Patient Zero, hinted at in the last minutes of [REC], is also in the attic. Only they need to figure out how to find her…And she’s not alone…And the old reliable gimmick of using an air duct big enough for an elephant to fit through is used for a scare. At least it’s grimy like it should be and the scare is worth it.

[REC] 2 is an old school horror show dressed up with enough exuberantly creative point of view camerawork to keep you dizzy and jumpy at the same time. Unlike its Americanized version, Quarantine, which resorts to a more “plausible” terrorist-weapon plot line to explain the source of contagion, [REC] 2 unabashedly returns to the roots of cinematic horror to overwhelm the apartment building’s tenants with a supernatural malevolence that will not be stopped. By kicking old school for their modus operandi, while playing with our perspective  to the point of disorientation, [REC] 2 maintains a freshness and exhilaration that many American horror movie sequels fail to do.

Better keep the popcorn and soda safely cradled while you watch this movie and your seatbelt fastened at all times. It’s a bumpy-in-the-night ride, the ending of which leaves [REC] 3 a strong possibility. And if that happens I’m definitely taking Dramamine before I see it.