Rec (Spanish Zombie found footage)

[Daoyinyang]

This film came out in 2007 but I watched this back in 2013, just a few years before the 4th sequel came out. This is one of the greatest, most well acted, most horror like zombie found footage film we'll ever get for the zombie horror genre. The main actress is a real life journalist who took acting lessons for the film to add a bit of realism to the movie. I won't spoil anything but if you guys haven't seen it yet, you're missing out. You should definitely give this a watch. The journalist and her cameraman spends a day with the fire crew to better understand the life in a fire fighter. When they get a call in the middle of the night at some apartment complex, they respond to the emergency call only to find out something else has taken place. The entire film takes place in this apartment complex and is from the POV from the Cameraman. There are a few jump scares but none that are in your face. The extras and minor characters do great as zombies once infected. There's a reveal about the zombies that makes it super original and in my opinion, helps the movie stand out from most Western (or Eastern) zombie films. This movie is a 10/10 for me and I would watch again whether or not it's Halloween.

[JDP]

That movie was "remade" as "Quarantine" only a year later. I saw them many years ago, so my memory might be a fit fuzzy, but if I remember correctly, they are not really "zombies" but people possessed by some kind of "demonic virus". A "zombie", in the traditional horror movie genre sense, has to be a reanimated corpse. So, yes, ironically Frankenstein, for example, is technically a "zombie" movie, while 28 Days Later is most definitely NOT one, though many people will incorrectly think the opposite.

[shootemindehead]

Don't bother with the sequels.

[MinionZombie]

So, yes, ironically Frankenstein, for example, is technically a "zombie" movie, while 28 Days Later is most definitely NOT one, though many people will incorrectly think the opposite. Dig it. Don't bother with the sequels. I remember REC 2 being quite good - except for those intensely annoying and poorly written teens who break into the building. Their section of the film could have been hacked out entirely, as far as I'm concerned, as they ruined every second of screen time they fouled up (well, aside from their bloody demises, of course ). I actually had fun with, IIRC, the third movie, which was set during a wedding. It was more traditionally done (i.e. not found footage IIRC), but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as it could have been or what I thought it might have been. Not a patch on the original, and not particularly memorable, but I do recall enjoying it well enough. As for "Quarantine" - it's fairly by-the-numbers as an English language copy, and doesn't feel as effective as the original, although Jennifer Carpenter certainly sold the sheer bloody terror of it all very well indeed. I remember the original movie being quite tense and visceral. As a hardened horror fan I don't often get that old school fright thrill from my formative years in the genre, but REC certainly gave a ruddy good jolt.