Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 29: [Rec]

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 29: [Rec]

Made in Spain eight years after The Blair Witch Project, [Rec] took the horror mockumentary to the next level of production value (going from the woods to an apartment building), and paved the way for Cloverfield to come out the following year.

An television news reporter and her camera man are doing a story on the local fire station when they decide to go on a ride-along to cover a nondescript emergency. They go an apartment complex where they discover a sickly old woman behaving very strangely, and they suddenly find themselves quarantined by the military and forced to survive what is essentially a zombie virus.

I like the human moments in this film (like how quickly the people start turning on each other), but for the most part the scares aren't that scary (with the exception of a couple moments). There's not enough atmosphere or buildup to earn the kind of scares they're going for, which is mainly due to the film's quick pace. My favorite horror movie is The Shining, and while I don't expect every film to be that high of quality, what I love about that movie is how it really takes its time and earns its scares (there's also a million other reasons I love it, but this one's actually relevant). If a horror film is too fast-paced then it rushes its scares and is therefore not scary. Horror is exactly like comedy, it's all about timing. Fast scares are possible, but that's really hard to do and more often than not it feels cheap. Suspense is so important, and when filmmakers try to bypass it they often end up with a hack movie. This movie's certainly not bad though, I actually liked it. It just wasn't that scary.

I love the low-budget nature of this film. They're able to get so much out of one location, which always impresses me because creativity coming from limitations is far more interesting than just being able to do whatever. Because of its minimalistic nature, the film has to rely heavily on the actors' performances, and every single one of them delivers. They're the scariest part of the movie, because their reactions to this terrifying situation are so realistically desperate.

This is definitely worth checking out because of how much they're able to get out of their low-budget, from effects to performances to a couple of good scares. If you're into Cloverfield or Paranormal Activity, see the one that inspired them to happen (also Quarantine, which is an actual remake).

Unfortunately this is as far as I got in October, so I failed my mission ultimately being two days behind. I'm sure I'll watch two movie horror films before the year ends though, so look out for those!