Rec.

Rec., 2007
[Rec]



I first heard about this movie from two of my friends, Will and Dana. They came over one night after watching the movie and told me all about it, but nothing more than the bare essentials of the plot. The fact that the movie scared both of them, and they've seen plenty of scary movies, makes me a little nervous about this one.

Once I realized this movie was up, I talked to Will about making plans to watch this movie together via text messaging. The game plan was to get together one night this week after 7 PM, and then very possibly over the next 78 minutes I'd become terrified of what I was watching. I felt pretty set in those plans, and my scared/nervous meter at the time was a solid 5 on a scale from 1-10. I'm pretty confident that this might actually be a scary movie. And then he sent me this last text.

"Oh and p.s. Make sure you watch Rec on a night you'll have Mikey around or possibly you'll go insane from fright. ;)"

First of all, those were always my intentions. I planned to have the boyfriend around incase I was too scared to go back to my apartment, where I live alone. And regardless of how the boyfriend felt about it, it was an absolute possibility that I might be staying with him that night. So when I mentioned the game plan to the boyfriend last weekend, he assured me that he would go watch the movie with me. He also assured me that movies don't scare him. And honestly, scary movies don't typically scare me either. This might just be the exception after Will's last text message, which sent my scared/nervous meter to a solid 7.5 on the same scale from 1-10.

After having watched the movie:
(Possible spoilers below)

First and foremost I feel like I should just put this out there:

I don't like zombie movies. As in, not even a little bit. I guess it's just that I don't feel like they're very realistic. And despite my facebook quiz results, which I discovered my odds of surviving a zombie apocalypse are surprisingly high, I'm fairly confident that would not be the case. If I were ever in that situation, my knee jerk reaction is just always flight. I would find a way to lock myself in a room, apartment or house and then proceed to hide in the kitchen or bathroom cabinets. Why kitchen cabinets? It just seems obvious to me, and I'm saying this not really knowing a thing about zombies, that zombies don't keep their food in the kitchen. To me, they store their food on the sofa in front of the TV, and I also don't think that bathrooms tend to be in high demand either.

I do have a back up plan in the event that I am discovered by the zombies either in the kitchen or bathroom cabinets. It's a simple plan to fight them off in any way possible until I could find at least one of three people: The Boyfriend, Yeti - a friend from film school, or Zachary - my brother. I'm confident enough that I'd manage to talk them into helping me and maybe I would make it through the night.

Based on this strategy alone and what seems to be a fairly reasonable backup plan, I'm fairly certain the odds are that I'd be killed off about 3/4 of the way through the movie. Of course, I also think I'd have a moment where I would reach my limit and put up a really good fight before I died.

Now that I've shared my zombie apocalypse plan with everyone let's talk about Rec.

The movie is very zombie like, in that unknowingly a flu like symptom or disease spreads in an apartment building, the strain is spread through saliva, and is highly contagious. When the first person begins to experience these zombie symptoms, a call is placed to Spain's version of 911. A fire and rescue crew is dispatched to help. Along with the fire and rescue crew is a young female reporter, Angela, and her camera man, Pablo - who like most camera men wear skate shoes. Pablo and Angela are with the fire and rescue crew filming a story based on one night of a fire and rescue department at nigh, for a show called, While You Were Sleeping.

When the fire and rescue crew arrive Angela and Pablo follow them upstairs to an apartment where an old lady lives. When they attempt to help the woman, she attacks and bites of the police officers. Shortly after the residents in the apartment building realize they are being sealed and trapped inside. It doesn't take long for things to start to happen. At this point the people inside just kind of do as they're told and remain in the main lobby area of the building. They have no real idea what is going on and they've not been told any information about the virus.

However once they discover what happens when someone has been bitten it's a whole new story. And I'm sorry Sir - who is speaking at me, though a bullhorn and advising me on what is best for my safety- from a secure area outside of the immediate danger zone. I'm just not going to listen to you at this point. Instead, I'm going to proceed to wonder off into a safe, uninhabited apartment with my friend who hasn't been bitten, and put my zombie emergency plan into effect. While everyone else is waiting in the lobby I'm fine to hangout and wait for the search and rescue team to find me in the kitchen cabinet.

Final thoughts: Will and Dana were right about this one. The movie is definitely intense. The movie was done really well and I felt like I held my breath during the last ten minutes. I wasn't scared the way I thought it would be, and I was able to make it home by myself last night.

However after briefly talking to Dana after watching the movie I was really excited to learn that there is a sequel. The second movie is based on what the SWAT team finds when they enter the building. So, I guess my waiting it out in the kitchen or bathroom cabinet idea isn't too far fetched after all. I win.

OFFICIAL COUNT 17 DOWN 348 TO GO

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