I didn’t know anything about rec before I started to watch it besides the fact it’s horror-thriller genre, but if I had heard that the plot contained zombies, trapped people, and government conspiracy I would have thought been here done that, bought the tee-shirt, wore it out, then used it as a rag in a bottle full of gasoline and motor oil that I would have hurled at the next movie with all three of those elements.
Zombies are overused as baddies to the point where they are almost expected, and people trapped somewhere while bad things happen to them is such a staple of horror cinema that you’d think there’s no way to have a genuinely new movie about it. Also the documentary single-camera point of view has also been done. Truly there was nothing new about this movie you can point to, so you’d think it’s not even worth pulling out of the cover.
But you’d be wrong.
Just as every other overused genres have occasional brilliant pieces this movie for all its seemingly recycled ideas is done so well that I couldn’t have cared less. It’s well acted, well shot, and the direction keep the action flowing as well as the screams. Even when you know what’s coming, and you do know what’s coming because it’s fairly transparent, you still jump and to me that’s what makes this one of my favorite zombie movies of all time. It’s amazing that a film that truly doesn’t have an original concept in it can be so well done as to be as good as many of the movies it’s literally stolen ideas from. I recommend you watch this in the dark with the sound up, it’s worth it.