[Rec] (2007)

At its best, "[REC]" is a stress test, with genuinely frightening and surreal use of grainy, fidgety camerawork and eerie night-vision.

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An unexceptional workout for the adrenaline glands nudged up several notches by a climax that will cause muchos trouser trauma to all but the recently deceased.

Gripping, unsettling and truly horrific, [REC] is much more than the gimmick suggested by its title. Prepare to squirm, wince and wonder at how a potential Blair Witch knock-off is quite so grimy and engrossing. And don’t eat dinner before you see it.

The final reel is real eyes-behind-your-fingers type stuff with the filmmakers cranking up the audience's apprehension to I-really-would-rather-be-somewhere-else levels.

A brilliantly staged early scare signals that the safety rails are off and, despite an unexpected, last-minute swerve into the supernatural realm, the edge-of-the-seat tension is sustained to the very last second.

Even thought it's the third such effort to employ handheld camera in a zombie flick, this has more than enough shocks to hold its own.

...boasts a number of brutal and unexpectedly creepy interludes that instantly set it apart from its stylistically-similar yet thoroughly inferior brethren...

While utterly nihilistic in its attempts to disorient the audience, the directors keep "[REC]" a consistently terrifying experience with some of the most gruesome deaths filmed...

A shock-a-minute mini-masterpiece of sound design, tricky jolts, and wonderfully distressing tension.