There wouldn't be much more to say if Spanish cinema didn't demonstrate a continued ability to reinvent the horror genre. REC, in this case, is a bad exception. [Full review in Spanish]

Suspenseful, intense, scary, and gory, [Rec] is without a doubt one of the best Horror movies of the past decade, if not of all time. 2007 had not seen a whole lot of found footage movies, so this style was relatively new, and it's yet to have been done better. We follow a young reporter and her cameraman (who represents us) as they become unwillingly quarantined in an apartment with its residents. An outbreak is turning those infected into zombies (a term never used). This film creates the "you are there" experience like nothing you have seen or will see before. Nothing feels staged. The scariest moments are things that are happening in the frame but not front and centre. As the story slowly gets revealed, you get more unnerved. There are brilliant and terrifying scenes that will stay with you for days.

A fun, inventive, and jumpy found-footage horror film that has it's share of thrills, especially in the final act. The acting for the most part is pretty good & I like that they don't make you wait too long before diving into the madness. And while I saw most gags coming from a mile away, there were still a couple of instances where I was genuinely shocked. The sound designed really augmented the horror of these moments and some scenes were delightfully disorienting because of it. Unfortunately, the film spends way too much time trying to explain the phenomena and not enough time on creating a foreboding atmosphere. Also, while I understand that the filmmakers have to establish good reasons for having the camera rolling at times when the cameraman should be fleeing in terror, if I had to hear the protagonist say "We have to record this!" one more time, I was going to throw myself down a stairwell. A bit over-hyped I must say, but overall an entertaining thriller.