by Andy Gibbons

What is it?

The follow-up to Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s terrifying 2007 Spanish horror about a group of people quarantined in a building where a mysterious virus is infecting the residents, turning them into undead killing machines.

Kicking off just seconds after the original [REC] finished, we head back into the apartment block with a SWAT team and Doctor from the Ministry of Health as they try to find a cure to the infection. Meanwhile a concerned father convinces a fireman to get him inside so he can tend to his sick daughter but they’re followed in by a group of teenagers looking for an adventure. Needless to say both groups are soon faced with all kinds of nastiness.

What’s good?

Directors / writers Balagueró and Plaza struck gold with [REC] so it’s good to see that they’ve hung around to see things through. They know what works and they’ve stuck to a familiar formula but with [REC] 2 they explore more of the story revealed towards the end of the first film which progresses things nicely. And for the horror hounds, the scares are ‘jump out of your seat’ good and things do get pleasingly graphic at times.

What’s bad?

It does feel like a film of two halves, both of which have very different feels. The opening section, as we follow the SWAT team, is very much like a first person video game (the [REC] series would make an AWESOME game!) while the second half is a bit of a Cloverfield / Blair Witch Project rip-off which can be a touch jarring.

So basically…..

If you liked the original then you’ll be pleased to hear that [REC] 2 doesn’t disappoint. It’s full of shocks and scares and progresses the [REC] lore more than enough to keep things interesting. It could have been very easy for Balagueró and Plaza to make a carbon copy of the first film but they have taken things forward more than enough to justify the sequel. A third part in the series has already been confirmed so expect more from [REC] scares sometime soon only next time we may see things on a grander scale.

[REC] 2 is in cinemas from May 28^th