[REC] 4: Apocalypse

It is our belief that about ten years removed from the end of the franchise that the REC films will be considered horror classics that delivered from first entry until last. The first REC was released in 2007 and followed a television reporter and a cameraman as they accompanied emergency workers who were called to an apartment complex where a terrifying outbreak had been reported. Produced and shot in Spain, the film was interesting enough for Hollywood studios to remake the film with Jennifer Carpenter in 2008.

REC2 followed in 2009 and put a whole different slant on things. What we thought was an outbreak of a disease was brought into question. A possibility of demonic possession was introduced as a potential cause for the horror and this twist added multiple layers to an already engrossing story.

REC3 was an all-out blood fest. The setting was moved from the interior of a dark building to what was supposed to be a joyous wedding. As the wedding party fights for their survival, the red messy stuff covers the screen in an absolute gem of a whimsical horror film.

And as all good things come to an end, we have REC4 to close the books on the franchise. The setting is again changed for the third sequel. Our survivors are now fighting within the confines of an ocean liner where the zombie/rage-induced hordes. Manuela Velasco again plays Angela – the lone survivor of the REC2. It is her awakening on a high-security facility floating on the ocean that catapults the story.

Angela is able to team up with a small group of survivors and together they use just about every tool or weapon not nailed down on the ship to fight off the apocalypse and ensure their survival. Jaume Balagueró, who co-directed REC and REC 2 with Paco Plaza (Plaza directed REC 3 solo), returns to helm the fourth instalment of the saga and finish the series off with a spectacular and bloody bang.

There is a tremendous amount of fun to be had in REC4. The floating vessel is the perfect setting to induce a claustrophobic and seemingly hopeless feel. The kills in the REC series have gotten more and more flamboyantly violent in cartoonish escalation and REC4 has some kills that had our packed house audience clap and cheer in unison with its execution.

There are some interesting turns in the overall story arch some which are fun and others are almost groan inducing. The characters in REC4 are not as interesting as the other installments and once every character was trotted out, I was dead on in my assumption as to who would make it to the closing credits. Still, this is horror. Fans of the genre and the series are sure to find enough in REC 4 to make the experience enjoyable. The series never really lost steam from its opening in 2007 as it reinvented itself a few times along the journey. This journey is just bloody fun.

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The television reporter Ángela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) awakes in a ship and finds that she is locked in her cabin in quarantine. She escapes and stumbles with Guzmán (Paco Manzanedo), who rescued her from the apartment building in Spain. They discover that Dr. Ginard (Paco Obregón) and Dr. Ricarte (Héctor Colomé) are researching a cure for the lethal infection in the ship. Guzmán goes to the wheelhouse and he is introduced to Captain Ortega (Mariano Venancio) that is in his last voyage and radio operator and hacker Nic (Ismael Fritschi) that is trying to retrieve the footages in Ángela's camera. There is a blackout in the vessel and Dr. Ricarte discovers that someone released their guinea pig, an infected monkey where they would test an antidote. The monkey attacks the cook and most of the crew is infected by their lunch. Meanwhile Nic retrieves the footage from the camera and Dr. Ricarte sees the girl Tristana Medeiros transferring the worm-like virus to Angela that claims that is not infected. However Dr. Ricarte believes that Ángela is the hostage and patient zero and wants to extract the parasite from her belly to test the antidote. In the middle of the chaos on board, will the attempt work?

"(REC)4: Apocalipsis" is a decent conclusion of this franchise. The story returns to the genre of the first movie with Angela and the survivor from the wedding in the deceptive third movie and fortunately forgets the religious approach from the second movie. The problem now is a virus transmitted by a worm-like parasite that seeks the strongest hostage. The plot does not have surprise, is gore and entertains. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

(TIFF'14 Intro) The film premiered as part of the midnight madness lineup. Jaume Balagueró and Manuela Velasco introduced the movie. Velasco announced that this would be her first time watching the movie as well. Balagueró thanked a bunch of people involved and restated that this is the final movie in the series, and effectively ends the story.

(Review) I'm a huge fan of the first two Rec movies. The first one is widely considered a genre buster, invigorating the hand-held found footage genre. The second one managed to build on the original, while delivering some truly intense moments and hitting all the high marks. They were intelligent, smart films, a rarity in horror movies. However, Rec 3 was a truly awful mess and thankfully not really canon (you can pretend it never happened). While directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza collaborated on both Rec 1 and 2, they decided to split up directorial duties among the last two films. After sitting through a painful viewing of Plaza's Rec 3, I could only conclude that the talent and potential gleamed in the first two films must lay with Balagueró. With that in mind, I had pretty high expectations for Rec 4.

The movie opens (seemingly) moments after the end of Rec 2. The apartment building returns to set up the script before the film shifts to the interior of a cramped oil tanker, with hardly any transition. It is by doing this that Balagueró masterfully switches out one claustrophobic stage for another, without ever giving the audience a moment of relief, or the characters, any reprieve. After a slow-burn first act, the action kicks into high gear as we are told the hope for saving, or destroying the virus lies on that oil bunker. Balagueró is a true horror movie buff, and Rec 4 is littered with references from all over the genre: movies (Aliens, RE, Deep Impact) and games (RE Revelations). Speaking of the horror movie elements, the zombie/demons look and sound more authentic than ever. And as for the new entry in the enemy roster, well, it might seem a little gimmicky but it works and Balagueró has a lot of fun with it (Everybody cheered as Angela Vidal screamed M******!). I'm not sure if this would be the goriest entry in the franchise, but it certainly delivered in that department, especially once the final act kicks in, which is, more or less, an intense bloodbath in true Rec style: Never letting up until the end, yet sprinkling the final act with small moments of black comedy. The most pleasant surprise were the characters. Fleshing out characters is hardly a priority in most horror scripts, but Rec 4 surprised me by turning the tables on usual stereotypical characters, and by the end, I was rooting for the unlikeliest of them. And I loved that about this movie. The whole thing is propelled forward by an amazing score and excellent sound work.

The bad? Balagueró has to work with narrow halls and almost no corners (sadly he could not construct the hallways around his shots like James Wan did for The Conjuring) and as such, the shots are tight and cramped. I was onboard with the directors' decision to move past hand-held, but that does not seem to have helped with shakycam. And while the movie captures some moments of pure intense action and manages to outdo Rec 3 in every way possible, it does not twist the genre like the first two films did, nor will it blow you out of the water.

In the end, Rec 4 is a satisfying, gory, visceral and intense conclusion to a great and (mostly) unique series. While the first two movies were made with the aim of creating genre-busters, Rec 4 is made for the fans who've followed the series, and Angela Vidal from the start. And you will not be disappointed.

I really lost hope after i saw Rec 3 !!! A wedding !! a Bride who does a karate Moves :P

But thank god Rec is Back to the Story of "Ángela Vidal" and they connected the story to the first two movies ,,, amazing turn of events ..

The plot this time literally elevated to a new level ... Ohh and the ending is just another thing.

The scenes is so thrilling this time,, Jumped out of my seat a couple of times ;)

I still have no idea if there's another movie Rec 5 ;) but if there is ,they better make it connected and around the same story..

The Set is Genius.,. full of surprises and curves which were useful to make more frightening.. it's really amazed me though how you can do so much in such a small Set or location ..

So it must be also said the cinematography and the visual effects are Applaudable.

Although being better than REC 3, REC 4 Apocalypse still is a big letdown. Of course, a major part in this being a letdown is the fact that it's not shot with a hand-held camera which made the first two instalments so great. What's the point in calling it a REC movie when the hand-held camera is missing? Next to that this movie just felt like some kind of action movie. It doesn't have the creepy atmosphere that the first and second movies had. There is a lot of action going on, with a lot of gore, but the creepiness is nowhere to be found. There were a couple of promising scenes that could have been scary, but failed to do so because they weren't executed right. The plot and dialogue in REC 4 is pretty shallow and highly predictable. What made the first movie so great is that it was different, something new. It gave a good mysterious background about what the virus was, but they didn't do anything with it in the third and fourth movie, not even continue it. There are a couple of good things about this movie and one of them is Manuela Velasco. Her acting is good and she gives a convincing performance. The second thing are the zombies. They look amazing, just like in the first two movies which is a big plus. I was really stoked for this movie and after the bad reviews on REC 3 I hoped they would go back to their success formula, but they didn't. It just didn't deliver and it couldn't live up to the high expectations/standards REC 1 & 2 had created. It was good on some ends, but it just had to many flaws.