[Rec]²

****½

High energy sequel to the little found footage film that could, *Rec (2007) has the events of *Rec² following right after the original, with reporter Angela even returning towards the end. Exactly as the end closes, this is how the second film in the series opens: Angela, through the night vision lens of her camera, is being dragged away by a demon-possessed girl from our line of sight.




This second film follows a type of SWAT team with orders directed by what they believe is a medical authority, but they are in for quite a surprise: he's actually a priest orchestrating a mission to attain blood from the first infected. What is soon learned by this GEO team from the priest is that the infection is actually demon possession, using the bodies of the apartment complex tenants as a host. Finding the girl to get her blood will be the tricky part after a vial discovered in a refrigerator hidden in a ventilation shaft is destroyed during an attack by a pack of infected tenants.





Meanwhile a second alternating story involving three teenagers with a camera who sneak in through a sewer under the apartment complex eventually emerges with the first story of the GEO team and the priest. The trio meets up with a fireman and a tenant needing to get medicine to his daughter who are able to sneak into the building themselves, with all of them paying a major price for doing so. One of the teens gets bitten while the other two are put in a room. An accidental shooting to the face while trying to kill a possessed GEO team member who committed suicide prior to their arrival (barricaded in a bathroom as the infected tenants of that apartment tried to get in to kill him), the teenage girl with a gun pulling the trigger is just one of many shocking moments in this surprisingly unpredictable sequel.


Yes, found footage typically doesn't leave anyone in front of the camera safe from a grim ending, but how *Rec² gets us there, using Angela as the catalyst, is quite a jaw-dropper. The head shots (one particularly of a child that crawls across ceilings and walls) can be quite stunning, while the first person cameras (especially on the helmets) give us a "what is lurking around the corner, behind that door, or down (or up) the stairs (or in the attic... Yikes!)" visual aesthetic, working especially well at planting in our minds a sense of when the infected will strike. When they do, there's this wholly unpleasant banshee screech and rabid thrust right at the camera. The decision of directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza to stay close to a video game "shooter" approach visually with the camera brings a "watch out!" personality to how the film plays out. It certainly worked for me!

Angela, played by Manuela Velasco, becomes very important, quite crucial, to the series going forward, although she factors rather little in the entirety of the film (her final scene right before we see what truly happened to her after being dragged away in the first film, hovering over the body of the priest, is chilling). Still, I would have to say Angela is the character viewers won't soon forget after this film is over. Jaume and Paco know what they're doing: they're good at the turn of the screw and even if the demon possession theme is just about played out (thankfully no exorcism here, though), there are some creepy moments where victims under the control of evil fight tooth and nail with the priest trying to vanquish the infection before it spreads from out of the apartment complex. The nifty development of how darkness holds its own mysteries not seen in the light, and how night vision captures what cannot be seen otherwise produces its own share of thrilling moments as the outcome proves when the girl is defiant and wields a mean claw hammer. The look in Angela's eyes as she stares right into a fallen camera once on a helmet recording her handiwork on the priest is quite disturbing. It is one of those "it isn't over, but just getting started" dénouements.

Probably the most unexpected moment is when fireworks are used on an infected tenant, as well as, the GEO officers firing upon an uninfected tenant, tossing him over the stairwell to the floor because of their fear he is a threat to them. I do think the sequel suffers from the case of remaining inside one location for an extended stay, but just due to the way the directors keep the action moving, those in the apartment complex constantly on the go due to the ongoing danger that surrounds them and remains to be seen, and how the infected are alarmingly feral once they set victims in their sights, *Rec² is a powerhouse, quite the successor to a really potent hit.