UK Release Date: 28-05-2010
UK Certificate: 18
Director: Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza
Country: Spain

The success of Guillermo Del Toro’s brand of magical realist horror opened doors for Spanish film makers like Alejandro Amenábar (The Others) and Juan Antonio Bayona (The Orphanage), but Jaume Balagueró wasn’t so lucky. His 1999 adaptation of Ramsey Campbell’s The Nameless was several shades too dark for casual horror audiences, while two follow-ups, Darkness (2002) and Fragile (2005) failed to attract international attention.

Fate finally smiled on Balagueró and co-director Paco Plaza in 2007 when [•Rec], their furiously-paced, lean, mean and brutal low budget zombie movie became a surprise worldwide hit. At under 80 minutes, [•Rec] was the in-camera horror thrill ride that the bloated Cloverfield so wanted to be, hurtling at viewers like one of the crazed cannibalistic maniacs of its story until, in its final moments, suddenly changing tack, leaving us to soak in some unnerving Lovecraftian imagery and a tantalising mystery. Cue multiple awards and the inevitable pointless American remake, Quarantine.

[Rec] 2 opens promisingly, exactly where its predecessor ended. As before, the action is largely confined to a single apartment building, though this time we’re seeing it through the eyes of a police team accompanying a government offic­ial on a secret mission (shades of Aliens?). As mayhem ensues, we discover that the official isn’t who he claims to be, and also what’s behind the outbreak of madness at the heart of the film – a neat, if hokey, twist on the zombie formula that I won’t give away here.

Unfortunately, like the annoying teen protagonists we’re dumped with 25 minutes in, the film loses its way just as things are starting to get interesting, becoming disorganised, repetitive, and full of plot holes large enough to lose an apartment building full of demonomaniacs in. A surreal, Fulci-esque conclusion almost makes up for it, but ultimately ends up going nowhere, leaving us instead with only a tacky setup for a sequel.