During SXSW, a popular event to attend are the midnight screenings, which are usually horror films. To kick off the Midnight series this year was a little film called Rec 3: Genesis. In case you aren’t familiar with the film (like me) this is suppose to be a prequel to the other two films Rec and Rec 2. If you are still lost, the film, which is a foreign film, was redone for the U.S back in 2008 and was called Quarantine. Not knowing anything about the other films, I went into this one blind. The film made its world debut and director Paco Plaza was in attendance to introduce the film.
Koldo (Diego Martin) and Clara (Leticia Dolera) are about to celebrate the most important day of their lives: their wedding. Everything appears to be running smoothly and the bride, the groom and their families are enjoying a wonderful day in the countryside until some of the guests start showing signs of a strange illness. Before they know what’s happening, the bride and groom find themselves in the middle of a hellish ordeal, as an uncontrollable torrent of violence is unleashed on the wedding. What started off as an idyllic day quickly descends into a nightmare of the worst kind.
I was very confused about the film because I didn’t know anything about the other ones. I thought it was a zombie film at first but it gradually turned into a religious thing and the supposed zombies are some sort of demon or fallen angel, still not entirely sure. The film started off from the perspective of a hand held video camera and gradually switched back and forth between that and the professional camera man hired to shoot the wedding. After about 20 minutes orso of “amateur” film footage, the movie is shown normally with still shots as oppose to the shakiness of the handheld camera.
The film had subtitles which was kind of distracting and took some of the shock away from the film because you are focusing on reading the film as oppose to paying attention to the action on screen. Not that I have anything against foreign films and subtitles, I just don’t think they work well for the horror genre.
Overall, the film was decent. I liked the approach and their explanation, sort of, of the virus/possession/whatever you want to call it and the religious backing of it. But at times it felt a bit slow and some of the humor felt forced. The film is being distributed by Magnolia but there are no release dates set for the U.S, however the film will be released in Spain on March 30th.
Rating: Decent foreign horror flick. Might be beneficial to watch the other films as well. 5/10
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