Director: Paco Plaza
Writer: Luiso Berdejo, David Gallart, Paco Plaza
Cast: Leticia Dolera, Javier Botet
Cert: 18
Running time: 80mins
Year: 2012
The lowdown: The third instalment in the Rec franchise depicts every bride’s worst nightmare: that her special day will be ruined by rage-infected monsters who start chewing on the guests and transforming friends and family into similar ravenous beasties. Original [REC] co-director Paco Plaza directs with tongue firmly placed in (presumably mauled) cheek.
The full verdict: 2007’s [REC] took the found footage device of The Blair Witch Project and the rage-infected zombies of 28 Days Later, but spun these familiar elements into something fresh and frightening thanks to a canny script and nicely detailed characterisation.
That first instalment was directed by Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza, but as the [REC] franchise rolls on it seems Balaguero was the brains of the outfit.
Plaza’s sole directorial effort [REC]2 boasted fine frights and a firework in the mouth set-piece, but shifted the story into conventional Catholic exorcism territory, undoing much of what made the original so smart.
With part three you get impression that even Plaza himself is feeling a little [REC]’d. Throwaway and shot with little of the flair that made the first movie so brilliant, this is an 80 minute movie where the title credit comes 20 minutes in and the found footage device is ditched presumably because they’ve exhausted possibilities.
Some climactic bride-with-a-chain-saw action delivers splatter that pushes this to a cert 18, but this aside there is little to recommend in this played for laughs cash-in.
A “sidequel”, the events here take place in parallel to those in the first two movies, presumably so this movie can be forgotten if [REC]4, promisingly directed by a returning Jaume Balaguero, scores big.
Pitched as a rom-zom-com, this is just Yawn of the Dead.
Rob Daniel
This review first appeared on skymovies.com on Aug 29th 2012
