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[Rec] 2
Score: 88%
Rating: R
Publisher: Sony Pictures Home
                  Entertainment

Region: 1
Media: DVD/1
Running Time: 84 Mins.
Genre: Horror/Suspense/Foreign
Audio: Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital
Subtitles: English, English SDH

Features:
  • Deleted Scenes
  • Behind the Scenes Featurettes
  • A Walkthrough of the Set
  • [Rec] 2 On Tour
  • Sitges Film Festival Press Conference

[Rec] 2 is the sequel to [Rec] and picks up just a few minutes after the ending of [Rec]. A SWAT team is sent in after the firefighter/reporter unit fails to come back from the now-quarantined building. Jefe (Oscar Zafra), Rosso (Pablo Rosso), Martos (Alejandro Casaseca) and Larra (Ariel Casas) are much more prepared because they know the contagion is real. They've got guns, gas masks, flares, battering rams, a camera, and all sorts of fun equipment. They are to escort Dr. Owen (Jonathan Mellor) of the Ministry of Health inside to assess the situation. Once inside, Owen tells them they can take off the masks because the virus isn't airborne. Instead, it is spread through body fluids. They hear a creepy noise so they know someone is still alive inside. Last I remember, everyone inside was dead or infected except for the madman that started it all. They head for the top floors immediately without even securing behind them since Owen says they have no time to secure. Obviously, Owen knows something about what is going on! They get to the top and find the madman's lab and secure the door inside. Owen is looking for the original virus to make an antidote. It sounds as if someone in Rome knew what he was working on. They find the attic door where the reporter from before climbed up to and was dragged off. They don't find her though, or anyone else yet.

Owen wants them to stay and search the apartment, but the team disobeys him and goes looking for survivors. I guess no one told them that the survivors are deadly. Owen tells them to stop, but to no avail. Martos is infected first and the team learns how deadly this contagion is. Owen shows up speaking Latin (I think) and Martos calms immediately. When he stabs a rosary to the door of the room they trap him in, Martos calms. Obviously, there is some kind of religious aspect involved.

Apparently this virus started out as a demonic possession of an 11-year-old girl. A priest was given the task of studying the physiological symptoms of a demonic possession. They wanted to isolate the essence of the possession, so they could come up with an antidote to it. I'm not sure that makes much sense to me, but we'll go with it. So that means that the people who are infected in the building aren't really infected, but instead, they're possessed. I guess you can spread possession by body fluids now. Not only that, but the possessed can now walk on the ceiling! Owen has no qualms about killing the possessed, even the children. He's actually more cold and logical than the team.

As if the mission wasn't difficult enough, apparently civilians with cameras are getting in somehow. Now they've got to somehow get another sample of the blood after the first one they find is destroyed and now they're got to survive even more infected since more people are coming in! To get the blood sample, they've got to find the girl who began the original infection, hope that she is still alive (or whatever semblance of alive she may be), get blood, and survive through all the infected to get out. It's a Herculean task at a minimum! Mire (Andrea Ros), Tito (Pau Poch), and Ori (Alex Batllori) are the kids who sneak in to try and "do something cool." In this case, cool means really stupid! They followed in a fireman leading a man who just wanted to get medicine to his daughter. Unfortunately for them all, once in, there is no way out. They're going to have to try and stay alive and hope that the SWAT team doesn't kill them as well! Maybe they'll even end up being of some help. Hopefully someone can be, because if this possession gets out and infects the world, we're all done for.

There are some special features available as well. The deleted and extended scenes don't really add much, but I found it amusing that in one of them, Martos is killed instead of being locked in a room. I guess they decided to change things from how they originally were. The Behind the Scenes were quite interesting, but I really liked the walkthrough of the set the most. Given that the entire movie is in one apartment building, and the same building from the previous movie even, it was interesting to see how they dealt with making it different than before, but obviously still the same place.

Overall, I really enjoyed [Rec] 2, especially the ending. I always felt like the first film left the end just hanging and now I know why. I'm not sure I can buy the whole infection as a demonic possession deal, but it makes me want to go back and watch the first again to see if I just missed anything eluding to it then. Actually I think I need to watch [Rec] 2 again as well, because I missed what happened to some of the characters, like Mire, in all the commotion. It is a bit difficult to keep up with things sometimes, but the cams were usually steady enough that the "shaky cam" effect wasn't ever a problem. There is no English version of the movie, but I still loved it. You can easily read the subtitles and still watch what's going on. Granted there was an American remake called Contagion, but the sequel to Contagion is not a remake of [Rec] 2, so if you want to know what happened after the end of Contagion as well as the end of [Rec}, you need to watch [Rec] 2 today!



-Cyn, GameVortex Communications
AKA Sara Earl
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