[REC] 3: Genesis (2012)

Sex :
Violence :
Director Paco Plaza Reviewer :
Writers Luiso Berdejo, Paco Plaza
Starring Leticia Dolera, Diego Martín, Ŕlex Monner, Ismael Martínez
Genre Zombie
Tagline The Happiest Day of my Life
15 second cap Brides tend to have worries about their wedding day going wrong, but normally they don't have to worry about demonic zombies
Country

Review

"They move as one. They do what a superior, malign being tells them." - Priest

It's Clara and Koldo's wedding day and naturally a large reception has been organised with all the trimmings one might expect at a Spanish gala occasion. Probably not on the agenda is one of the Uncles who has been bitten by a dog he believed was dead. As festivities hot up, and worryingly Government forces start being seen on the perimeter of the reception complex, the Uncle appears to be pissed out of his gourd. With things in high gear our Uncle of disappear does a deep six off a second floor balcony much to the consternation of the Wedding guests. This turns to outright terror as the Uncle takes a huge bite out of his wife's neck, hello apocalyptic infection on Clara's big day!

As more guests turn into flesh crazed possessed zombie monsters Clara and Koldo are separated in the panic and mayhem, and then spend most of the rest of the movie trying to find each other as the death toll mounts. Can true love win out over a satanic infection? Let's grab a slice of wedding cake and dial into the third [Rec] movie.

Paco Plaza presents the third of four movies in the [Rec] franchise. Having gone from a simple tale of zombie infestation in an Apartment building, to religious overtones with a demonic origin for the virus, we now go beyond ground zero to find that containment is not going to be the answer. Plaza updates the franchise to add some rom-com-zom to proceedings and dispenses with the all out attempts to terrify that the first couple of movies brought to the table. While I was reasonably happy with the approach, everything gets stale after a while folks, I was slightly disappointed in the finished product that lacked the raw power of the first movies.

Guess the first major change we should focus on is the move from "found footage" to more traditional filming methods. The first movie, and to a lesser degree the second movie, made the "found footage" concept work for their storylines and developments. There was something slightly sinister and unnerving involved in "real footage" in a claustrophobic setting. In Genesis Plaza uses "found footage" through the first block of the movie, but then drops the concept for the majority of the running time with a couple of slight detours to take advantage of security cams etc. I'm guessing Plaza had this idea of the outbreak expanding to devour more people hence he went from the intimate nature of "found footage" to the more impersonal but more polish approach of traditional film making. While I'm not going to rubbish the movie for changing technique suddenly, I'm still unsure if it actually worked as Plaza might have expected. But what the hey, I was caught up in the plot and the mayhem going down, Plaza outdoes himself there in full technicolour y'all.

Plaza takes the contagion beyond the Apartment building and into the wider community

The other change that needs discussion is the introduction of comedic elements to the movie, something not seen in previous franchise entries. While I'm for sure happy with some humour in my horror gruel there's a time and place. The script here seemed at pains to push the major laugh moments, a few too many for my liking, and gave up some pacing in order to drop the next gag into the mix. Koldo picking up the sword, who has one of those to cut a wedding cake anyway? - seemed belaboured and foreshadowed a couple of times too many really. Equally there were a number of disposable characters thrown in to the mix that were simply there to get a smile on the audience dial, and quite often to very little discernable effect.

Naturally there were a few things that were working like brought ones. Koldo seems to be our go too guy, the square jawed hero who will rise given extraordinary circumstances. This being a zombie outing Koldo's various plans have about as much success as those hatched by Ben's in Romero's classic Night of the Living Dead. A whole bunch of deaths can be laid at Koldo's feet, including a bus load of kiddies, as he stumbles from one half cocked idea to the next. Having said that who amongst us would have done much better given the absolute chaos the outbreak causes at the wedding reception. Nice to see Plaza is aware of the genre he works in and isn't giving away basic ideas and notions in the pursuit of Hollywood style cookie cutter movie making.

I was also impressed, may have to hand in my man card here, with the love story that provides the framework for the movie. Plaza may have missed a few beats that could have enhanced the movie but still nails the overriding idea. The film kicks off with a montage of photos of Clara and Koldo as they grew up, one assumes in close proximity, and finishes with the obligatory Hens and Bucks nights before smashing into the movie proper. We then follow the wedding, unswerving love, the zombie outbreak, feeling for each other, before the final nihilistic scene that worked like an All Black loose forward in nailing the romantic overhead. I'm almost always impressed with film makers that can supply a coherent and well thought out movie.

Slight detour here, we are talking a zombie movie of the "infected" variety rather than trad-zoms or Romero's shamblers. If you are hip with Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later then you'll know what I mean. Anyone claiming [Rec] 3 isn't a zombie flick needs to do a bit of research into the evolution of the sub-genre.

So naturally this being a zombie flick there's a fair amount of claret being splashed about with abandon. Besides major bite action there's a decent amount of other carnage as the survivors fight back against the infected hordes. We're definitely in splatter territory with some outrageously over the top gore hitting the screen. Let's face facts any movie that has one pissed off Bride wielding a chainsaw isn't exactly going to take a subtle approach to displaying the blood work.

T&A is fairly low on the horizon, there's a quick boob shot at one stage and that's about all she wrote. Not much for the gals to perv on, but hey never much at the best of times.

Leticia Dolera (Clara) goes at it all wide eyed innocent and freaking nails the role of the Bride who has "her day" turned upside down, loved those eyes. And Diego Martín (Koldo) is keeping up as the angst ridden groom who never quite gets on top of anything.

I've been a big fan of this franchise from the announcement of the first movie, and version three has not convinced me otherwise. While the movie may not hold the surprise factor of the first flick, or the all out approach of the second, it still works as a solid zombie outing. In an age where Boredwood are increasingly pumping out brain dead tween fodder it's nice to see film makes still approaching the dark genre with some respect. If you enjoyed the first couple of movies then you won't want to miss [Rec] 3 as it does propel the religious plot arc forward and connects with the previous movies via the original dog attack that infected the Uncle and footage from [Rec] on a background monitor. So guess a recommendation to zombie fans and those of you who dig a bit of comedy in their movie diet.

[Rec] 3: Genesis is available from the usual suspects Downunder and should by next week be adorning rental shelves. Anyway you look at it the movie shouldn't be hard to track down for a viewing. I guess I should also point out we're talking a Spanish language movie with English subtitles for the challenged.

ScaryMinds Rates this movie as ...

  The Franchise continues although a slight dip here