Horror Month | [Rec] – The horror that took advantage of the sub-genre of the images found at the top

Spanish Horror developed, using one location, its plot

The found footage subgenre is favored by many directors, especially those with extremely limited budgets, as it allows for a naturalness that is often lost in larger productions. The first such copy dates from 1980, when Italian filmmaker Ruggero Deodato released Holocausto Canibal.

Along with all the controversies that arose around the film at the time (such as the opening of an investigation by the police to investigate the murder scenes present in the production), the title presented for the first time the basics what we would call the images found. sub-genre; the most obvious being the fact that the viewer is presented with a recording that is, in the plot of the film, that reveals someone’s last moments.

Arguably the subgenre debuted even before 1980, about two years earlier, with Faces of Death; However, this production and its sequel do not provide the footage items found.

Arguably the highlight of this segment came in 1999 when the humble Blair Witch drew terrified glances to himself and the alleged veracity of the events depicted in the film. In addition, it is important to point out that the film was one of the first to take advantage of the expansion of the Internet for advertising purposes, using the global network to give its plot even more credibility.

“Blair Witch” was a divisor in the subgenre

The commercial success of it paved the way for a new generation of found images starting in 2007, with the first Paranormal Activity. High public acceptance (symbolized by a box office exceeding US $ 190 million) coupled with a low budget (US $ 15,000) paved the way for more such productions to be produced or researched. This is the case with The Poughkeepsie Tapes, V H S and Rec.

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Around 2007, Spanish directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza launched Rec following the explosion of images found. The plot, also signed by them in collaboration with Luiso Berdejo, follows a host of a nightly newscast who reports on the nightly routine of a fire department.

What starts out as trivial, with basic talks about their procedures taken everywhere, changes when the group receives an emergency call in an apartment. The journalist and her team following them to the end, they arrive on the scene and realize that the emergency comes from a lady who lives alone; while trying to help her, one of the local policemen is attacked by her.

Spanish production had an extremely tight budget

The group then tries to leave the building with the other residents, but they soon find out that they are locked in quarantine inside the premises, even with the injured policeman. This is another case of experimental work that had an extremely limited budget, just over $ 2 million, but had a very favorable return, $ 23 million worldwide.

One of the most notable elements of the film is the use of a single backdrop for the rest of the work. Having a small residential building helps to make the feeling of claustrophobia and fear of residents, firefighters and journalists more credible, in addition to intensifying the problem of the state of quarantine that is present there.

One-time adjustment is something very common in found footage work because it saves spending a lot more than what the production has available, but also because the simplicity of having a single inexpensive set maintains the fantasy that the highlighted recording is something believable.

The independent atmosphere was also present in the recordings, as all the locations are real and there was no set creation for the shoot; the contact of the actors with the script was also unusual, as none of them knew in advance what was the fate of their characters and the outcome of the work as a whole.

Rec received differentiated status almost immediately after release, granting the go-ahead for at least four more sequels, with the second still signed by the duo and the third and fourth featuring a rotation of the two directors. In 2009, a Hollywood remake called Quarantine took the same story as the first film to Los Angeles, but without the participation of Balagueró and Plaza.

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