[REC] 4: Apocalypse
- Zach Butler
- Mar 9, 2017
- 3 min read
Fans of horror gather 'round, gather 'round! Grab your popcorn and those chocolate snowcapped candies that taste like toothpaste, because we're kicking off the first review with "[REC] 4: Apocalypse". I realize it's probably not Kosher to start with the latest (and possibly last) installment of the "[REC]" franchise, but when charging down a list starting at the letter A, you take what you get. But, boy gang, this one easily became one of my favorite zombie thrillers.
Director Juame Balaguero delivers a high intensity, bloody thriller in the fourth film of the "[REC]" series. Once the film catches speed it's quite the ride following a small band of survivors as they race around a ship, avoiding zombie consumption at all costs. Imagine a zombie outbreak movie that takes place at sea during a storm; a sort of Hemingway, "Old Man and the Sea", type film, just with more mutations, gore, and a boat motor used as a weapon.
The movie kicks off with a brief recap of what happened in the previous movie. Now, I must admit, I saw the first of these films when it was re-released in America under the name "Quarantine", so I was familiar with the premise. To catch you up to speed, a zombie outbreak happens in an apartment complex and gory terror ensues when a fire team takes a call to check the building. This fourth installment, though, doesn't don the traditional found-footage look like the first one, and so the title is about as misleading as LeBron James' hairline. It's within this same apartment complex that the army finds Manuela Velasco's character, Angela Vidal-a television reporter-still alive and kicking. The next scene we wake up on a boat, but there's no T-Pain and no Lonely Island group.
The slow-burn is sluggish in this film with the action finally appearing around thirty minutes in when the ship's cook is attacked by an infected monkey. In what has to be one of the greatest inciting incidences in horror history, the Filipino cook battles off the raging zombie monkey by cooking it in a frying pan, but not before suffering a fatal bite himself. When the mercenary crew working for the cold, calculated Dr. Ricarte (Hector Colome), the lead scientist aboard the ship and a man who we learn is pulling all the strings, mistakes the cooked monkey for lamb (has no one on the ship ever had lamb before?) we are thrown into the only results of consuming zombie meat.
"[REC] 4: Apocalypse" doesn't so much rely on character development as it does the fast-paced plot. The movie suffers some as we are barely acquainted with people like the army medical officer Guzman (Paco Manzanedo), his partner in crime, Lucas (Crispulo Cabezas), and my favorite character aboard the zombie ship, the security, and video supervisor, Nic (Ismael Fritschi). As one of the more developed characters aboard the ship, Nic is a pudgy crewmember with a deep loyalty and pathetic teenage crush on Angela. With a tagline that is simple, yet endearing, Nic is constantly cheering himself on by often muttering under his breath, "Go, Nic!". It is something that catches on as the film progresses and a phrase I almost heard myself cheering as I watched him saw a zombie mercenary with a boat motor.
The film earned three stars out of five on my personal rating and is a fun flick to view during hangouts or sleepovers. Don't expect many jump-scares as this one moves fairly quick and relies more upon the shock of the gory, mutated zombies.
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