Rec 2 - Solid sequel to Spain’s very own 28 Days Later

Ignoring the – rather pointless – Hollywood remake, Quarantine, REC was a cult classic in the horror genre. However, naturally – being a Spanish movie – it was cursed with subtitles, therefore it never reached a mainstream audience. However, that didn’t stop it spawning a sequel, which takes place immediately after the events in the first film.

If you haven’t seen REC then stop reading and watch it now. It is the better of the two movies, but, as far as sequels go, REC2 is actually pretty good. Here, a team of armed police officers enter a quarantined building to see what happened to the original occupants. And here’s a clue… zombies.
Of course naturally things don’t go too well for our boys in blue and, if you can ignore the fact that armed, well-trained men get easily overpowered and forced onto the back foot by unarmed (albeit zombified) civilians, then you can enjoy this one, too. There’s more gunplay as the budget is bigger than the original, so they can afford to add a few shoot-outs into the mix. However, if you’ve seen the original, you’ll have already seen the best scares. REC2 certainly isn’t as intense as its predecessor, but it’s still a decent enough follow-on.

Plus you probably won’t care about the central team as much as they’re all just ‘men in armour’ and it’s hard to make out who’s who. There are some other characters added a little way into the film, but that feels like an interruption as you’ve done your best to follow (and care about) the initial team before this new lot are thrown into the frying pan.

It’s not as good as REC, but in a world of terrible cash-in sequels, it certainly stands out as one of the better ones (which is more than I can say for ‘REC3’).

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that