[REC]: a Preview

Rob:
For my first pick is a little Spanish horror film that utterly blew my mind out of my ass.  I've been trying to get Chelle to watch it for almost as long as she's been trying to get me to watch Sleepless Town. In fact, the last time I suggested she watch it with me, she said she would, on the condition that I watch her boyfriend Takeshi's movie. Always looking for a new writing project, she said (half-jokingly), "We should start our own movie review blog and call it 'Films my Spouse Made Me Watch'."  I jumped on the idea, and here we are.

I reason I want her to watch [REC] is to see if she has anywhere near the same reaction as I did, particularly to the last ten minutes of the film.  My reaction: slack-jawed horror and disbelief, saying to myself, I know that's not real, but it's not CGI either, so what in God's name am I seeing?  And that's the film's strength--the whole POV angle is so well done that a simple monster make-up effect felt shockingly real, so much so that it took me watching the special features to figure out how they did it (I know, it should have been obvious, but I was sucked in utterly).

Horror is a strange beastie, and just because a certain film can elicit poo-poo in my personal pantaloons, that doesn't mean it is universally scary. The Exorcist scares me silly, but I've heard plently of people who don't even consider it a horror movie.  With [REC], I'm simply not sure if anyone else finds it as frightening as I did. I think Chelle will like it, and I really can't wait to see the look on her face when the creature is revealed.