Rec 3 is a 2012 Spanish Horror film directed by Paco Plaza. If you’re like me and growing incredibly tired of the found footage concept then you’ll be happy to hear that the film starts off that way, but switches to a more conventional narrative about 10 minutes in. This is obviously the third in the REC saga and is going to be followed by Rec4-Apocalypsis.
The film starts out at the wedding of our two main characters, Koldo and Clara. It is being filmed by a character named Adrian. Everything is going smoothly untli Adrian finds his uncle who claims that he was bitten by a dog, but it’s nothing to worry about and it’ll be alright. Some time goes by and the condition of his uncle steadily deteriorates until he falls in full view of the guests. His aunt goes over to tend to her husband when he suddenly wakes up, bites her neck and vomits blood on another guest. Panic ensues and the bride and groom are split up. From around this pointonward, the film completely abandons the found footage aspect which I was incredibly thankful for.
Although the first two Rec films both handled the found-footage concept incredibly well, I am personally suffering from an overload of other movies trying and failing at it. There’s only so many times a person can wonder why they don’t just drop the damned camera and run the other way, or do anything other than walk into death-traps and steadfastly refuse to put the camera down.
Rec 3 is also the first in the series to inject a steady dose of humor throughout the film. It doesn’t seem to take itself seriously, and amps up the fun as the movie progresses. There’s one scene in particular involving a chainsaw later on in the movie that makes you laugh for all the right reasons. As I’ve stated before, I don’t really believe in numbered scores, so this film is also highly recommended.