Aside from the use of a video camera by all available cast members at the very beginning, Rec. 3 is entirely devoid of the handheld devices from which it derives its name. This ten minute nod to its
predecessors aside, this is some different beast to what has come before. Gone is the quiet, jumpy, creepiness of the first two films, and in its place a loud, ridiculous zombie flick has grown. Its a good film, its dumb, fun and silly enough to keep you entertained, but maintains the scare factor with a good dose of zombie antics. This is a problem though, the first two films were nothing like this, they were straight up scary, big old buildings where anything could be hiding around the corner are quite a different prospect to big old buildings with so many zombies in them that there will absolutely, no doubt, be one waiting around the corner. I mean, there are literally so many zombies in the building that it would be entirely possible to jump across the room on their heads, like a sort of erstwhile Indiana Jones, but with the un-dead instead of crocodiles. Is it even Indiana Jones who does that? Maybe it was Jack Sparrow. Anyway, also, whilst the film is presented as ‘the beginning’, quite what it is the beginning of is entirely unclear, its certainly not a prequel to the other two films, and if the ending is anything to go by Rec. 4 would have a difficult job of continuing the story from that point, so quite how this is supposed to work is beyond me. What this is then, is a competent, good fun zombie movie which will absolutely entertain you (and scare you if you are some kind of coward) that has had the Rec. name put on it to sell a few more copies.