[●REC] ² - Who's Up For Round 2?

What makes a good sequel? I like to think that it retains those elements from the original that made it successful, but takes them in a new direction and adds some new elements. While The Descent Part 2 lacked this originality, relying on the first without really differentiating itself, [•REC]² delivers exactly this. It’s still scary and handy-cam and claustrophobic and effective, but there are new layers here – parallel storylines, bigger twists, serious weaponry, multiple cameras. Is it as good as the original? No. But is it good? Hells yeah.

A squad of cops are sent into the apartment block in which the infection originated in the original to analyse the situation, accompanied by a health department official. We watch it through their helmet-cams and the camera their unit takes in. They make their way up to the penthouse and search for information, when a sound draws one of the four policemen into a lower apartment. The others watch through his camera as he is attacked by a rabid woman and presumably killed. They demand information from the health department bloke, and he admits that he is in fact a priest, and the infection is demonic in nature. They cannot leave the block until a blood sample of the girl who was initially possessed is located. Meanwhile, some youngsters find their way into the block through the sewers with a camera in the hope of capturing some valuable footage, and also become embroiled in the chaos. Their search for the virus’ source gets nasty – she is not a nice gal and doesn't particularly want to have her blood sample taken, but who does like needles really?

It's more of the same where the cast are concerned - pretty solid, maybe a little amateurish, but this almost helps their cause of making us believe that they are simply ordinary folk caught up in an unimaginable maelstrom of shit. The police unit that we follow through hell are well chosen and established as very separate characters, which is handy when stuff starts going down so we can keep track of who's been 'turned' and who is still with us in the land of the mentally functional. Our pretty lead from the original film makes a surprising return and holds her end of the bargain, with her ability to believably sustain what is a pretty surprising ending helping the movie along somewhat. The most notable of the cast I'd have to give to our friend the health official/undercover priest - I'd describe him as a sort of Paul Bettany-lite. He has a certain desperation about him, and his almost unnerving faith is important in adding a sense of gravitas to what could have been just an average exorcism style questioning of faith and all those other tough religious themes.

Those behind the camera are pretty much the same as the first film, and they keep their game's pretty solid. A nice touch was the reversal of the cameraman's name - this one sees the camera carrying officer addressed as Rosso, this time the cinematographer's last time (Pablo Rosso). There were no motion sickness concerns that can crop up in this style of shooting, and everything that you needed to see was pretty unmissable - just one of the benefits of having a trained direct of photography behind the majority of the shaky-cam work. This time round actually required a little more skilful editing as the viewers switch between the multiple cams, and it was pretty tight in this regard - scares were effectively built up to and dropped on the viewers with the greatest of prejudice, and this pays off. The directors also changed their game up a little this time around, both as necessitated by the stylistic upgrades of multiple cams and story lines and also just generally. I didn't know how many times I could get scared by small, possessed children/creatures dropping out of the top of the frame, but [●REC] ² certainly tried to set a defined number.

The sound design is just as important this time around, and probably even steps it up a notch with some booming firearms thrown in the mix. The long periods of silence broken by frenetic mob sounds are still intact, and they do the same job just as well. One minor gripe in that respect is that they maybe come less often than they should - the survival of more major characters to the finale means that there are more mouths to break the silence, and this is almost a little frustrating (does me wishing movie characters would hurry up and kick the bucket make me a bad person?).

And finally to the ending. What an absolute prick of an ending. It's gross, upsetting, creepy, gross, tragic, spooky... did I mention gross? AVOID THE FOLLOWING IF YOU'RE ALLERGIC TO SPOILERS. Our friend from the first film miraculously survives and tags along with the policemen, but slowly goes a little mental and effectively kills the survivors. She then proceeds to imitate the priest's voice perfectly to have the forces surrounding the building let her out. You guessed it - she's been possessed by the demon at the root of all this mayhem. We're then treated to a flashback in which we see the original film's ending, only this time augmented with footage of the reporter having a thick wormy creature forced down her throat by the woman who haunts the attic, and we just know that this was the beginning of our female protagonist's possession. It really hurts to watch, and I can all but guarantee that you'll be feeling something slithering around in your throat for a few days afterwards.

But like I said, it doesn't improve on the original, though it's a damn good effort for a foreign horror sequel. It's still pretty scary, and laden with some sultry Spanish accents for your pleasure, so it's ultimately worth taking a peek at. It's no18 standards out of a 700mL bottle of Smirnoff Vodders like the first film, but I'd certainly pay a solid 14 standards.

I'm hopefully going to get a new review up every day this week so stay tuned for this canon of carnage. You stay classy.

Get amongst the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G18Y-S8YrQ0