The Wedding Shamble

Film: [REC]³: Genesis
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

Rules, the say goes, are meant to be broken. There is some truth to this idea in the sense that breaking rules is how we get presented with stories that surprise us. The truth is that you need to be able to understand and use the rules to know how to break them correctly. This is true in grammar, in storytelling, and in movie making as well as just about everywhere else. [REC]³: Genesis breaks a huge rule of its genre, does it for no good reason, and ultimately suffers because of it. There’s no getting around the fact that this movie breaks faith with the audience.

To talk about [REC]³, we’re going to need to dive back a little into the previous films. The main thing that needs to be remembered is that we are dealing with something that is a great deal like a zombie virus in the sense that it apparently brings back people from the dead who immediately start trying to bite other people. The other thing we’re going to need to remember from the original films is that the virus in question is essentially a viral version of a demonic possession. This will become extremely important in the plot as we proceed.

The twist for this movie is that it’s going to take place at a wedding. Our wedding couple is Clara (Leticia Dolera) and Kolda (Diego Martin), and everyone seems pleased that they are getting married. We’re getting the opening we expect here—lots of people milling around and a couple of video cameras recording what is happening. What happens eventually is that one of the guests, a veterinarian, was bitten earlier by a dog, and starts showing bizarre behavior during the reception. Eventually, this bizarre behavior translates into attacking other people and biting them, and suddenly, the movie starts in earnest.

There are a couple of important things to note here. First is that this is when we get the opening titles for the film. This is extraordinary in the sense that [REC]³ is not a long movie by any stretch, but we’re getting titles at 22 minutes in or more. The other thing that happens at this point is that the film crosses that boundary and abandons the style that has served it for 2 1/3 movies. The minute we come back from those opening credits, this is no longer a found footage film.

In terms of the crimes that a horror movie could commit, this is a pretty big one. I don’t adore found footage as a rule, but when you’re in the middle of a found footage film, you at least know what to expect and what it’s going to look like. The conventions of found footage are going to apply. We’re going to get a lot of shaky cam, a lot of camera work misfocused and misdirected, and it’s going to slowly build up to the ending. Here, after those first 22 minute so, we get a traditional movie. This brakes completely with the series—the first two films are straight found footage movies.

Another issue is that this film is tonally very different from the first two films in the series. Those movies are deadly serious, and the creatures that we are seeing are terrible monsters that combine the worst elements of demonic possession and zombies. [REC]³ is much more a splatter movie. There are a few good jump scares, but that’s all we are going to get in terms of scary moments. There’s nothing here that smacks of the existential dread or religion-fueled horror of the first movie.

This is a lot bloodier. Our bride Clara is eventually going to find a chainsaw and will not simply lop off a limb or a head here and there, but will be bisecting heads a few times. It’s good, gory fun, and it’s matched by Kolda dispatching one of the creatures with an immersion blender. The films in this series have certainly had their gore moments, but this film is absolutely all about the gore and violence.

[REC]³ doesn’t do a great deal to remind us of the religious roots of the origin. There are some moments where the creatures are clearly cowed by someone reciting scripture to them, but this is something we essentially have to remember.

The truth is that there are too many breaks with the first two films to make this work. We’ve got an entirely new cast in an entirely new situation, so there doesn’t seem like a lot of continuity—something that the issue with us not getting a reminder of the religious angle highlights. This is also a film that wants to be funny in places. The existence of a man wearing something like a Spongebob costume (Sponge John, he says, because of copyright issues) is a part of this, because you just know eventually that guy is going to be turned into a demonic creature, and he’s wearing a sponge costume that he can’t remove because he’s naked underneath it. That is pretty funny, but it doesn’t work with where this series has been.

Honestly, this feels unnecessary, and it doesn’t make me want to watch the fourth and final film in the franchise.

Why to watch [REC]³: Genesis: It’s vastly bloodier and more brutal than the previous films.
Why not to watch: It breaks a cardinal rule of the style.