[Rec]

I'm ignoring the dubbing issue for now because although it is a valid issue it's not enough reason to skip this film. In fact, rather than bring down the entire rating for what is quickly becoming a classic film, I wish those who gave it one star had given it at least three so as to be more fair to every other aspect of the production. I will say that this is pretty bad dubbing as dubbing goes and a subtitled version should be at least offered in addition. In truth, most of the talking occurs at the beginning of the film, which quickly develops into a major horror-suspense-action type film that is not dependent on dialog.This is also a "point of view" or "shaky-cam" film and many of those have a rightfully bad reputation. I recently saw one that became totally unintelligible minutes long shots of the ground by a bouncing camera. You can take this type of realism too far. But these people know what they're doing. I don't know what the technique is, but the camera is steady enough when it needs to be and shaky and disjointed enough to preserve the sense of realism that it is supposed to.The set up is delightfully simple. In Barcelona there is a local show called "While You Sleep" where a female announcer and a cameraman visit various venues where people work the night shift. This night it is to a local fire station and it's a pretty slow night. So slow is it, that they have to fill time shooting hoops in the station's basketball court. Then they get a call, just the thing the TV crew is hoping for, though later on they will wish it had never come in.In the zombie universe this is an "Infected" film with fast-moving zombies, the kind where just one or two can be totally lethal. The cast is totally believable and doesn't overact, the downfall of many low budget films. The action moves quickly - the whole film is only 78 minutes - and is totally believable and gripping. The director and writers managed to cut away all the frills and make one of the most intense films of the whole genre. One of their best decisions was to stick to one single building, which avoided the overreach of many films that try to show a large scale outbreak with a small scale budget, and which also keeps the atmosphere claustrophobically tense and dangerous.This film came from nowhere and is now often included in Top Ten lists in the zombie genre. It deserves it. The production company did an unusual thing with the sequel and subsequent sequels and changed the basic premise. I won't say any more because I don't want to spoil anything, but I thought it worth mentioning.

The problem with the way reviews are collected on Amazon is that the DVD reviews are lumped in with Amazon Prime streaming.All of the negative reviews are reviews of dubbed DVD's.I am a person who watches several horror films a week so that I can review on my Instagram (littlebadwolf cathy jenkins) and I'm a bit jaded but this film, Rec ESP scared the living daylights out of me. I actually flinched and yelped out loud scaring my cat (also a horror film buff). I COVERED my eyes twice!The directing is fabulous--exposing the actors to unscripted shocks that they react to naturally. The pacing is tight, the plot lean and clear and the ending. Well. You'll never see THAT coming. I cared about the characters more than I did the characters of the excellent remake of Dawn of the Dead, a film that gave the actors each a ton more screen time.In Rec ESP all the characters were so well developed in such a short amount of time and of course because of the way the film is shot, so Verite', you feel as if you're standing right there in the midst of it terrified for your life. I wanted to kill the person standing next to me screaming and I was horrified at the sight of the old, disheveled woman in her night gown. I actually felt ashamed of looking at her grotesque body-- as if I should give her some dignity. That is until she came lurching down the hall, mouth bloody, straight for me.Cannibal Holocaust? A exploitation flick through and through. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer? Tawdry and simple minded. Last House on the Left? A "this is your brain on drugs" public service announcement.IF YOU ARE A TRUE HORROR FAN YOU WILL LOVE THIS MOVIE! It's subtitled but who cares.

So, I ordered this movie thinking, very reasonably in my opinion, that this was the Spanish language version of Rec, what with ESP (Español) being in the actual title of the video.This is a great movie in Spanish, and as a North American I enjoy listening to dialects of España, this movie was filmed in Barcelona, as I usually hear (and speak, though poorly) Central and South American Spanish.BUT TO MY DISMAY, this is instead a really poorly dubbed English audio version of the movie. If I had wanted to hear English audio, I would have just rented the American movie, Quarantine, which is a not quite as good shot-for-shot remake, though it arguably has a less bizarre ending/explanation.Anyway, I ended up calling Amazon customer support, Amazon does have generally good customer support, and after calling twice, and talking to three separate people, I did manage to convince the digital customer support person, who first condescendingly explained to me how to check which audio language a movie is in, that I understand perfectly fine how to check the audio language, and that in fact I generally do when ordering foreign films, and if I simply had neglected to do it this time I would have just eaten the loss. However, why would I check the language WHEN IT LITERALLY SAYS "ESPAÑOL" IN THE TITLE?!?To add further insult to injury if you go to the product page and look at the DVD it also says "Spanish Language Version".I did end up getting a refund of my less than five dollar amount which is fine, it's not really about the amount, I don't care about that so much. It's the simple principle of putting "Español" in the title and having it dubbed in English. I honestly think everyone should call and complain until they fix it, because the dubbing is truly terrible, and Castilian Spanish is beautiful and people should get to hear it.I don't think you can even get Spanish subtitles, so I have no clue what the heck the ESP is supposed to stand for? Maybe the extra sensory perception you would need, to know ahead of time that a video that says it's in Spanish, isn't.