Monday, June 29, 2015

REC 4: Apocalypse (2014)

Reporter Angela, who I last remember seeing in peril in the quarantined apartment building, wakes to find herself on a tanker in the middle of the ocean.  She, along with two surviving swat team members who rescued her and an old woman from a wedding party, have been brought here by doctors who want to make sure the virus doesn't spread further. Well, at least that what's they tell them. You know that nothing is as it seems in movies where a mystery virus is wiping out the populace.

Along with our quarantined people, there are doctors working on a cure, a crew to man the tanker, and the muscle to keep everyone from messing up the doctors orders.  The laboratory set up by the doctors causes an undue load on the ship's resources which cause intermittent power outages. During one blackout, an infected monkey escapes the lab and bites the cook. Now everyone on the ship is at risk, and secrets are revealed that change everything.

While the location of a tanker at sea provides similar isolation as the apartment building, there is never that sense of claustrophobia that the first movie had.  Also be aware that this movie is not found footage or shot from someones point of view, which may rub some viewers the wrong way.  I found this the least interesting of the four Rec movies, but the production values are good.  It's not that it's a bad movie, but that it pales in comparison to Rec and Rec 2.

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