[REC] is a simple, well-executed, Spanish zombie movie that works with a concept so catchy that an ultra-faithful American remake followed less than a year after the original. It's not at all original, borrowing heavily from any number of other movies, but it is very well done, so much so that before long you're not really comparing it to anything.
I especially liked the pacing. It's a very short movie, the cut that I saw was only and hour and fifteen minutes, which is perfect. My pet hate in almost any art form is bad editing, and people who let things run on for no good reason. Which is nothing like saying I don't like long books, movies, albums or songs; I love lengthy pieces of work when that serves the art, it's just that so often I finish a movie thinking "well, that could have been twenty minutes shorter and twice as good". The pacing in [REC] is awesome, it starts slowly, then ups the stakes with a big burst of violence, then cranks the tension, then cranks the tension some more, then cranks the tension some more, then lets it all go in a final act that seems to get faster and faster and faster before it hits the final scene like a needle hitting the run-out groove. Perfect.
Oh man, I could rant about things being too long until the cows come home. Pretty much my whole problem with Harry Potter probably comes from reading the fourth book and wondering why it couldn't have been like a whole third shorter. After that, there was no way I could've sat through another one. There's creating your world, there's adding subplots to make the structure more interesting and engage your reader, and then there's telling us a whole load of crap that we don't need to know, and describing things that you have no need to describe.
Anyway, [REC]. THUMP! That was my stamp of approval hammering down on it, so check it out.
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