The Curator of Schlock #320 by Jeff Shuster

Rec 2

The sequel to Rec in case you were wondering. 

I have a confession to make. I don’t always understand what I’m watching when it comes to movies. Take Howard the Duck. I thought it was a movie about an anthropomorphic duck trying to survive in a mid 1980s Cleveland. Then the movie becomes about laser spectroscopes and Dark Overlords of the Universe. What I’m trying to say is that simple movies can get complicated to the point where I don’t know what’s going on.

We need to talk about 2009’s Rec 2 from directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza. It picks up where Rec left off. A group of three commandos led by a Dr. Owen (Jonathan Mellor) make their way through the crowd of onlookers outside of the quarantined apartment building. This is another found footage movie as each commando has a video camera in his helmet to help him record the situation inside the apartment complex. Once inside, only Dr. Owen can give the voice command to permit them or anyone else from exiting the building.

They make their way up to the penthouse with all of the religious iconography and newspaper cutouts about the possessed little girl. Dr. Owen keeps demanding that everything gets recorded. Infected apartment residents attack and infect one of the commandos, but Dr. Owens is able to subdue and trap the infected commando with a Rosary and some prayers.

Huh?

And then Dr. Owens removes his helmet to reveal a priest’s collar. He’s not Dr. Owen from the Ministry of Health; he’s Father Owen from the Vatican!

Okay. So I’m going to try to explain what I think is going on. The Vatican decided to use medical science as a way to cure the demonically possessed. I think Father Owens rambles that the Vatican discovered that possessed people have a virus while possessed and if they could come up with an antidote for this virus, priests could just inject someone who gets demonically possessed instead of going through the whole exorcism ordeal.

Unfortunately, the virus mutated during their experimentation.

The virus can pass from person to person. The demon residing inside the original possessed person possesses each person the virus comes into contact with. So I guess the virus is possessed, which allows a single demon to possess several people at the same time?

Father Owens needs the original blood sample from the possessed girl so that an antidote can be created. He directs the remaining commandos to hunt for the virus. By the skin of his teeth, one of the commandos retrieves the last vial of the possessed girl’s blood before one of the demonically possessed, zombie maniacs is able to tear him a new one. At this moment, Father Owens makes the stupidest mistake I’ve ever seen in a horror movie. He insists that the blood sample needs to be tested for authenticity before he will allow them to leave the building.

Ummmm. Father Owens, you can test the sample outside of the building in a controlled facility far away from this demonically possessed, zombie maniac infested apartment complex. You got what you came for. Now get out of there. But no, he has to test the sample. He pours some of the blood onto a plate, holds a crucifix over it while saying some prayers, and the blood shimmers before catching fire. The remaining blood in the vial also catches fire and the commando holding it drops it on the floor. The blood sample is useless now, but Father Owens says they can retrieve a new sample from the original possessed girl who is hiding somewhere in the building.

What else?

We get some annoying teenagers sneaking into the apartment complex after destroying a perfectly good blow-up doll. Ángela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) shows up again apparently having survived the first movie. They discover that the original possessed girl can only be seen through a camera’s night vision, as the demon is able to make her invisible to the naked eye. Nothing is going to go according to plan…well…actually…I suppose things go according to demon’s plan. To think, I was going to have June be Satan Month.

I guess Satan Month came early.

You’re welcome.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.