Editorials
‘REC 3: Genesis’ – Reappraising the Zombie Franchise’s Oddball Sequel
While other horror franchises can be accused of rehashing themselves with each new entry, every part of the REC series feels like a different movie. The original sets things into motion with staggering execution and results, and the follow-up expands on the lore. After the events of REC 2, it made sense for Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza to explore the world they had created. So the duo split up for the remaining two movies in the zombie series, with Plaza taking on the third installment. While it would seem like Balagueró got the better end of the deal — his sequel REC 4: Apocalypse ties directly into Ángela Vidal’s story — Plaza was handed a golden opportunity to do something outside the main plot.
When asked about the new changes of REC 3: Genesis, Plaza said he and Balagueró “wanted to get some fresh air.” However, their decision didn’t sit well with everyone. Some people found the new direction to their liking, whereas others were disappointed. The latter group undoubtedly takes issue with what happens after the first act, but before that decisive transition, Genesis is more in line with the first two movies. Here a young couple, Clara and Koldo (Leticia Dolera, Diego Martín), is getting married inside a luxurious estate. The ceremony is initially picturesque and free of problems, but everything changes at the afterparty.
REC 3 is shot like a first-person movie up until the twenty-minute mark. The short tedium seen before that point helps to establish an air of realism, as well as offset the eventual chaos. The insignificant encounters and conversations among the wedding party, the informal video interviews, and the ceremony itself — it’s all part of a familiar routine. This “calm before the storm” period doesn’t last too long, seeing as one guest’s foreboding injury, a work-related dog bite, brings on the outbreak and mayhem you were promised. After a brief waiting period, you bear witness to one of the most disastrous weddings in horror.
How Plaza repeals the first-person technique is aggressive. The resident wedding videographer, Atún (Sr. B), had planned to record the sudden zombie chaos. He even delivered the hackneyed line so many characters before him have said or thought to justify filming in these kinds of situations: “People have a right to know what’s going on! I have to film everything!” In a fit of rage, the groom then destroys Atún’s camera. This interaction reads like frustration on the director’s part; it’s as if Plaza is using Koldo to express his own conflicted feelings. Of course it’s at this precise juncture when the movie’s title appears on screen, signaling the start of the “real” REC 3. This whole scene is a tremendous way to say “no more found footage.”
As to be expected, everything from here on out feels and looks considerably different. The cinéma vérité technique is abandoned for something more rehearsed and polished. REC and REC 2 were definitely styled, but in a way that felt lifelike and instant. This sequel’s style is on the other end of the spectrum; it’s cinematic and slick. The same sense of urgency is still in place, though the immediacy is gone. You’re no longer in one person’s shoes; the movie cuts back and forth between parties as they struggle to find each other. This affords the story a bigger playground, but it’s at the expense of effectual tension.
When compared to the first and second movies, REC 3 is nowhere as intense. There’s no bated breath as characters wander in the dark, pondering what might await them. You don’t feel anyone’s fear here. At the same time, Plaza provides a more graphic and straightforward presentation. There is no real need to shroud the zombies in mystique anymore. Showing the threat in plain view, not to mention taking the time to slaughter them in a handful of gruesome and detailed set pieces, is refreshing. After the previous movies did such a fantastic job of obscuring and empowering the zombies, this parallel story forces them out into the open.
The characters populating found footage can often be repellent; their most uncomfortably human traits are unfiltered, as well as magnified by the camera being shoved in their faces. Yet after being forced to identify with them and their predicaments, you might be able to root for their survival on a fundamental level. Caring about them, based solely on their personalities, varies from movie to movie. At the very least, REC 3 isn’t as confrontational about its characters. Clara and Koldo are singled out as the protagonists from the get-go, but it’s their astonishing ability to beat the odds and fight for each other that endears them to you. Getting attached to them in the same way as you did with Ángela Vidal seems unlikely. Nevertheless, Clara and Koldo are sympathetic characters.
Some have argued that comedy and horror aren’t compatible, and those who feel that way are likely not going to enjoy REC 3. After all, the first two entries were deadly serious with overwhelming stakes. Going from that to this movie is bound to cause some tonal whiplash, especially if you prefer your horror to play things 100% straight. It’s not as though Plaza is channeling the output of Álex de la Iglesia or early Peter Jackson. The humor here is selective and relatively controlled as opposed to full-on zany. Plaza does a good job of balancing absurdity with grotesquery. Based on this and his lesser known movie A Christmas Tale, Plaza would be wise to pursue making more dark comedies.
Watching this for the first time, both unaware of the changes and expecting something more in line with the original, is bound to elicit an adverse reaction. But after some time apart, and after accepting the sequel for what it is rather than what it isn’t, REC 3: Genesis is mightily entertaining in ways that its predecessors aren’t. Plaza’s solo movie is still the oddball of this franchise, but it’s not without charm or merit.
Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
Due to a complex series of anthropological mishaps, the Wayans Brothers are a huge deal in Brazil. Around these parts, White Chicks is considered a national treasure by a lot of people, so it stands to reason that Brazilian audiences would continue to accompany the Wayans’ comedic output long after North America had stopped taking them seriously as comedic titans.
This is the only reason why I originally watched Michael Tiddes and Marlon Wayans’ 2013 horror spoof A Haunted House – appropriately known as “Paranormal Inactivity” in South America – despite having abandoned this kind of movie shortly after the excellent Scary Movie 3. However, to my complete and utter amazement, I found myself mostly enjoying this unhinged parody of Found Footage films almost as much as the iconic spoofs that spear-headed the genre during the 2000s. And with Paramount having recently announced a reboot of the Scary Movie franchise, I think this is the perfect time to revisit the divisive humor of A Haunted House and maybe figure out why this kind of film hasn’t been popular in a long time.
Before we had memes and internet personalities to make fun of movie tropes for free on the internet, parody movies had been entertaining audiences with meta-humor since the very dawn of cinema. And since the genre attracted large audiences without the need for a serious budget, it made sense for studios to encourage parodies of their own productions – which is precisely what happened with Miramax when they commissioned a parody of the Scream franchise, the original Scary Movie.
The unprecedented success of the spoof (especially overseas) led to a series of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs that came along throughout the 2000s. While some of these were still quite funny (I have a soft spot for 2008’s Superhero Movie), they ended up flooding the market much like the Guitar Hero games that plagued video game stores during that same timeframe.
You could really confuse someone by editing this scene into Paranormal Activity.
Of course, that didn’t stop Tiddes and Marlon Wayans from wanting to make another spoof meant to lampoon a sub-genre that had been mostly overlooked by the Scary Movie series – namely the second wave of Found Footage films inspired by Paranormal Activity. Wayans actually had an easier time than usual funding the picture due to the project’s Found Footage presentation, with the format allowing for a lower budget without compromising box office appeal.
In the finished film, we’re presented with supposedly real footage recovered from the home of Malcom Johnson (Wayans). The recordings themselves depict a series of unexplainable events that begin to plague his home when Kisha Davis (Essence Atkins) decides to move in, with the couple slowly realizing that the difficulties of a shared life are no match for demonic shenanigans.
In practice, this means that viewers are subjected to a series of familiar scares subverted by wacky hijinks, with the flick featuring everything from a humorous recreation of the iconic fan-camera from Paranormal Activity 3 to bizarre dance numbers replacing Katy’s late-night trances from Oren Peli’s original movie.
Your enjoyment of these antics will obviously depend on how accepting you are of Wayans’ patented brand of crass comedy. From advanced potty humor to some exaggerated racial commentary – including a clever moment where Malcom actually attempts to move out of the titular haunted house because he’s not white enough to deal with the haunting – it’s not all that surprising that the flick wound up with a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite making a killing at the box office.
However, while this isn’t my preferred kind of humor, I think the inherent limitations of Found Footage ended up curtailing the usual excesses present in this kind of parody, with the filmmakers being forced to focus on character-based comedy and a smaller scale story. This is why I mostly appreciate the love-hate rapport between Kisha and Malcom even if it wouldn’t translate to a healthy relationship in real life.
Of course, the jokes themselves can also be pretty entertaining on their own, with cartoony gags like the ghost getting high with the protagonists (complete with smoke-filled invisible lungs) and a series of silly The Exorcist homages towards the end of the movie. The major issue here is that these legitimately funny and genre-specific jokes are often accompanied by repetitive attempts at low-brow humor that you could find in any other cheap comedy.
Not a good idea.
Not only are some of these painfully drawn out “jokes” incredibly unfunny, but they can also be remarkably offensive in some cases. There are some pretty insensitive allusions to sexual assault here, as well as a collection of secondary characters defined by negative racial stereotypes (even though I chuckled heartily when the Latina maid was revealed to have been faking her poor English the entire time).
Cinephiles often claim that increasingly sloppy writing led to audiences giving up on spoof movies, but the fact is that many of the more beloved examples of the genre contain some of the same issues as later films like A Haunted House – it’s just that we as an audience have (mostly) grown up and are now demanding more from our comedy. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, as – much like the Elves from Lord of the Rings – spoof movies never really died, they simply diminished.
A Haunted House made so much money that they immediately started working on a second one that released the following year (to even worse reviews), and the same team would later collaborate once again on yet another spoof, 50 Shades of Black. This kind of film clearly still exists and still makes a lot of money (especially here in Brazil), they just don’t have the same cultural impact that they used to in a pre-social-media-humor world.
At the end of the day, A Haunted House is no comedic masterpiece, failing to live up to the laugh-out-loud thrills of films like Scary Movie 3, but it’s also not the trainwreck that most critics made it out to be back in 2013. Comedy is extremely subjective, and while the raunchy humor behind this flick definitely isn’t for everyone, I still think that this satirical romp is mostly harmless fun that might entertain Found Footage fans that don’t take themselves too seriously.
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