[REC] 4: Apocalipsis (2014)
An ill-fated television reporter is rescued and sent
on a voyage across the ocean, but she is followed by the deadly virus
that has plagued her and numerous others.
Director:
Jaume BalagueróStars:
Ángela Vidal, the spunky young television reporter that entered the
building in 2007 has exited with the swat team. Little do they know that
she carries the seed of the strange demonic infection. She is taken to
an oil tanker miles off shore which has been especially equipped for the
quarantine...
Country:
SpainLanguage:
SpanishRelease Date:
31 October 2014 (Spain) See more »Also Known As:
[REC] 4: Apocalypse See more »Box Office
Budget:
€3.000.000 (estimated)Opening Weekend:
€493.575 (Spain) (30 October 2014)Gross:
$708 (USA) (2 January 2015)
See more »
Company Credits
Production Co:
Filmax, Ministerio de Cultura - ICAA, Generalitat de Catalunya - Departament de CulturaTechnical Specs
Runtime:
Sound Mix:
Dolby DigitalColor:
ColorAspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1Did You Know?
Trivia
Most of the film was shot on an actual oil rig ship. Some of the sets had to be recreated from the ship at the studio in order to allow space to film and do stunts.Goofs
The boat motor that is being used as a weapon and also to propel the escape raft has no fuel source.Crazy Credits
There's a scene during the end credits.Connections
Features [Rec] (2007)
How badly do you want to see rabid computer-generated zombie-monkeys
die violently? Because there's not much else worth recommending in
"[Rec] 4: Apocalypse", the latest entry in a found-footage horror
franchise about a zombie outbreak in modern-day Spain. "[Rec] 4:
Apocalypse" starts off with a promising idea. Unlike the first few
films, which presented Spanish zombies as Catholic demons/monsters that
shrink back when attacked with holy water and Bible passages, "[Rec] 4:
Apocalypse" focuses on more secular/human monsters: army scientists.
The film's creators are fundamentally mistrustful of scientists like
Dr. Ricarte (Hector Colome), a strictly-by-the-book scientist who
blithely experiments on humans and monkeys without considering his
reluctant test subjects' needs. Sadly, that weirdly paranoid
characterization of clinical scientists isn't developed beyond a point.
Instead, director Jaume Balaguero, the co-helmer of the first two
"[Rec]" films, sets up an interesting villain, and then shifts gears
completely. The rest of the film is a bland survival horror film that
pits a bunch of forgettable human protagonists, including Angela (Manuela Velasco), a news reporter and the sole survivor of the first "[Rec]" movie, against a horde of equally disposable flesh-eaters.
First,
let's deal with the movie that "[Rec] 4: Apocalypse" is, then
double-back to the movie it promises to be. "[Rec] 4: Apocalypse" is, by
and large, a predictable, and needlessly ugly-looking horror film.
Angela wakes up after the events of "[Rec]" and discovers she's been
pre-emptivley quarantined on a ship by a group of army scientists. She's
there because scientists like Dr. Ricarte are trying to make a
retrovirus to stop the zombie outbreak. But inevitably, one of the
scientists' other test subjects—a zombie-monkey—gets loose, and Angela
and the ship's crew must fight for their lives.
This sounds
fairly basic—because it is. "[Rec] 4: Apocalypse" is easily the laziest
in the film series. While "[Rec] 3: Genesis" was the first to ditch the
franchises's lame found-footage conceit, "Apocalypse" still features
pointlessly nauseating hand-held, dimly lit cinematography. In fact, the
film quickly devolves into a collection of pointless confrontations
featuring bland characters who are only interesting when their lives are
in danger. Even Angela, a heroine that's set up to be the "[Rec]"
series's answer to Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in the "Alien"
movies, isn't especially compelling. She spends a lot of the movie
figuring out what's going, then capably dispatches monsters with the
help of capable military men like Lucas (Cripulo Cabezas). Explosions,
blood, and gore fly around them, and then you go home. There's nothing
wrong with the film's formula-based storytelling, but rather its
creators bland execution. Balaguero and co-writer Manu Diez never set
emotional stakes that are so deep that they can't just pull them up on a
scene-by-scene basis.
Then there's the movie that "[Rec] 4: Apocalypse" should have been.
At the start of the film, we're shown a perfunctory, but tantalizing
flashback to the end of "[Rec]." We follow a SWAT team as they fend off
zombies in a dark apartment. These men know what's expected of them if
they get infected, and are prepared to kill each other if anyone in
their group is bitten. They cite "rules" and then unsentimentally shoot
each other. It's a jolting start to the film, though it's filmed in a
graceless, run-and-gun style that makes the film's opening feel crassly
cynical when it should feel unnervingly sudden.
Still, this
introductory scene does establish an interesting parallel between the
first film's no-nonsense cops and scientists like Dr. Ricarte and his
colleague Dr. Guzman (Paco Manzanedo).
Guzman plays Good Scientist to Ricarte's Bad Scientist: Guzman's
patient while Ricarte's eye is always on the clock. When a retroviral
cure seems to fail, Guzman is begs Ricarte not kill all of their test
subject, but rather give him more time to test a new possible solution.
Ricarte, by contrast, is quick to leap to conclusions, and follow
protocol. He's frantic, and doesn't weigh his options like Guzman does,
so naturally he's the film's biggest baddy.
Too bad that neither
Guzman nor Ricarte are important to the plot of "[Rec] 4: Apocalypse"
beyond a couple of key scenes. Balaguero and Diez draw no substantial
connections between the "[Rec]" zombies' identities as
Catholic/Christian demons, and Ricarte's compulsion to play God, and
treat Angela like just another lab animal. Moreover, Ricarte's
domineering need to diagnose and contain Angela looks, as it's
presented, weirdly superstitious, and to no thoughtful end. If Ricarte's
behavior is a symptom of greater social problems in Spain, you wouldn't
know it based on "[Rec] 4: Apocalypse."
So how about those
fake-looking, undead simians? They're gross-looking, and loud, and when
they get destroyed, they make an impressive splat. But beyond that, who
cares? Unless you're a diehard zombie fan, you can wait until an
intrepid fanboy posts a highlight reel from "[Rec] 4: Apocalypse" on
YouTube. Zombie monkeys are fun, but they're not worth 96 minutes of
your time.
Final rating: 6/10 and overall the same 6/10 and so it is a movie for fans of the series but likewise not interesting for those who are really looking for a good horror movie.
Thanks for reading and have fun watching movies.
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