By Jim Rohner · September 17, 2012
Weddings are a big deal. They take months of planning, cost obscene amounts of money and manage to cram a lifetime's worth of stress into a minimal time frame. Nobody wants to see their wedding ruined by a drunken fight between family members, a miscue by caterers, or an uncle infected by a mysterious disease falling from a balcony in the reception hall onto the dance floor below.
Admittedly, the last fear is pretty specific and, to the best of my knowledge, has only come to fruition once, much to the chagrin of newlyweds Koldo (Diego Martin) and Clara (Leticia Dolera). The glorious day of their nuptials starts out promising enough—blushing bride, beautiful ceremony, frivolities sure to ensue—but the planned festivities are quickly sidetracked when the aforementioned uncle, claiming he had been bitten by a dog, starts to show signs of something more serious as evidenced by his biting and taking a large chunk out of his wife's neck. Soon enough, zombie-ish creatures are gallivanting all throughout Koldo and Clara's wedding and after the two lovers are separated in the chaos, Koldo vows to find his new bride. In typical [REC] fashion, these escapades are shot in the standard found footage style.
Or are they…..? Dun, dun, DUNN!!!!!!
No, they're not. Well, yes, they are, except they're not. They are and they aren't. Does that make sense? You see, for the first act of [REC] 3: Genesis, Paco Plaza, co-director of [REC] and [REC] 2, lulls us into a false sense of security, shooting the festivities of the marriage sacrament with found footage courtesy of over-equipped wedding videographer, Atun (Borja Glez. Santaolalla), and Koldo's young cousin, Adrian (Alex Monner). At first, Atun and Adrian keep up with the incessant documentation, obnoxiously citing cinema verite and Dziga Vertov as reasons why they're still cramming cameras in people's faces—a moment that's supposed to be much more meta and clever than it actually is. But then the film's aesthetic switches to the standard horror wash out, and [REC] 3: Genesis progresses completely mediocrely from this point on.
Before I go on, I feel I should also mention that I've never seen a complete [REC] film in my entire life. Fans of the series may scream bloody murder and claim that I could never effectively review a film that is meant to be serial, but 1) I don't care and 2) those people should instead complain about the fact that [REC] 3: Genesis spends so little time trying to reveal anything new or interesting about the series, and that the only thing really worth paying attention to is a gimmick that allows Piaza to shoot some admittedly awesome gore effects.
It's cool to see a pissed-off bride running around with a chainsaw, but the emotional factor is lost because of how little time is spent on informing us about the two lovebirds. Koldo and Clara could've essentially just been named Guy and Girl without anything vital to the plot being lost. And also not helping the film's cause is the fact that Piaza can't seem to make up his mind whether he wants to make his film a standard blood and guts film or a comedic subversion of said standard. If you've followed the series, you can assume the film won't end pleasantly. Yet the script still asks us to laugh at two bland leads or a wedding videographer that only owns a steadicam, and also spouts pretentious nonsense about imbuing his visuals with shades of Renoir.
The "Genesis" in the title refers not to the Sega gaming system, but instead to the arrival of the demonic presence that is allegedly responsible for the zombie-ish creatures. Once again, Piaza pays barely any attention to this, adding nothing particularly revealing about what could be an intriguing alternative to the standard zombie epidemic.
Blandly done, sir. Blandly done.
Pam Glazier · September 10, 2012
