I don't mind reading subtitles but they can throw a viewer's focus off the screen and make it somewhat difficult to be focused on the action, so we can be caught unawares for all those juicy, unexpected moments of terror that we crave in a good horror film. Subtitles didn't wreck [REC] for me, but they did distract enough to take the "OH MY GOD!" factor out of the startling bits.
It all started when I picked a copy of Quarantine at the pawn shop a couple months ago. It was just another interesting title found in a pawn shop dollar bin, so I added it to my stack and didn't think too much of it afterwards. As a matter of fact it languished on the shelf for weeks and only due to a quickly glimpsed trailer did it find it's way to the fore. One night last week I was itching for some mindless entertainment. It was late, the house was dark, the cat outside. I took the flick upstairs, set up the gear and let the dvd spin thinking, okay, I can fall asleep if I have to, it's just another point of focus Blair Witch wannabe.
Damn, was I ever wrong.
I got sucked into the You Are There storyline, into the innocence of the young, good looking talking head, of the stand up, capable man behind the camera. I watched them go about their business, filming firehouse antics, following various firefighters around the station and thought, okay, time to get cozy, time to get under the blankets. Things changed once they all went out onto the streets to film a routine call. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary when the crew and the fire folks met a local police patrol at the door of the old and swanky apartment house. Nothing really seemed out of place as they advanced up the stairs, a woman's gutteral screams off camera leading all of us on into the mystery.
What was it that got me sitting up in bed? The bloodied woman, now clearly in focus in the background of the action? The policeman and the firefighter advancing, telling her to calm down, only wanting to help her? Or was it the moment she lunged forward and took a nice chunk of meat out of that nice policeman's neck? Yeah, I think that's when all hell broke loose and all bets were off and I seriously began to pay attention. In just a matter of moments I found myself deep in the midst of an urban horror story, one that took off running and for the next forty, fifty minutes never stopped to take a breath. I am sure that I didn't either.
So as soon as the credits rolled I hit up all my online film sources and discovered that it was a blow by blow remake of an earlier Spanish horror flick, so I put that film, [REC], on the things to watch list. Ran into another film nut in the stacks of Hollywood video the following day who, when he saw me pick up a copy of the film, proceeded to tell me all about it. Another fan, another teller of film tales, another guy who watches more than his share of movies. I took the film home, gave myself a couple weeks inbetween viewings and then popped it in.
What can I say? It wasn't a bummer, not by a long shot. It was just as good as the remake, as a matter of fact went in a completely different direction as far as the ending was concerned and that ending, or rather, the reasons behind the madness on the film, turned it into a completely different yarn, more one based on the supernatural rather than terrorism. I still was left in a completely unsettled state. I just wasn't as freaked out. Damn subtitles.
Horror film endings are not chick flick, rom-com happy go lucky endings if they are done right. I want my scary movies to leave me running around the house turning lights on. But that film duo left me shaken in a different way, wondering where and when the unpredictable bad shit could happen. Horror films these days remind you, oh so clearly, that you are not in charge. It doesn't matter if the horror is delivered via vampires, robots from the future, asteroids or serial killers. It's the things we don't know, can't see, never in our wildest imaginations ever imagine, that'll get us in the end. No dying quietly in our beds. Maybe that's reason enough not to watch horror films in mine anymore.
Action!
Review: Quarantine:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1196221-quarantine/
Review: [REC]:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10009132-rec/
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