- Directed by Paco Plaza
- Written by Luiso Berdejo, Paco Plaze, David Gallart
- Stars Leticia Dolera, Diego Martin, Ismael Martinez
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 20 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQckiIgNezw
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is presented as a prequel to the first two REC movies. While it is a decent zombie flick, it doesn’t have a solid connection to where the REC movies start out. It could be a stand-alone movie on its own, and we speculate that maybe it was intended that way, and they forced a connection by slapping on the title. We’d recommend it for being a quite good movie, but it was lacking as far as filling in some more information on the REC story.
Spoilery Synopsis
We watch a DVD montage of footage of Clara and Koldo’s wedding. We cut to the actual wedding, where Koldo’s cousin Adrian records everything. Another cameraman, Atun, talks about his steadicam that he uses for shooting, it’s much better than Adrian’s cheap camcorder. Inside, Clara’s sister records her in the wedding dress. Clara says she has a secret, and then the camera cuts out. At the wedding, Uncle Tio has a wound on his hand; he says he got bitten by an animal at work, but he seems fine.
Clara arrives at the church, and the wedding proceeds as expected. After the vows, Koldo sings to his new bride, and everyone cheers. Then it’s time for the reception, and it all looks very nice and expensive, but without alcohol. Uncle Victor starts looking a little green around the gills, but he’s still smiling. Clara almost tells Koldo her secret, but they get interrupted. They cut the wedding cake with a big sword.
As Adrian interviews a guy named “SpongeJohn,” he notices Victor vomiting outside. A police car drives up outside. Inside, Koldo and Clair dance. As the dance goes on, Uncle Victor takes a header over the upstairs railing and falls down. When he gets up, he bites a woman and kills her. He’s a zombie! Things get real crazy real fast as suddenly half the guests start attacking each other. Credits roll, 22 minutes in.
Koldo beats up Atun and breaks his camera as the small group barricades themselves in the kitchen. Some of them make it out through a vent shaft, but Atun is too big and waits to be eaten. The group gets outside and runs to the police car, but it’s too late for that guy. Koldo, Tita, and Adrien run off into the woods, pursued by all the zombies. They run to a smaller church where some survivors have holed up. They can hear Clara on the PA, and she says she’s OK. She tells him that she’s pregnant in front of everyone. Koldo sees antique weapons and armor in the corner and gets an idea.
The old priest hiding with Clara says this is all the beginning of the end. Clara uses a firehose to climb out the window, but the old priest is in shock. Koldo and another man go inside, just missing Clara and the old man. Clara finds Raga and his girlfriend having sex downstairs; they’re oblivious to what’s been going on. The priest is attacked, but he chants some Catholic Latin and the zombies all freeze and stop the attack.
Koldo watches over security cameras as the dead attack a busload of people outside. The zombies look like ancient dead bodies in their mirror reflections, so maybe some kind of possession is involved.
Clara, Natalie, and Rafa run into SpongeJohn in the hallway, and he’s got a gun. Natalie gets eaten quickly, but the others make it outside. Clara encounters her mother outside, and she’s clearly a monster now. SpongeJohn shoots her before being eaten himself.
Rafa and Clara hide in a cellar as more zombies arrive. Koldo turns up “their song” on the PA, so Clara knows he’s still alive. She says she’s not leaving without her husband, picks up a chainsaw, and cuts off the long long dress. She’s ready for battle!
Inside, Kolda encounters Uncle Victor who started it all. Victor dies hard. Kolda eventually finds that sword again, and it goes really well with his armor.
Clara can’t get the chainsaw started, but that doesn’t stop her from beating up three of the zombies with it until she can finally get it going. She does great, although Rafa gets bitten and soon turns evil. She cuts his head off.
Clara and Koldo connect, but he’s upstairs, above a locked gate. It’s all very tense as he rushes to open it before the zombies get Clara. Finally, they have a tearful reunion and kiss. At least until the zombies break into the room from three different directions at once. Before they can die, the old priest comes in over the PA and recites a prayer that brain-locks the zombies long enough for the couple to get outside.
Clara and Koldo walk through the horde of zombies. Even the ones outside seem heavily distracted by the audio prayer. Old deaf Grandpa’s hearing aids don’t work, so he can’t hear the prayer; he bites Clara, and she goes bad fast. She begs Koldo to pick up the sword and cut her arm off. She can see the infection spreading up toward her elbow. He lops it off and makes a tourniquet with his tie.
The couple makes it to the gate and finds the whole place has been sealed in plastic; they can’t get out. Clara suddenly starts to vomit blood; she’s changing anyway. Koldo picks her up and carries her outside. Koldo puts her down, and kisses her. She bites his tongue out, and the police fill them both with bullets. As they die, they reach over and hold hands.
Worst wedding ever!
Brian’s Commentary
We watched these on Tubi, and it was hilarious, as all the ads were in Spanish to match the film.
This one is supposedly a prequel to the first two films, showing us how the plague started. Except, in the previous film we were told that the whole thing was an experiment by the church to make a vaccine for demonic evil, and there clearly are demons involved; here, it’s a straight-up zombie virus caused by an animal bite, although there does seem to be some demonic influence after a while, since the prayer worked.
I suspect this was filmed as a plain old generic zombie movie and got the “Rec” name to help it sell. It seems pretty unrelated to the previous two films, but it’s pretty good as a standalone.
Kevin’s Commentary
This was a grim piece of work with a lot of likable people and children meeting gruesome ends. The effects and gore are top-notch. The story was pretty good, though something we’ve seen before with a zombie plague spreading by way of bites and body fluids. The connection to the other REC movies as a prequel was unsatisfying; I didn’t feel like it covered the origin well enough of what happens in movies one and two. If you’re in the mood for a good, gory zombie movie with lots of action, you should check this one out, just don’t expect a lot of REC lore from it.
Be the first to comment on "2012 [REC] 3: Genesis"