REC3, a quick review.

Seeing all of the negative comments, it seems to me that many kind of miss the point of REC3.

The main issue people have is that it's not written, acted and shot in the same way as the first two movies. Surely, it is clear from the outset that this instalment was intended to be a departure from the previous movies?

We are following a complete set of different characters, seeing a different view of the outbreak, experiencing a whole different style of storytelling. The switch from found footage style after the first act is an extension of this. I really like the way that the writers took the core ideas from REC and twisted it into more of an action based horror instead of the claustrophobic suspense of parts 1 and 2. That being said, I would agree that part 3 doesn't really achieve as much as the previous films in terms of depth of plot or scares - but it does deliver more character development than them, and ultimately, that is what is at the heart of this movie.

The central relationship works really well - indeed, well enough to earn the film forgiveness for many of the areas in which it misses the mark.

The whole premise of the infected becoming paralyzed by the sound of bible verses being read really only belongs in parodies. When used in "serious" creature movies, this kind of development only serves to cheapen and undermine. Once you work this into the mythology of the franchise, you can't help but think, during those tense moments at the end of REC, "she could have easily escaped just by saying a hail mary!"

Maybe that adds to the tragedy of it ... but for me, sequels that introduce simple ways to defeat the creature from the original always leave me a little annoyed.

In all, I think this is a decent movie that takes a horror franchise and twists it; has some fun with it. It has some great character work, a few nice touches of humour and an effective emotional payoff.

It's only failings are some uses of genre chiche that do feel more like parody, some pretty clunky dialogue in places and my aforementioned undermining of the danger associated with the infected. As a stand alone movie, it'd work fine, as you could just accept that it's not 100% serious and is making fun of the oversubscribed and watered-down contemporary horror genre. But as a follow up to 2 of the best horror movies of the last decade, it does fall short.

[Enter The Void www.castofthousands.co.uk/2011/12/22/enter-the-void-gaspar-noe-2010]