Sunday afternoon movie

We do occasionally watch movies on Sundays, especially when it isn't all that nice out. Today we watched [Rec], which is the Spanish version that is Quarantine... except that [Rec] came first. That's right, [Rec] was released in 2007, and Quarantine in 2008; moreover, Quarantine is almost completely a shot-for-shot remake of [Rec]. It's almost like someone decided that [Rec] was a good movie - which it is - but that it needed to be shot in English. With a couple of small additions.

Both movies are good but each had different strengths. I had very much disliked the same protagonist in Quarantine as I just didn't find her believable enough. I very much liked the female protagonist in [Rec] and thought that the actress portraying her was real and believable. Then again, I felt that the firefighters in Quarantine were portrayed as real characters, which I liked, whereas the ones in [Rec] were more one-dimensional.

I did feel that some of the action - namely, shutting down and quarantining the building - was something that was more likely to happen in the US, making Quarantine slightly more believable to me. Of course I don't know much about military action like this in other countries. It's possible that any country would be able to respond that quickly and forcefully.

The biggest difference between the two movies is in the end scene. Many of the Quarantine additions were to this end scene, which meant that it is much longer. I liked the shorter ending in [Rec] because I thought the longer English one dragged on. Being shorter, the one in [Rec] was tenser, scarier, and more powerful.

Overall, I think that I liked [Rec] slightly more than Quarantine, mostly because of how much scarier it was. Somehow, even though Quarantine was shot-to-shot the same in almost every way, those shots in [Rec] managed to be tenser and scarier. Having a better actress as the protagonist doesn't hurt, either.

Both movies are well worth seeing and I highly recommend both of them. If you've already seen Quarantine, see [Rec] anyway; it's worth the hour and a half of your time.