The 2007 Spanish horror film [REC] set a new benchmark for the “found footage” genre. It spawned three sequels as well as an American remake, and now it’s been given the Arrow treatment, bringing Paco Plaza and Jaume Balagueró’s movie to a new audience. Paul Simpson caught up with the directors by Zoom.

 

Thank you for an excuse to go back and watch [REC]. I haven’t seen it for a few years. The Arrow print is so clear and so well done, it almost feels like seeing a new movie. You’ve done the sequels, you’ve worked on other movies, so how does it feel looking at [REC] now?

Paco: I think we shot it in 2006 so it’s going to be fifteen years. I feel older but I feel very surprised and very happy that the film is still alive especially nowadays when through Netflix or HBO, it’s like films only have a life of one or two weeks. Being here talking about a film that was released fifteen years ago, it’s out of time.

It’s amazing and it makes you think about what is so special about this film that it’s still watchable and enjoyable. For us, it’s like when you see your parents’ wedding photo album – looking to the past. So many good memories of making the film, enjoying the film with the audience and traveling with it. So it’s moving.

Jaume: Four months ago I was invited to go see [REC] in the theatre in 4DX.  Some Korean people took REC and transformed it to a 4DX experience so I experienced the movie in a theatre again this way.

I was really impressed because for me the film was like a memory, an old memory of something that we did years ago. It was surprising to me because what I felt sitting in this movie theatre was, “We did it, really we did,” because it works.

I experienced it as an audience for the first time in my life and I was really impressed.

What do you think makes it work? What gives it that timeless quality?

Jaume: I think it’s the way that the movie’s shot, this subjective way to tell the story. We wanted to take a step forward in the genre and the way to do that is to make it real life. It puts the eye of the audience in the lens of the camera and lets them experience and live the movie as if they were inside the movie.

And real time was the secret, it was real time.

Paco: I absolutely agree. Normally a movie is a passive activity, it’s something you just lie back and go, OK, let’s see. But with this film you become like the eye of the camera and you’re part of the story, and I think that’s something that helps to keep it alive. Jaume’s very fond of video games and I think it has a connection to video games to the experience of being part of the story.

How much did the film change from your original idea into what you delivered at the end? Did it alter during the filming process while you were working with the actors or did you have a very clear idea of where you were going to go with it?

Jaume: It changed a lot… Well, the main idea never changed. The main idea was to experiment with this new approach to horror by putting the audience inside the movie and let them experience as if they were inside.

We had the idea to put the story inside a building with some neighbours and an infection and the zombies but I think the story was changing all the time – all the time we had the feeling that the movie was alive, it was breathing and asking for what it wanted. We were reacting and making changes.

Paco remembered that we changed the end of the movie in a bar. I remember exactly the moment, in a bar having coffee and the day before we had changed the end of the movie because we decided that the movie was asking for something different and so we changed it.

That begs the obvious question, what was the original ending?

Paco: I think we left the ending more open – she got out of the building alive – and I remember that moment where we were sitting and saying, “I think it’s better that she doesn’t come out and evil wins. Let’s give credit to the Devil… let’s let him win”. Wait, no Jaume, I think she got out of the building with the camera…

Jaume: Yes, she was running downstairs and fighting all the zombies and she got to the ground floor – but before that the end was completely different, stranger. We decided to change that but we don’t remember exactly what the other ending was. It was completely different for the last part of the movie but very soon we decided to change it because the movie was living and had its own idea.

You’ve said the actors didn’t have the full script because you wanted them to experience it so that you captured their emotions on camera but what did you say to them to get them on the set in the first place?

Paco: There were many times where Jaume said one thing to some of the actors and I said the opposite to another one and that confusion, you can see. If you know that, when you see the film you can see that they don’t know how to react.

I think that helped because in real life you don’t know what’s going to happen, you never know how the other person is going to react. So that gave a level of credibility to the performances. I think it helps you to believe that these are not actors but real people reacting to something extraordinary happening in front of them.

Jaume: It was a way to oblige them to improvise because sometimes when you see an actor listening to another actor, you can see in their face that they are, in their head, saying the words of the other actor. So, this was completely different, completely contrary as if they were discovering something new that was not written in the script and that gives a kind of nerve to the acting.

I was actually thinking when you brought them onboard, when you signed them up for it, what sort of movie did you tell them you were making?

Paco: They knew it was a horror film and they knew there was going to be a lot of improvisation involved – in fact for the casting we used a lot of improvisation. We planted some scenarios like “OK, you’re here, and there are zombies outside and you’re trying to find a way…” The way we talked to them in casting, it was very similar to how it was going to be on set.

One thing Jaume mentioned before is that we had a rule of never stop shooting – we told the actors “Whatever happens just keep acting because anything that happens we can incorporate it into the narrative”.

Jaume: In real life sometimes the unexpected happens and you can’t stop your life, you have to keep going, and that’s what we wanted in the movie.

What was the biggest challenge that you faced making it?

Paco: I think there was no real challenge because our ambition was unknown. We didn’t know if the film was going to be released at all or if it was just going to be some tiny experimental film.

I think the challenge was to make something where we could have fun together and to do something that is scary. Sometimes when you’re making a film, especially when years go by and your career evolves in a way, it’s like you try to do something that you haven’t done in the past or you challenge yourself to do something, to aim at a specific target but this was not the case. It was just having fun together making a horror film. And I think that’s something that gave a film a very special atmosphere of freedom and craziness.

Jaume: Yes, I agree but if there is a challenge with the movie I think it was the special effects because they were practical.

We were shooting very long shots – like ten minute long shots – with a lot of things happening, with the camera moving to different locations. In the middle of the shot, a complex special effect had been prepared and it had to work because if not, we would need to repeat all the shots from the beginning. That means a lot of people involved in the special effects, the technicians hidden in the location, had to be prepared to go at the exact precise moment, push the button and let blood splatter.

It was quite difficult but at the same time it was very very exciting.

[REC] is out now from Arrow; read our review here.