Weekly visions - week 41, 2024

[REC], directed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, co-written with Luiso Berdejo, Spain, 2007 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Revisiting REC after a little more than a year from my first watch, I feel it will be another of my new ‘comfort watches’. The action flows so naturally from the beginning, almost to the end. But I still find the sudden change of direction in the last scenes, which feels very disconnected from the rest of the film from the conceptual/thematic point of view, hard to get on board with.

The Platform/El hoyo, directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, written by David Desola and Pedro Rivero, Spain, 2019 - ⭐⭐⭐½

The Platform has been available on Netflix for so many years now, but it has never made me curious enough to watch it, as its premise was promising a not-very-subtle story about class struggle. Another eat the rich film about eating. Actually, it is that, but packaged in a quite interesting way and with good performances, especially by leads Ivan Massagué and Zorion Eguileor. The swings of destiny (which appear to move the guests at different levels on a completely random basis, as opposed to being linked to good/bad behaviour) give this film a more experimental and theoretical feel, but also completely abstract the allegory from any real-world consideration and make it lose real meaning.

The Platform 2/El hoyo 2, directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, written by David Desola, Pedro Rivero and Egoitz Moreno, Spain, 2024 - ⭐⭐½

Of course what finally convinced me to watch The Platform was the appearance on Netflix of this sequel, which made me curious about what I might be missing. This second outing is interesting at the beginning, as it proposes a much more evolved societal organisation than the first one, but then descends (ahem..) into a gorier, often focus-switching version of the first chapter, with which it’s too eager to weave unnecessary links. It left me with a sort of Matrix Reloaded feeling. Madres Paralelas’ Milena Smit’s performance is good, while I was expecting more screentime for Natalia ‘Nymphadora Tonks’ Tena.

[REC]², directed by Paco Plaza and Jaume Balagueró, co-written with Manu Díez, Spain, 2009 - ⭐⭐⭐

At this point in the week I was all-in on Spanish horror, so why not try REC’s sequel? I like it when a second film’s story starts straight after the end of the previous chapter, so this was a good start.
Unfortunately, when sequels focus on a team of heavily armed military-trained people (cough, Aliens, cough), I never find them very interesting. Despite adding a second set of ‘camera operators’ to make things more varied and fulfil the promise in the title (that’s more Alien³ though), most of the film is ‘shoot at infected people jumping out at you’, which, again, is not very compelling.
And then there’s the fact that this chapter fully embraces the ’new premise’ at the end of film one, which I still don’t like, despite trying hard to accept it. And just when I thought I could work with it, the final scenes here threw in another change of horror direction. There are a lot of justifications going on for what is still just a shoot ’em up zombie series.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, directed by Scott Glosserman, co-written with David J. Stieve, US, 2006 - ⭐⭐½

I learnt of the existence of this film from Italian podcast Nuovi incubi’s current season about the Found footage sub-genre. I found the first half of it, where it analyses the ideas and preparation of a wannabe slasher legend, very funny in its ‘matter of fact’ acceptance of ‘serial killer’ as a career path like any other (I love Scott Wilson’s role, and Robert Englund is in it as well). The characters are natural and engaging, and the nods to the classics are not too forced. The analysis itself at points becomes ponderous - did we really need to have all the symbolism explained? - which makes it clunkier than Scream (released ten years earlier) and The Cabin in the Woods (released six year later), with which it shares some ideas.
Then we move from analysis to implementation, and that is where quality drops: direction, acting and storytelling that fit perfectly in a mockumentary don’t work as well for a slasher film, the fact that things that happen are predictable because they have just been explained is supposed, I think, to be funny and exciting, but I found this second part to be extremely by-the-numbers and I found myself just waiting for the film to end. As soon as Nathan Baesel’s energy is hidden, indeed, behind the mask, the whole thing deflates.

The Wizard of Oz, directed by Victor Fleming, written by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf, adapted from L. Frank Baum’s novel, US, 1939 - ⭐⭐⭐

This is the topic of this month’s IndieWeb Movie Carnival, so I will write about it more in detail in another post, but - spoiler alert - I was disappointed. I guess it’s a film one needs to have watched, first, as a kid, not as a middle-aged man.

[REC]³ Génesis, directed by Paco Plaza, co-written with Luiso Berdejo and David Gallart, Spain, 2012 - ⭐⭐½

Different setting, same infection. Plaza returns, alone, for the second sequel, which only uses the found footage format initially to introduce its characters, moving to standard movie shots for most of the action that follows (reasonably avoiding the classic question: ‘why should people keep filming while being chased?’). There are a couple of interesting points (one shot involving mirrors, another bit set in a church), and I really felt for the poor newlyweds (may the bride’s look have influenced Ready or Not?), but it’s yet another zombie film. Also, as far as I understand, the events are supposed to be happening at the same time as the ones in the first movie, so, why is it called Genesis?