No time for ‘[REC]’ filmmakers to pause

With their 2007 low-budget documentary-style horror movie “[REC],” Spanish filmmakers Paco Plaza and Jaume Balagueró harnessed the manic spirit of first-person shooter video games to find a fresh take on the blood-soaked zombie genre. But recapturing that same kind of frenzied energy for their follow-up, “[REC] 2,” which opens Friday and is also currently available on video on demand, proved challenging.

Audiences had seen the creatures terrorizing the inhabitants of a Barcelona apartment block in the first film, so the element of surprise was gone. Realizing that, the directing team took inspiration from a film widely regarded as one of the greatest sequels of all time and opted to move away from horror to make a more action-centric movie.

“‘[REC]’ had become so popular, everyone knew more or less what to expect,” Plaza said recently by phone from Madrid. “Our way to conceive the script was the example of what James Cameron did with ‘Aliens,’ being faithful to the essence of the franchise and concept but developing it in a different genre. We wanted to make an action film. We didn’t want to play the same cards we did in the first film.”

“[REC] 2” picks up just moments after its predecessor left off, with television cameras rolling as authorities seal off an apartment building where the residents are turning into murderous zombies. A SWAT team enters under the direction of a mysterious health ministry official; at the same time, a group of teenagers sneaks into the building. As they all fend off zombies, a deeper mystery emerges, one involving ancient theology and tainted blood.

Whereas the first film was shot from the perspective of a single news camera, “[REC] 2” moves between the helmet-cameras of different police officers, a police robot-cam and video images taken by the teenagers. The filmmakers rely on long, uninterrupted takes whenever possible, choreographing the action within the frame rather than in the editing bay.

“There is something really special in using long takes,” Plaza said. “It’s like the energy keeps going and going in a long take before you cut. The impression is you are living the same thing at the same time they are living them.”

Plaza and Balagueró met in the early ‘90s, when they were both screening shorts on the festival circuit. The idea for the “[REC]” movies was born out of conversations over friendly dinners, Plaza said. “We began to talk about how could we make a very effective, cheap and hypothetically successful horror movie. And we both fell in love with it.”

The pair made the first film as something of a lark, co-writing the script and shooting the movie in only 19 days. “[REC]” went on to earn a reported $32 million worldwide and spawned an English-language remake, 2008’s “Quarantine.”

Spurred by that success, Plaza and Balagueró opted to build a franchise. “[REC] 2” debuted last year at the Venice International Film Festival, then screened in the Midnight Madness section at Toronto’s prestigious film confab, where it was met by praise from the people it was created for — genre fans.

Writing for the site twitchfilm.net, Todd Brown declared that Plaza and Balagueró had “returned to the world that they created, significantly expanded on the mythology of their original creation in ways that surprise and shock while still remaining totally true to the spirit of the original.”

Scott Weinberg, on the site fearnet.com, added that the film “takes great pains to give its established fans precisely what they want, and then it goes off in a few (very cool) directions that you probably weren’t expecting.”

Currently, Plaza is finishing a 3-D concert film for Spanish rock star Enrique Bunbury, while Balagueró is shooting the thriller “Sleep Tight.” They are working on the concepts together — albeit writing separately — for two additional “[REC]” films, one for each to direct individually. Plaza, who hopes to shoot his by late this year or early next year, will handle a prequel, while Balagueró will do another sequel that will finish out the story.

Plaza said the upcoming movies will retain the “[REC]” lo-fi aesthetic and relatively short running times — neither film so far has broken the 90-minute mark.

“It’s like the Ramones,” he said, referencing the influential punk band. “All their songs are two minutes, fast and a lot of energy. We wanted the films to be like punk rock, to have that kind of energy — short and effective, like a punch. We didn’t want anyone to get bored watching the film, or even go to the toilet.”

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