REC 2

Sometimes when you return to the same well twice it's a pleasant experience.  Sometimes though, you find only sludge and hedgehog jobbies.  Sadly, this is one of the latter occasions.

And I say this with great disappointment as I loved "REC".  It was a pulse-pounding intense, claustrophobic Spanish zombie extravaganza with an interesting turn of events toward the end.

REC 2 picks up right from there.  A group of SWAT-types are about to go into the quarantined apartment block.  They are told they are there in order to contain a rabies-type infection which makes the residents somewhat aggressive*.

If you've seen the original film, you'll know that this isn't the WHOLE story.  Sadly, our SWAT blokeys must not have rented the DVD, so in they go, unaware of what awaits them.  

It's things like this that annoyed me about the sequel - why NOT give them some useful information?  As it is, our SWAT fellows are totally unprepared for what happens next and consequently things go TU before you can say "Lucio Fulci".

So that's ONE thing that annoyed me.  Another thing is that the plot requires daft teenagers to break into the apartments, and naturally they have a video camera which they leave on all the time and naturally they are shrieky and irritating.  And somehow the sense of claustrophobia isn't exploited as effectively this time.  Maybe it's just because I'd seen it before in REC 1.

It's not all bad.  Everything moves along briskly and there's enough revelations about the "virus" to make REC 2 entertaining.  Still, let's just hope they actually apply some new ideas to any further sequels because this is just a re-tread of what you've seen before with an unsatisfyingly obvious plot twist at the end.  5/10

*  Somewhat aggressive as in, "This man is somewhat eating my leg off."