Zombies on a boat. We’ve reached the second apex of undead lore (Lucio Fulci’s zombie fighting a shark being the first—obviously). REC 4: Apocalypse is, after all, the fourth installment in the REC franchise, a series that’s defined largely by surprise zombie bites and graphically rent flesh (often in that order). None of these films are for the the faint of heart. They’re claustrophobic and violent, and in that regard, setting the REC chronicle’s climactic entry within the twisting bowels of a creaky tanker feels absolutely right.
Shame, then, that Jaume Balagueró’s return to the story he began back in 2007 with REC does neither his re-emergence nor his original movie due justice. When Balagueró presented his low-fi, no-frills nightmare eight years ago, it acted like a reinvention, or perhaps just a timely recalibration; the saga’s cardinal film mixed modern religious critiques, couched in Spain’s waning religious interests, with the sort of bloodthirsty carnage that comes part and parcel with the zombie sub-genre. REC’s influences were recognizable in the abstract. In practice, they were new under Balagueró’s thoughtful, yet unsparing, ministrations.
We’re in 2014 now, so the spiritual commentary is somewhat dated. In fairness to REC 4 , it’s also largely sidelined in favor of a conflict that’s decidedly more contemporary: one woman’s desire to maintain sovereignty over her own body. That woman happens to be Manuela Velasco, reprising her role from the first two films before REC 3: Genesis took a goofier turn from the decidedly more serious, somber atmosphere of Balagueró’s original outings. So REC 4 is a reunion between director and actress, one where Velasco is treated like a test subject for men of grim countenances and shunted to the side for expositional purposes before Balagueró gives her the spotlight (though in truth, she takes it for herself).
REC 4: Apocalypse occurs in the middle of the ocean, as Ángela Vidal (Velasco) wakes up on a nondescript barge, strapped to a table with no recollection of how she got there. We know, of course; the film begins as she is extracted from a familiar tenement building by a team of soldiers and medics, including Guzmán (Paco Manzanedo) and Lucas (Crispulo Cabezas). In the present tense, they’re aboard the same ship as she, which has set sail with the goal of providing quarantine conditions that a land-based outpost couldn’t. But we’re in the REC world, so there’s no such thing as foolproof quarantine. Before long, the vessel is fairly overrun with a new round of cannibalistic infected. And you thought Royal Caribbean passengers had it bad.
Sounds like a fine case of terror at sea, but REC 4: Apocalypse holds too much back. The film is more content to hem and haw than it is to get its hands dirty; considering the cramped confines, zombie attacks are shockingly intermittent, and when they do happen, they’re ostensibly more sanitized than in REC’s past episodes. Balagueró is more interested in the film’s gender politics than in its visceral action, and in fairness, that element is arresting in its own right. Ángela’s fight is to keep hoary old men from invading her physical sanctity—the thought is that a cure for the zombie virus might be synthesized from her DNA—and in these moments Velasco is ferocious. But a zombie film needs more than a theme. It needs zombies gorily masticating, and occasionally getting their heads exploded.
Balagueró knows what kind of film REC 4 is supposed to be, he just forgets to properly blend motif with mayhem. The resultant concoction is stiff, though not bland; Balagueró has an intimate eye for depicting the struggle to survive, so even though his fracases are staged more or less the same way, they keenly articulate desperation. (And if you thought Ving Rhames using a boat motor on nippy fish in Piranha 3D was rad, well…) REC 4: Apocalypse remains a lesser send-off for its title, and one wishes Balagueró had gone bigger. But as chapter fours go, this is a bloody good time even if it fails to be the capstone that REC really deserves.
Director: Jaume Balagueró
Writer: Jaume Balagueró, Manu Diez
Starring: Manuela Velasco, Paco Manzanedo, Héctor Colomé, Ismael Fritschi
Release Date: Jan. 2nd, 2015
Boston-based critic Andy Crump has been writing about film for the web since 2009, and has been contributing to Paste Magazine since 2013. He also writes for Screen Rant and Movie Mezzanine. You can follow him on Twitter. Currently, he has given up on shaving.