[REC]

An aspiring television reporter accompanies a city paramedic unit into a quarantined apartment building, hoping to capture a dramatic night on the air. Angela Vidal leads the crew as they trail the responders through stairwells and dim hallways, there to document unseen hours of emergency work. What begins as a routine rescue quickly escalates into a claustrophobic trap when the building is sealed and help stalls. The team continues filming, their handheld footage turning the situation into a relentless, intimate portrait of fear. As the nights darken, strange sounds and the growing danger push everyone past the edge of professional composure. The line between witness and participant becomes increasingly blurred, and the crew must face what they cannot fully explain.

Directed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza with writer Luiso Berdejo, REC arrived in 2007 as a lean Spanish found footage horror. It began as an original screenplay rather than an adaptation from a novel or prior work entirely unrelated.

REC grossed roughly $32,511,655 worldwide on a budget of $1,500,000, a strong return for a lean Spanish horror that helped popularize the found footage approach beyond its initial market and proved how effective tight storytelling can be in global horror.

REC sparked a wave of imitators and popularized handheld realism in horror, influencing later films and the found footage trend. Its practical effects, brutal close quarters, and Angela Vidal's screen presence left a tangible imprint, leading to sequels and a renewed interest in Spanish genre cinema. It remains influential today.

Critics praised the claustrophobic energy and the documentary tone, noting how the film uses fear of the unknown as much as gore. It explores media ethics and crowds' appetite for peril, while maintaining a relentless, immersive pace that elevates ordinary fear into something contagious across audiences and critics worldwide today.