Editorials
Revisiting The REC Series: When Possession Goes Viral, And How It Impacted the Found Footage Genre

Anybody following Horror Press for the past year knows how much I love the V/H/S films (more on V/H/S/94 here, and V/H/S/99 here!). But if there’s one found footage series I care for even more than V/H/S; it’s REC.
For the uninitiated, REC is a foreign series of horror films following the outbreak of a viral infection in a quarantined apartment in the heart of Spain, and its eventual spread outward. Written and directed by Jaume Balagueró, it begins with the tale of late-night news reporter Angela Vidal whose spotlight on Barcelona firefighters is interrupted during a routine call. After local authorities seal off the building due to a resident’s dog infecting an entire kennel with an unidentifiable contagion, all hell breaks loose as the people inside one by one succumb to the disease.
If you haven’t seen the film, spoilers ahead.
BEYOND ALL EXPECTATIONS
As Angela finds herself inadvertently investigating the virus transmitted through violent maulings from feral, zombie-like victims, she finds out the penthouse of the apartment is host to a demonically possessed little girl, whose body has been warped by the part-disease, part-demon entity inside of her (portrayed by none other than now legendary creature actor Javier Botet in his first big breakout role).
Surprise, all the undead are also possessed!
Besides being a neat twist on both possession and zombie films, Balagueró utilizes it in several fun ways; for one, all the undead look like their progenitor in mirrors, showing off that intrinsic demonic link. The most memorable of these details is a scene in REC 3 where the hordes of undead are unexpectedly paralyzed by a priest reciting a prayer over an intercom system, which blew my mind when I saw it for how clever it was. That’s not even counting the grotesque effects, like how La Niña Medeiros passes the main demon onto Angela. And as is to be expected, a few homages to The Exorcist & Evil Dead are scattered throughout for eagle-eyed viewers.
As the series continued, its sense of escalation was best compared to the Resident Evil video games. If RECand REC 2 are the straight-laced and dire counterparts of the first two games, the closest comparison for REC 3: Genesis would be Resident Evil 4: it’s a roller coaster of bloody fun that mostly shirks off the found footage element as writer Paco Plaza takes the directing helm. Do you want a bootleg Spongebob evading demons or a chainsaw-wielding, blood-spattered bride? You watch REC 3.
Eat your heart out, Grace le Domas.
That film has little to do with the main storyline, but don’t worry: REC 4: Apocalypse is an excellent send-off for Angela and ramps up the stakes appropriately with explosions of blood so big they needed heavy-duty tarps on set, though this abandons the found footage aesthetic (it also takes place on a boat, which I guess makes it Resident Evil: Revelations?). It’s even more impressive how well it turned out with the technical constraints that Balaguero said made it a “nightmare” to shoot. The point is, you can pick any as your favorite, and I’ll understand why for any answer you give.
I never gave a fair shake to Balagueró’s magnum opus of viral demonic possession until I was older, always putting off watching the movies in high school since I made the fatal mistake many American horror fans do: I watched the terrible American remake, Quarantine, first. Not only did I miss out on possibly the best-found footage of the decade, but I also missed an essential piece of horror history.
Because the truth is, the genre owes way more to REC than just a few fun movies.
BEYOND THE FOUND FOOTAGE DARK AGES
Before REC there was…Not a whole lot worth talking about. At least in the years following the big dog of the genre, The Blair Witch Project. When it came to found footage post-1999, the name of the game was Blair Witch…until it wasn’t.
Subtlety flew out the window when studios realized that, from a profit perspective, Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez’s little masterpiece was a loud and resounding Civil War-era cannon that broke after firing once, not the money-printing machine gun they anticipated. You couldn’t replicate the cultural zeitgeist and perfect storm of events that made Blair Witch popular, but you could harvest some very base gimmicks. Looking at the found footage genre during the gap between Blair Witch 2 and the REC films, you’ll notice that the films popping up are all bland at best and hot messes at worst.
Yes, you have your “Blatant Blair Witch Rip-offs” with titles like The Dark Area and Blackwood Evil that recycle carbon copy plots. But more importantly, you have what eventually became the genre of detritus that is “Disturbing Found Footage Horror Movies” (see The Poughkeepsie Tapes, August Underground), trash solely existing to be on a listicle with other grotesque films that are the cinematic equivalent of a twelve-year-old boy saying slurs in an Xbox lobby.
The latter had the most impact, inspiring a wave of lukewarm, lurid pseudo-true-crime slop that struggles for verisimilitude, attempting to disgust the audience first and make a movie second. Being reminded what you’re watching is “ABSOLUTELY REAL AND TRUE FOOTAGE” never ends up helping the enjoyability of that fare. In fact, it made for what I’d consider the Dark Ages of Found Footage.
There is admittedly some good among all this bad: hits like Japan’s Noroi were made, finally getting its due in some online circles for being a genuinely terrifying film. There’s also the endlessly entertaining Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, which took on the genre and made a one-of-a-kind horror mockumentary. But for every one of these, there were five forgettable flops.
Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza capitalized on the lack of truly thrilling found footage movies being made and squeezed a $2 million micro-budget to give back a sixteen-fold return on investment of $32.5 million. That cemented REC’s success and Balagueró cemented his movies as the pattern for great found footage on a commercial level.
BEYOND THE REC SERIES
REC’s carefully planned cinematography to simulate isolation tapped into that great fear found-footage’s realism can draw out, something that few others but The Blair Witch Project have successfully sold. Being shot entirely in real-time is a major element of what makes the film so tense to watch, along with little tricks like giving the actors incomplete scripts to force them to draw out more genuine reactions.
Audiences responded, and after Quarantine replicated the success with a higher budget (though more modest returns), studios had to take note of how lucrative the genre could be. A pet theory of mine is that it was one of the REC series’ early contemporaries, Paranormal Activity, which was in the right place and time to run with that popularity and take theatres by storm.
Not to discredit Oren Peli’s iconic movie; there’s a reason Paranormal Activity garnered much more widespread acclaim and supersaturated the market with found footage imitators. But I would go so far as to argue that most of the Paranormal Activity films probably wouldn’t exist were it not for the success of REC as a commercial release. Though Paranormal Activity hit the film festival circuit a month before the latter’s release, REC’s commercial success would have had a stronger reverberation. There’s a high likelihood this probably seeped into producer influence going forward.
Including the eyes of horror mogul Jason Blum.
Creator of Blumhouse.
You see where I’m going with this.
Is it so hard to believe? That REC’s success begat Paranormal Activity being acquired by Paramount Pictures, and Paranormal Activity’s success begat more child successors than I have space in a single article to talk about? In a way, it’s fitting that one film about demonic possession acclaimed for its low-budget filmmaking would create the perfect conditions for…another film about demonic possession hailed for its low-budget filmmaking.
Looking past Paranormal Activity’s own hatchlings (which I will get to that series one day, believe me), the 2010s saw the likes of The Bay, Trollhunter, and of course, V/H/S repopulating the found footage landscape with great horror. I genuinely believe REC dragged found footage back up from its watery grave, and for that, we should be thankful.
So, the next time you’re about to pop a Grave Encounters into your Blu-ray player or open up Shudder to rewatch Gonjiam Haunted Asylum, consider giving some love to the re-animator of the genre and watch one of the REC films. If anything, you’ll at least have seen one of the best-found footage films to date.
Or, in the case of REC 4, a movie where they liquefy a monkey with a boat engine.
Editorials
‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’: And the Impact of Slasher Sequel Trends

Legacy sequels are not a new invention in the horror genre. The 2020s have seen several horror legacy sequels keeping the same name as their predecessors and retconning the canon to revitalize the franchise for a new generation of movie-goers. We have seen this with the Halloween, Scream, Candyman, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchises. All of which kept the movie title of the original installment (minus the 2022 TCM movie, which dropped “The” and made “chainsaw” one word again) and removed nearly all installments after the first from the canon (minus Scream 2022, which is a continuation of Scream 4).
Slasher fanatics are getting a new legacy sequel with the fourth installment of I Know What You Did Last Summer (IKWYDLS) hitting theaters this July. So far, we know that there will be legacy cast members returning, and it is expected to be a direct sequel to I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, according to Variety. Based on its horror franchise cohorts, here are my predictions for the new IKWYDLS movie.
Spoilers ahead for Halloween (2018), Candyman (2021), Scream (2022), and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022).
Legacy Cast Turned Harbingers
Legacy cast members are not being hunted down yet again, but they now offer knowledge and a warning to the new class of fresh meat. The previous survivors and final girls now evolve to a different horror movie trope: the harbingers.
We see this in a few movies. Laurie Strode warns her family in Halloween 2018. Dewey accurately predicts the killer to be Amber and Richie in Scream 2022. Anne-Marie discourages her son, Anthony, from uttering the word “Candyman” and reveals that the hooked-handed legend is the real danger in Nia DaCosta’s Candyman (2021).
The first trailer for the new IKWYDLS shows Ray urging officials in a town hall to take the events seriously. In the second trailer, Julie shares her final girl advice not to be a passive victim and identify possible motives to narrow down who the new deadly fisherman is. I am looking forward to seeing a seasoned Freddie Prinze Jr and Jennifer Love Hewitt reprise their roles and hopefully be engaging harbingers.
Previous Final Girl Becomes The Real Danger
In their role as a harbinger, the legacy final girl is back for blood. This is extensively shown in Halloween 2018 as Laurie Strode is now a firearms specialist and has designed her home to be a trap for Michael Myers. The sequence of her hunting for Michael in her house in the third act is unforgettable and bad ass. Sidney Prescott (and Gale Weathers) spoil Ghostface’s plan in Scream 2022 simply by showing up to the murder party.
Yes, Ghostface did want Sidney there, but they were very unprepared for how tactical she would be and not take the bait on tricks that a new slasher survivor would. Sidney was fine with shooting first and asking questions later!
Sally Hardesty (played by Owlen Fouere) makes her first return to the TCM franchise in the Netflix 2022 Texas Chainsaw Massacre legacy sequel. She has been trying to track down Leatherface and his family for decades, and finally gets her chance for revenge. An interesting take on what she has been up to for the past nearly 50 years.
Julie and Ray could be the power couple that the new survivors need. After all, they did evade and clumsily defeat Ben Willis in the 1997 movie. They made up for the clumsy execution with a more impressive effort in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer by Ray traveling to an island to fist fight the father-son duo while Julie unloaded a revolver into Ben Willis.
Both demonstrating they have learned from their first encounter with a murder and not taking second chances. I do not expect them to play the wait-and-see approach in the new movie.
The Legacy Death
What keeps horror hounds coming back to slasher franchises are the kills. Fans of slasher flicks want to see their beloved Michael Myers or Leatherface hack away at the youths who break horror movie rules. However, the shock and surprise come from meaningful deaths, and this does lead to fan favorites getting the axe (or chainsaw).
Dewey loses his plot armor in Scream 2022 as Ghostface recognizes, in a meta way, the importance of his death by saying “It’s an honor” as his corpse hits the floor. Sally finally finds her prey, only to receive a chainsaw in the abdomen and to be yeeted into a pile of garbage (I’m still salty about this). In Candyman, while he may not be considered part of the “legacy cast”, Anthony McCoy is still an important returning character. He meets his demise after William Burke saws off his hand, and the Chicago police later slay Anthony in a poignant scene. These deaths make the audience feel the gravity of the situation and fear what is now possible for the new cast.
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer left us with three possible legacy characters returning: Julie, Ray, and Karla (played by Brandy). Trailers have not revealed a Brandy cameo, but it is not out of the question for her to return as the sacrificial legacy death. I personally believe there is a bigger chance for Ray to meet his end, similar to Dewey. While all filmmakers hope for audiences to fall in love with their new characters, any financial success will likely warrant a sequel that will need to feature Jennifer Love Hewitt to keep the slasher fans excited. Fingers crossed that Julie makes it out of her third run-in with the vengeful fisherman.
I Know What You Did Last Summer hits theaters July 18, and I’ll eagerly be seated to see what trends this new addition has to offer to the slasher legacy sequel canon.
Editorials
Finding Unexpected Empowerment in “Poor Things”

A young person, raised by a scientist and seemingly simple minded by design, discovers their inner hedonist. In their quest for pleasure, they leave their home and embark on misadventures involving sex, sugar, an abusive relationship, and various enlightenments, all before returning home to confront their past so that they may move towards their future. This is the streamlined arc for both Poor Things protagonist Bella Baxter and myself. When I saw Poor Things in theaters in January 2024, the only things I knew about the film were that Yorgos Lanthimos directed it and that the cast included Emma Stone, Ramy Youssef, and Willem Dafoe.
You can imagine my surprise when I not only felt the impact of Bella’s arc, but also felt seen and even empowered in a way that I rarely do as a queer disabled man.
Discovering Bella Baxter in Poor Things
Bella, an adult woman who exhibits childlike behavior, is under the care of scientist Godwin Baxter, who has taken on the role of her father figure. Conversations with his student Max reveals that Bella’s body is the resurrected corpse of a woman that Godwin discovered, while her brain had originally belonged to the child the woman had been pregnant with. It’s important to note that Godwin didn’t know the circumstances of the woman’s death before he pulled off this macabre miracle. More on that later.
Bella eventually has her first sexual experience through masturbation, is instantly hooked on the gratification she feels, and tries to achieve constant satisfaction proclaiming “Bella discover happy when she want.”. Those around her, such as Max and Godwin’s maid Prim, are less than elated about Bella’s newfound desires, but Bella shamelessly persists. Godwin, in response, decides to try to arrange a marriage between Bella and Max, with the condition that the pair live with him for the rest of his days. While Max agrees, Bella ultimately decides to leave their home in London to embark on a whirlwind affair with Godwin’s lawyer, Duncan Wedderburn. Duncan, enticed by the contradicting nature of Bella’s innocence and sexual hedonism, pursues and woos her with promises of worldliness and sex.
Subverting Disability Stereotypes
One of the most common stereotypes in media around disabled people is the belief that their disabilities render them either asexual or unable to obtain any type of sexual gratification at all. When one reads Bella as disabled-coded, as I do, she becomes one of the strongest subversions of the “disabled equals asexual” trope seen in recent, mainstream film history. A disabled-coded reading also makes Bella’s hypersexuality much less problematic than it would be if the character was only analyzed at a surface level. The juxtaposition of disability and hypersexuality is an aspect of Bella’s character that I greatly identify with.
In early childhood, I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and as an adult, I also tend to chase this type of gratification for the sake of leisurely pleasure or even as a way to cope with stress. With Duncan, Bella travels first to Lisbon, Portugal, where the two spend their time together having sex and eating exotic foods and sweets. Bella’s constant craving for more pleasure proves to be too much for Duncan, who grows to resent her as he is unable to keep up.
His resentment is compounded by Bella’s social ineptitude, as she repeatedly embarrasses him with several faux pas during a dinner party at their hotel. For example, after taking an extra moment to understand her female dinner mate’s sex joke, Bella makes a comment about the taste of Duncan’s penis. When Duncan reprimands her and restricts her to a few choice phrases, she describes the death of her dining companion’s relative as “delightful”; she later interrupts the dinner banter because she wants to “punch [a] baby” that’s annoying her.
Bella’s Misadventures with Duncan Wedderburn
Bella’s unfiltered comments and inappropriate responses are painfully reminiscent of my own past social failings, from remarks about my former partner’s genitals, to intrusive questions about the suicide of a classmate’s uncle, and finally to vocalized violent inclinations towards small, annoying children. Thankfully, like Bella, I was stopped before any harm could come to the younglings.
Despite their growing tensions, Bella and Duncan stay together, even as Bella goes on to binge alcohol and have sexual encounters with other men. Duncan eventually lures her out of Lisbon with a cruise to Athens, Greece. Bella is quite displeased with this change until she befriends two fellow patrons, Martha and Harry, who open her eyes to pursuits beyond her hedonism, and introduce her to philosophy and literature, irking Duncan.
Bella’s Intellectual and Emotional Growth in Poor Things
Bella embraces the intellectual stimulation presented to her, leading to a debate with Harry over humanity’s potential for cruelty in which Bella argues that humankind is not inherently cruel. Harry retaliates when the cruise docks by showing her the conditions that poor people must endure. Bella gives her and Duncan’s money to members of the ship’s crew with the (ultimately ignored) instruction to distribute it to the poor. The rash decision results in Bella and Duncan being left to fend for themselves in Paris. Bella, to Duncan’s outrage, finds work in a local brothel, a job that she views as merely a means to an end. She ends their relationship and gives him money to return to London. Bella continues life as a sex worker, taking on many lovers in the process, including a fellow sex worker named Antoinette.
The trajectory of Bella and Duncan’s relationship evokes a situationship I had years ago with an older man that would prove to be formative. Like Duncan, he presented himself as a mature man of many sexual interests that he would help me dip my toes into. And, like Duncan, he seemed to be attracted to me only when I was entirely compliant with his whims, and had an issue with me having friends and connections outside of him. I, like Bella, also managed to have a much larger libido than the supposedly adventurous gentleman, which amplified the tension as I was always wanting more. Finally, after ending this affair, I, like Bella, learned an important lesson or two and threw myself into my personal development and goals.
Returning Home and Facing the Past
Bella’s story eventually sees her return to London. She learns the truth about her origins and reconciles with Godwin, whose health is failing. She also meets Felicity—a “new Bella” that Godwin and Max created. This is a subplot that deeply resonates with me, specifically Godwin and Max’s treatment of Felicity in comparison to their treatment of Bella. Godwin doted on Bella and Max fell for her, whereas the pair grew frustrated with Felicity and essentially abandoned her to be cared for solely by Prim. It’s easy to view Bella and Felicity as higher and lower-functioning disabled people, with Bella as the preferable one because she can mask her symptoms better than Felicity can.
Several times, I have been in Bella’s position of being a preferable disabled person to interact with compared to others because of my higher functioning and less obvious presentation. I’ve even experienced this dynamic in my childhood with my sister having ADD and ADHD, which was deemed more draining for our parents compared to my own diagnosis. It’s been a journey to overcome the internalized ableism that these experiences created, but it’s one that I’m glad I’ve embarked on. Among other things, it makes Bella rightfully directing the disdain she has for Felicity towards Godwin and Max so much more satisfying, even if she does offer both men forgiveness.
Uncovering Bella’s Tragic Origins
In London, Bella learns that her body, pre-reanimation, had belonged to a sadistic woman named Victoria Blessington, who, along with her husband Alfie, abused their servants. Alfie informs Bella that Victoria died by suicide, likely due to her hatred of her unborn child, which she referred to as “the monster.” Alfie plots to imprison Bella and subject her to female genital mutilation. Bella ultimately escapes and takes Alfie back to Godwin’s home, where she performs her own surgery—one in which she replaces Alfie’s brain with a goat’s.
Although Godwin dies shortly after Bella’s return, Bella remains ever the optimist and becomes a scientist, following in Godwin’s footsteps. She builds a life with her chosen family, including Max and Antoinette as her partners, Felicity as her surrogate sister, and Prim and Alfie as her servant and pet, respectively. The film’s ending is not the traditional “Good For Her (™)” conclusion we tend to see, but rather a “Good For Bella” ending that empowers her, as a person, uniquely.
Bella Baxter’s Queer and Polyamorous Awakening
The conclusion of Poor Things brings home my feelings of kinship with Bella in two ways. The first being her completed arc from the cruel and hateful Victoria to the joyful and sincere Bella. When I was younger, I was definitely more Victoria than Bella; my younger self was a bully who enjoyed using my sharp tongue to bring others down as hard as I could. It was a lot of work to become a better person, one that I struggle to maintain from time to time. Like Bella, I have found kindness to be more rewarding than cruelty and wish to believe in the inherent joy in humanity.
The other way this conclusion resonates with me is through our—Bella’s and my own— late queer awakenings. For over half of the film, we have no indication that Bella is queer besides the likely unintentional hint of Bella rejecting Godwin and Max’s heteronormative ideals of marriage. We don’t see anything concrete until the montage of her sexual escapades in Paris, concluding with her and Antoinette having sex. It awakens Bella’s queerness in her adulthood to the point where she ends up in a throuple with Antoinette and Max, revealing that Bella is both queer and polyamorous. Similarly, I did not have my queer awakening until I was twenty, and I had my awakening as polyamorous only last year. Bella is a fictional character, but it is comforting to know that it is possible for others to have those awakenings occur later in life.
Embracing My Disabled and Queer Identity
When I look back at Poor Things, I see it as a messy and polarizing film by design. The questions of whether we should be offended, intrigued, or feel something else entirely regarding the plot of a woman being reanimated with her baby’s brain in place of her own and eventually embarking on a quest of hedonism are valid ones that do warrant discourse. I don’t resent those who are outraged by the film and detest the film’s critical success.
However, I can’t find myself outraged, especially when the film’s protagonist’s experiences mirror my own, with Bella becoming a comfort character to me as a result. In the time since my initial viewing of Poor Things, I have found so much more pride in being disabled and queer that I keep surprising myself. I used to be embarrassed to discuss my disability in any detail, because I feared that I would be treated differently or viewed as merely trying to excuse my own faults with my neurodivergence.
On the contrary, those who care about me now understand me better, and I have a film that I can point to for them to have a glimpse into my lived experience. I’ve even become more proud of my queerness to the point of going to my first Pride celebration last summer, as well as having an awakening in regards to my polyamory. I cannot begrudge a film like Poor Things for its messiness when it has empowered me so much in the way that it ultimately empowers its protagonist.