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
The Evolution of Black Religion & Spirituality in Horror

Jobs for Black actors were scarce in the early days of Hollywood, but that didn’t mean there weren’t Black roles in the films being made. The silver screen had a ceiling for Black actors but not for our culture. White audiences got a gag out of the Black caricatures that white actors portrayed whilst the dehumanizing regurgitation of our culture was used for plot development. Thus, one of the very first Black tropes was born: the magical negro. The early media depictions of Black spirituality were a tool to villainize the community off-screen. Some could say we’ve come a long way since then. I would say we still have a ways to go. The progress is still worth reflecting on, though.
Christianity is one of the largest faiths practiced in the Black American community. But before the missionaries spread the good Lord’s word, most enslaved people aligned with West African religious practices: using herbs, charms, and other metaphysical tools. Tituba, an enslaved Afro-Caribbean woman, was one of the first women accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials— except they identified it as ‘hoodoo’ or Vodou. It was later demonized as the seed that sprouted the uprising of enslaved Haitian people. With these stepping stones (and American imperialism in Haiti), white screenwriters had fuel for a genre on the rise: horror.
White Zombie (1932) is one of the earliest examples of Vodou in horror and, considerably, the first zombie movie. It isn’t the most harmful, though. Black Moon (1934) made history for a few reasons: being violently racist and starring the first Black American actress to sign a film contract. There’s too much irony in that.
The depiction of voodoo in Black Moon, like many other common Black tropes, reinforces black inferiority to their oppressors and makes a monster out of Black men. It wasn’t until 1941 that audiences saw an authentic portrayal of a different Black religion: Christianity. The Blood of Jesus (dir. Spencer Williams) stars an all-black cast and follows a woman on her journey between heaven and hell. It was a turning point for Black cinema as a whole.
Narratives such as this, Def By Temptation (1990), and, most recently, The Deliverance (2024) depict the liberation that Black Christians often find in their religion. They draw a direct connection between identity and virtue. Ganja & Hess (1973), however, takes a different approach. Director Bill Gunn doesn’t offer the Christian God as an entity of power capable of salvation. The ending is representative of the religious guilt that weighted Hess Green (played by Duane Jones). Neither vampirism nor religion can save him from the trauma he’s running from.
Almost any Black film that I’ve seen, Tyler Perry included, involved Christianity to some extent. 2023 was the first time I saw a Black religious practice given proper respect on screen. Stay with me here– The Exorcist: Believer (dir. David Gordon Green). Rarely have I seen a positive opinion on this extension of the franchise. Unfortunately, DGG left a bad taste in horror fans’ mouths with his Halloween films. I don’t think it’s so much of his style rather than the loyalty that fans have for these franchises. They have high expectations that very few people can meet. I admired the way he represented the beauty of Haitian culture, though. Particularly, hoodoo was an integral part of the story in a way I haven’t seen in mainstream horror. It wasn’t evil nor was it dramatic. The rootwork healer isn’t crushing bones or conducting blood sacrifices. Its authenticity was commendable compared to the genre’s predecessors that have demonized this very spiritual work for decades.
The late, great Tony Todd added to the list of authentic Black spiritual horror films this past year with The Activated Man (dir. Nicholas Gyeney). Todd stars as a lightworker, named Jeffrey Bowman, who helps the main character defeat an evil, fedora-sporting spirit. He’s dripped out with a rose quartz bracelet and a mala necklace. Though the movie suffers in its respective areas, it’s a tick in the timeline. It’s one of the few times that a Black character has helped to defeat evil with a spiritual practice and faith that isn’t Christianity. Like The Exorcist: Believer, its depiction of Bowman isn’t an unstable practitioner leading with dramatics. It’s easy to get lost in the fine details– some movies won’t live up to our expectations. However, even the most disappointing watch can shift the trajectory of cinema. Where Black characters were once monolithic religious apostles, modern cinema is more willing to diversify Black characters beyond those tired tropes.
Editorials
The Art of Politicizing a Dumb Killer Clown Movie

“Horror is not political” is a recycled firestorm on the internet. The smoke smells the same as it did before, the burn isn’t that bright, and the outcome is always the same: we’ve done this dance before, and we will do it again.
Damien Leone has joined the club of Joe Bob Briggs and dozens of others who have voiced that very hollow opinion that “Horror is not political”. Because I do, I think above all else, above the very clear negotiation with the part of his audience who got angry, the very clear fear of backlash for actor David Howard Thorton’s admonitions of the current Trump administration and his support for the LGBTQ+ community, is…
Hollowness.
“Horror is not political” is not an opinion.
It’s an absence of opinion. It’s a platitude; it’s meant to appease people. It’s a free dessert for the person raging in the restaurant that their soup was cold and that they won’t stand for it. It’s bargaining.
Are the Terrifier films Political?
Hopefully I never have to bring up politics publicly ever again but this desperately needed to be said on behalf of the Terrifier franchise 🙏 pic.twitter.com/b7soIj9P33
— Damien Leone (@damienleone) February 3, 2025
Mind you, this is not a call-out of those people angry at the concept of political horror, and I doubt you could call it a call-in post either; chances are you’re not reading this if you feel that so strongly. The goal is to do what I always do: talk about movies and what they mean, and this current firestorm is a very convenient way of doing that. It’s a well-timed way to toast my analytical marshmallow (promise, that’s the last fire metaphor).
So, what are the politics of the Terrifier films that Damien Leone wants to put away while the irate hotel guests are here? The Terrifier movies are political beasts by their nature, and their killer, the beloved jewel of the Terrifier franchise Art the Clown, is just as political as his actor’s commentary on current-day America. Because through and through, Art the Clown is a monster carrying with him the shadow of sexual violence, a harbinger of how truly despicable that kind of violence is, and shows how the world is not set up to help its victims.
And Leone has said as much to support that.
After all, he believes he’s tackled sexual violence quite well in the films. In an interview with Rue Morgue, he goes on to elaborate why he believes just that:
“I think I’m just so comfortable [tackling sexual violence] because I was raised by all women that I don’t think about those things when I’m doing it. […] I’m not trying to offend, so there’s really nothing I’m not afraid to show. There’s things I won’t show; There’s lines that I try not to cross, believe it or not. No matter how grotesque and intense these scenes get, I always keep it in the back of my head like, ‘How far can we push it [..]?’
And I find it fascinating, because no matter how much negative space Leone leaves in terms of explicit sexual abuse on Art the Clown’s part, that negative space speaks just as loudly as if it was actually on screen.
The Politics of Clownery
On a meta-textual level, the extremity, the explosive and sensationalized nature of violence in the Terrifier films, the draw that most people go to see at the theatre, puts sexual violence on a pedestal of shame. It makes it untouchable. Horror is the genre that explores the violation of bodily autonomy, the violation of human life, most freely. In making a spectacle of the wildest and most nauseating kills most filmgoers will ever see, turning the killer into a Bugs Bunny-esque monster that’s always pushing the envelope alongside the filmmaker orchestrating him, and then setting boundaries on what Art won’t do, Leone has made a political statement about the truly reprehensible nature of sexual violence.
Art the Clown is bad, but he’s a surreal type of evil. He is jokes and gaffs at the expense of chainsawing couples and bashing people with spiked bats, not the mutants from The Hills Have Eyes, or the hallway scene from Irreversible. He is not the sobering, disgusting kind of evil most people run into in the real world. He is evil incarnate, sans sexual violence. Because if it’s too far for Art, it has to be a special kind of unthinkably cruel.
On a textual level, I think the enduring and surreal violence Sienna and Jonathan endure throughout the series is a perfect metaphor for continuing through life after an assault of that magnitude and cruelty. The aftershocks of violence that permeate your whole being, long after society expects you to have just “gotten over it”. To walk through life, afflicted by paranoia, self-doubt, and self-hatred. To navigate being around other people after having experienced that, and more importantly, living without justice for the crimes done to you, is unthinkable.
True Crime and Horror Collide
And the way that the Terrifier franchise mocks a true crime culture that trivializes that suffering, something a lot of horror fans have to decry as the space tries to worm into the horror genre at large, gives another layer of credence and reality to the misery of Arts victims. Victims who have to see their pain commodified and treated as a tool, something many victims of sexual assault themselves have been forced through thanks to true crime.
And despite each film seeming to end off worse than the last, Leone highlights the grace of a victim escaping that pain and trauma by giving Sienna the means to fight back. Supernaturally granted or otherwise, it is a perfect encapsulation of victims’ desires to overcome seemingly unending suffering, that will to live, to thrive, that burns bright in all victims. It’s a glimmer of hope in a mostly hopeless franchise, and it serves as a mirror to the light at the end of the tunnel many sexual assault victims strive to reach.
At the end of the day, artists don’t really get to buy in or buy out of how political their art is, the same way you don’t get to buy in or buy out of living in a political system. Much like Art’s random and unpredictable violence, it sort of just happens to you. It happens whether it’s the high concept art film horror, or what most people see as a bog-standard dumb killer clown movie. But to embrace that political nature is one of the most important things you can do as an artist.
To leave that meaning behind, to try and void art of the political messaging people might find in it, is to do a great disservice to the people who found comfort and joy in that message. Because once that vessel has been emptied of the love people can find in it, the hate people had isn’t going to stay inside of it for long.
That hollowed art won’t be overflowing with a new audience of people. It will simply be empty.