[Rec]

Following on from the disappointing Cloverfield and the even worse Diary of the Dead comes the third in a recent rash of urban DIY horrors. Thankfully, the Spanish know how to make 'em far better than the Americans, and [REC] is a masterpiece. Taking place over the course of several harrowing hours, it follows a bubbly TV presenter and her cameraman as they shadow a Madrid fire crew on their night shift, where a routine call-out to an apartment building turns into an unexplained, unstoppable zombie outbreak, the gimmick being that everything is seen from the TV camera's POV. As an exercise in sustained horror, [REC] has rarely been bettered. At the risk of surrendering to hyperbole, it truly is one of the scariest films ever made - actual cower in your seat, hide your eyes and hope-the-monster-doesn't-get-you terror. But it's the variety of scares that impresses most, from slow creeping dread to jump-shocks that you absolutely will not see coming. Astonishing. [Paul Greenwood]