One Of The Scariest Horror Franchises Is Finally Streaming All In One Place, And I Already Took Advantage

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Regardless of whether Halloween is around the corner or not, horror fans are always seeking out scary movies to throw on, from the best horror movies in existence to the trashiest low-budget disasters. That said, the spooky season does usually provide the widest variety of offerings, especially across cable TV and streaming. Unsurprisingly, a Shudder subscription is a proven and worthy commodity throughout October and beyond, especially now that one of my favorite franchises is available to stream in one place.

With a debut film that scored one of the highest Rotten Tomato scores for zombie movies, and one which easily ranks among the best found-footage movies, the [REC] films are endlessly chaotic and nerve-rattling, and everyone should take advantage of all four films being localized into one quarantine zone — er, I mean onto one streaming service.

All Four [REC] Movies Are Streaming On Shudder

Though I cannot say under oath when the last time the [REC] movies were all together on one streaming service, I feel like I’ve been trying for years to find the first film housed on a mainstream platform, and have only been able to find one or more of the sequels available. So maybe I’ve just been blindly searching during the weeks when the quartet of movies hasn’t all been available digitally, and not searching when they were. It’s not like there’s a foolproof way to do this.

In any case, Shudder must have gotten my frantic mental memos about it, because the horror-centric service added the following movies to its lineup for October:

• [REC] (2007) – 90% RT score

• [REC] 2 (2009) – 67% RT score

• [REC] 3: Genesis (2012): 44% RT score

• [REC] 4: Apocalypse (2014): 65 % RT score

That certainly represents the broad consensus about the four films, which mostly center on news reporter Ángela Vidal (Manuela Velasco), first as she follows a fireman crew to a doomed apartment building, the setting for the first two films, and then as she survives aboard a doomed ship. The third feature is the only one where Velasco is absent. (I’m avoiding spoilers here in case anyone hasn’t yet seen them.)

That, combined with diverting away from the found-footage approach and the choice to have it take place on the same timeline as the first film, were the three biggest reasons why critics weren’t as kind to that sequel, but I’d go on record here, 13 years later, to defend it as still being a really fun and stunt-filled time, even if it isn’t AS good as the others. (Never enough zombie mayhem during weddings, in my book.)

Especially when compared to far more dismal found-footage movies released in the past 20 years, all of the [REC] movies look like high art. And don’t even get me started on the pale comparisons of 2008’s humdrum remake Quarantine and its even worse 2011 sequel Quarantine: Terminal.

I’ve Already Watched The 2007 Original With My 14-Year-Old, And It Absolutely Holds Up

The biggest reason I’d been constantly looking for [REC] on streaming services was to watch the O.G. movie with my 14-year-old daughter, as I’ve been happily expanding her horror movie watchlist since she was old enough to say “Boo,” but without a large amount of either found-footage or zombie movies having come up before. (Outside of classics like The Blair Witch Project and Shaun of the Dead.)

Having not watched Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s 2007 original in 15 years or so, I was initially worried that all of my spoken-word hype in recent years would be upended by a movie that didn’t stand up to the wounds of time. Those worries were completely misplaced and valueless, however.

Despite the final sequence’s night-vision sequence having long ago lost its luster after being ripped off in dozens of other projects, [REC] is quite possibly just as good as I remember, with a tension that ratchets up a third of the way in and never drops back down until the credits. From the gnarly special effects to the clever camera work to some of the most effective jump-scares I can think of, it’s everything one could hope for in found-footage, and cleverly sets up a deeper story without the need to lay everything out all at once.

The [REC] Franchise’s Co-Creator Has Another New Project That Fans Should Definitely Stream On Shudder

Even fans who have watched the four [REC] movies hundreds of times still have a reason to opt in on a Shudder subscription. (Do such people actually exist? Maybe I’d rather not know.) Because that’s where to find the latest effort from Paco Plaza, who co-wrote the first three [REC] films, co-directed the first two, and solo-directed Genesis.

Plaza, who’d recently helmed 2023’s Verônica prequel Hermana Muerte, lent his talents to V/H/S/Halloween, the eighth film in the medium-specific found-footage anthology. It’s also the greatest in the franchise so far, per my own review.

One of the slightly more serious and bizarre segments in V/H/S/Halloween, Plaza’s “Ut Supra Sic Infra” features intercut footage from two different timelines involving an extremely deadly Halloween party and its lone survivor, Enric (Teo Planell), whom the police are questioning in order to figure out what actually happened that night. It’s a banger that viewers will want to keep their eyes glued to.

There’s no reason to wait any longer! Flock to your nearest Shudder web page and enjoy the stress-inducing mayhem of the [REC] franchise while all four movies are still together.