[For The Love Of Franchises] REC and the story of the Monstrous Woman: La Niña Medeiros

Content Warning -this article contains discussion of rape and sexual abuse

Many horror franchises have an iconic villain at their centre. For Halloween, there’s Michael Myers, for A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy Krueger and in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it’s Leatherface. The main parallel between these movies is simple, an evil man on a killing spree that will not stop, sometimes even in death. But what happens when the violence is no longer portrayed by a man as the source? The REC films try to answer this in their own subtle way, as a monstrous woman becomes the conduit of the looming Apocalypse.  

When pieced together from various scenes in the REC franchise, particularly the first two films, the audience can construct the story of Tristana Medeiros Da Souza, otherwise known as La Niña Medeiros. A young Portuguese girl who lived in a convent, Tristana earned her keep as a cook. One night, whilst she prayed before bed, a group of priests entered her room and violently raped her, leaving her for dead. When discovered in the morning, it appeared that Tristana had perished, however the nun that found her decided to perform an exorcism on the corpse to save her soul from the sin committed. During the ceremony, Tristana awoke, violently killing those around her in a possessed rage. After eventually being tranquilized, the girl was left in the care of a Vatican priest by the name of Father Albeda, who had heard of the events and came to assist. From here, Albeda somehow transferred Tristana to a penthouse apartment in central Barcelona, where he proceeded to experiment with her blood to learn about her infliction. The poor girl, still suffering from whatever demon was inside her, was kept in a pitch-black room, chained up and alone.

After carrying out many tests, using rats and local children as his guinea pigs, Albeda theorized that the girl’s possession had developed into an enzyme which mutated into a virus, spread by saliva and other bodily fluids. Although he decided he should kill the girl by poisoning her food (which by now consisted of human flesh), the priest was too late to stop the power of La Niña Medeiros. Father Albeda, tricked into thinking the demon was dead, unlocked the chains that bound her, only to be chased into the vents of the apartment and trapped there to die, locked in with the rats and the other children who he had caused great harm to. 

Emaciated and visually impaired from her consistent mistreatment, La Niña Medeiros was left in the penthouse in the dark, starving and waiting to be freed. This leads the audiences to the events of REC where an unsuspecting reporter, Ángela Vidal, and her cameraman, Pablo, discover the apartment building’s dark secret in the climax of the movie. Before this encounter, the duo is forced up to the top floor due to the zombie-like virus taking hold of many of the residents in this quarantined complex. 

An explanation of how the apartment residents became infected links back to the rats. Animals that were free to run around in the walls of the complex, these creatures infected with the viral enzyme ended up biting a dog that lived in the building. Showing what looked like signs of rabies, this dog was taken away to a vet for treatment. Before then, its owner, a young girl called Jennifer, would have been exposed to the dog’s saliva (who doesn’t love doggy kisses?) leading her to also turn eventually, if not a little slower due to the saliva not directly entering her bloodstream. Thus, a chain of horrific events unfolded, leading the entire building to be overrun by zombie hoards, which, if audiences watch the further films in the franchise, are revealed to be controlled by the original demon, who can see what her creations are doing through their eyes due to their infection. Once unassuming Ángela crossed paths with La Niña Medeiros, she was taken over through the transference of a wormlike parasite from the mouth of the original host, implying that she is directly possessed rather than simply infected to become a mindless minion. The outside world was also affected, the vet treating the “rabid” dog was bitten, but decided to attend a wedding, turning suddenly and spreading the virus throughout (as seen in REC3: Genesis).

Moving into the events of REC4: Apocalypse, the infection looked to be contained, with the overrun apartment building from the first two films destroyed, Ángela saved, and apparently possession free. This was due to the parasite transferring from her to yet another host in the rescue attempt. After another chaotic zombie-filled adventure, this time on a boat with infected monkeys to boot, the parasite that was forcefully gifted from La Niña Medeiros to Ángela gets swallowed by a fish, implying that if that fish is caught and eaten, the infection could begin yet again and the Apocalypse could be on the horizon for mankind. In an alternative universe, this could be an optional set up to the Piranha films. 

In all the madness of viral saliva and parasitic worms, it’s hard to remember that at the heart of these films, within the source material of the zombified horror, is a young girl who was assaulted, possessed, and left to fend for herself. The chain of events that occur within the four movies is a product of a child’s suffering reflected onto an uncaring world in rage and blood. The REC franchise quietly hides a story of horrific sexual abuse, an act caused by the violence of men that turn an innocent girl into a hellish demonic woman, in the depths of a gore-filled zombie romp that audiences are far more acquainted with. It should be noted that although the monstrous woman is the origin of the plague that threatens to destroy humanity, she could be considered an effect of the events rather than the cause. Even in these films where the woman in the penthouse apartment is framed as the true horror, she has only become that way because of evil men. The demon that latched to a girl during an act against her will must have sensed the pain, terror, and darkness she experienced, using her as a vessel to bring about the end of days. Even when she is the centre of the desolation of the films’ protagonists, Tristana Medeiros Da Souza should be remembered as how she began, the victim of men. 

This raises an incredibly important question, what is the reason behind this breakdown of the REC franchise if it turns out that the hidden villain in all of this is in fact not monstrous at all, but simply a product of her environment? I believe that this is exactly the point – even when she is portrayed as the ongoing evil within all of this, the source and bringer of doom that may one day cause the extinction of people, La Niña Medeiros is only created through the crimes and misguidance of others. The demon was only able to pass through into this mortal plane because of the priests raping a child. An unforgivable act, an act that means that within all of this, the true monster shouldn’t be Tristana Medeiros Da Souza, but the men that made her this way. 

In the American remake of the REC, Quarantine, the religious elements, and possession story were completely removed, La Niña Medeiros was replaced by a “Thin Infected Man” (as he is referred to in the credits), who is an unnamed male tenant of the building that appears to have fell victim to the infectious zombie outbreak but doesn’t seem to be a key element in the cause of the bombardment. The sequel, Quarantine 2: Terminal, is a very similar zombie premise, set primarily on a plane. In the bare bones of a similar story, the woman is not blamed, she merely doesn’t exist. Which is worse is down to the interpretation of the audience. For me, the suffering of a woman at the hands of men is a subject I will not be silenced on, especially when that woman never receives the justice she deserves, as happens in the original REC franchise. As much as I adore at least the first two of these Spanish films, they are tainted for me with that reminder on every view. 

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