It is common knowledge that the original movie is always superior to the remake. For confirmation, look no further than the two Day of the Deads or the nine-month sentence you got on that second DUI.

Remakes always bring a new, worse spin on a classic film.

But the rules are a little different for remakes of foreign movies, because studio heads rightly assume nobody saw that junk in the first place. In that case, remakes are free to simply be the original. Just like what happened to Spain's 2007 flick [Rec].

While doing a ride-along with Barcelona firefighters, TV personality Manuela Velasco finds herself trapped in an apartment complex with the crew. Inside, the residents are turning into zombies -- and outside, the government has sealed off the building.

Quarantine is the American remake of [Rec] , and since I'm a fan of Quarantine, I've been hearing for years that I need to see [Rec]. As it turns out, you know what would be a pretty good joke? Pasting my entire Quarantine review here, because these movies are exactly the same.

I'd do it, too, except I'd be frowned on by the people who can fire me. So for those of you who missed my world-famous Quarantine review -- the review that singlehandedly vaulted me to such lofty heights of celebrity that my upcoming wedding will be televised for a cool $15 million -- [Rec] is of the handheld camera school of horror, and its ground-level realism makes its swift descent into violence and chaos all the more effective. It's a scary movie, presumably all the more so if you haven't seen its remake.

In movies, there are two main types of fear: dread, the anticipation of horrible things, and terror, which is what happens when the horrible things pop onscreen and gargle blood in your face. Dread is much easier to sustain than terror, so it's especially impressive that writer/directors Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza build [Rec] almost entirely through terror. Then comes the ending, a powerhouse of dread that's one of the scariest scenes in the past few years.

[Rec] is better in that it came first, but without it, there would be no Quarantine.

* Contact Ed Robertson at edwrobertson@gmail.com.