Ángela Vidal

Ángela Vidal is a character from the REC series. She is portrayed by Manuela Velasco. Ángela is a sympathetic TV presenter of Mientras Duermes ("While you sleep") who, while shooting an episode following the routine of a group of firemen in Barcelona, ends up quarantined with the cameraman Pablo in an apartment building with a terrifying virus.

History
Quarantine night

After filming at their HQ, Ángela and Pablo follow Manu and Álex to what seemed to be an everyday mission. The firemen where called from an old apartment building where an lonely elderly woman, Conchita Izquierdo, terrified her neighbors as she screamed out loud, locked in her apartment. At their arrival, Ángela went against the censorship of two cops, insisting for Pablo to record everything they witnessed. As they broke in, Conchita was found covered in blood and with an strange, aggressive behavior. As Conchita attacked the elder cop, biting the man on his face, Ángela became desperate and helped to bring the old man downstairs. At the hall, Ángela and everyone around her discovered the place was under quarantine and they would not be allowed to leave. Álex felt from the upper floor after Conchita attacked him as well. Ángela formally reported everything until they were told from the outside that two health workers would be sent to evaluate them. She interviewed each of the building's residents including an ill little girl, Jennifer, and was supported by her mother Maricármen to keep filming, so the edgy woman would make a formal complaint to the local authorities.

As the healthy agents went in to examine Álex and the old cop, Ángela and Pablo secretly followed them. As he filmed inside, she did not see when the two bitten men woke up and attacked the agents. Ángela and Pablo ran to prevent them from leaving and the residents insisted the agent to tell the truth. After he explained that a dog from the building was sent to the veterinary with a rabid behavior that soon affected other animals there, Ángela first realized it was Jennifer's dog Max. The infected Jennifer spat blood on her mother's face and ran upstairs, and Ángela, Manu, Pablo and the young cop followed her. As the cop attacked Jennifer as well, they returned downstairs only to have the other infected escaping, forcing the remaining residents to go upstairs. Ángela desperately tried to unlock Maricármen, but apologized and ran to hide with Manu, Pablo and César. At this point, she found herself hopeless and horrified to what they had witnessed there. César remembered an underground passage to the sewers, but was attacked by the now infected agent. Ángela, Manu and Pablo faced several of the plagued residents to pick the syndic's keys, but could no longer go downstairs as they were surprised by the horde of infected residents.

Ángela quickly found the attic's keys and the got inside the dark, abandoned apartment with Pablo before the infected could reach them. Horrified, Ángela and Pablo found themselves surrounded by newsreports and articles on a Portuguese and supposedly possessed girl named Tristana Medeiros. In an old tape recorder, Ángela heard a male voice reporting the virus effects and mutations. After they heard a nose above, Pablo went to check and met an infected boy upon the ceiling, who broke his camera's light, leaving him and Ángela in the darkness. Ángela was then told by Pablo to stand still and silent as a monstrous, slender figure approached them. The creature attacked and killed Pablo, Ángela, left alone, was grabbed by the creature, who forcibly put a worm-like parasite down her throat. After this, Ángela became controlled by the parasite, grabbing Pablo's camera and hiding as she heard someone else entering the upper room.

The men were GEO team agents Jeffe, Larra and their cameraman Rosso, alongside a supposed official from the Ministry of Health, Owen. After Owen had revealed that the infection is actually a form of demonic possession, and himself as a Vatican priest intending to find a cure for it, "Ángela" appeared to them with Pablo's camera on hands. She joined them upstairs to find Tristana Medeiros, now the horrifying creature above. "Ángela" shot the Medeiros creature in the head (and Rosso as well) before Owen could take her blood sample, and ordered the priest to allow her out the building, to which he declined. The demonic entity inside her revealed itself, faked his voice and allowed Ángela out of the building. "Ángela" went downstairs and screamed for help, meeting a new GEO team. She was told by the GEO soldier Guzmán that it was "time to leave", before the demonic parasite could transfer itself into Guzmán.

In the ship
Ángela woke up in a room, being tested by a doctor named Ginard. She was asked if she remembered anything from the quarantine night, to which she said no, and had a blood sample extracted to make sure she is clean from the infection. Confused and scared, Ángela broke out of the room and met Guzmán, the soldier that took her out of the building. The two headed outside and discovered they were on a boat in the ocean. Another Doctor, Ricarte, appears with some soldiers and informs them that Ángelawas brought clean from any infection. In the ship, Ángela met Nick, a huge fan of hers. Nick had her tape from the quarantine night, from which Ángela started remembering the Medeiros creature. After the ships cook Edwin had cooked an infected monkey attacking him, Ángela was one of the few people who did not get infected from eating the monkey's cooked dead body. Later on, Ricarte looks at her camera footage, and sees Tristana Medieros transferring the demon to Ángela. But it is revealed that when Guzman had rescued her in the apartment building in Barcelona, Ángela had transferred the demon to Guzman. Ricarte then pressed a self destruct button on the ship to make sure all of the infected burn. Ángela and Nick manage to escape in an inflatable raft, and later, they make it back to land.

Personality
Ángela was shown to be very down-to-earth and intensely professional in her work as a television host. After the quarantine night, however, she assumed a completely different behavior, becoming more aggressive and uncontrollable. It is important to note that Angela acts more like her original personality in Rec 4

Notes and trivia

 * Manuela Velasco used the very same outfit in every installment Ángela is featured.
 * An alternate ending for REC has Ángela trying to silently go downstairs through the plagued occupants and the dark, as they stand quiet and staring above.
 * Another ending features her going downstairs and devoured by Conchita.
 * In a deleted scene of REC, an agonizing Ángela mentions her mother.
 * Manuela Velasco has been a television host in her native Spain.
 * Ángela's programme is quite reminiscent of El Equipo, a television series that has been adapted to Spanish audiences as La Liga.
 * Velasco shares her birthday with Leticia Dolera, who portrays Clara.
 * The building used for REC and REC 2 is decorated with an sculpture depicting a woman being grabbed by a monstrous man by her feet, which is quite reminiscent of Ángela's fate. Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza were not aware of this up until the release of REC 2.