Every horror fan knowsthe old urban legend dating back to the ‘50sabout a babysitter who is harassed by a mysterious man, only to realize he’s calling from the very same house she is in. This story has been incorporated into numerous films, fromWhen a Stranger CallstoUrban Legend.Sleep Tight, a Spanish thriller directed byJaume Balagueróand released in 2011, approaches the subject in a more roundabout way, with the call still very much coming from inside the house.The tenants of a Barcelona building have no idea that it is secretly ruled by the concierge, a quiet man named César (played expertly byLuis Tosar, the star of manySpanish genre films). While there is almost no explicit violence shown on screen here, it’sone of the most terrifying films you’ll ever see, as it forces theviewer to challenge their concept of safety and trust.
The Villain in ‘Sleep Tight’ Doesn’t Care Who to Terrorize
The story is almost fully set in a Barcelona apartment building, just like in Balagueró’s most famous film,the found-footage zombie horror,Rec, which he co-directed withPaco Plaza. Unlike that 2007 cult horror, nothing major seems to ever happen in this building, where the tenants wake up every day and go about their routine. César, the concierge, also has a routine —he starts every morning by reaffirming that he is incapable of feeling happiness. Therefore, his only mission in life is to make those around him as miserable as possible too. Abusing his master key privileges, he often resorts toAmélie Poulain’s tactics, entering the flats and playing nasty tricks.César also has his personal Moby Dick — a persistently happy young woman, Clara (Marta Etura),who simply refuses to be upset about petty stuff.
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Don’t let the subtitles scare you away, that’s the movie’s job.
There is a noticeable distinction between César and Amélie fromJean-Pierre Jeunet’s film, of course. While the latter does meddle with people’s lives, she only ever punishes that one obnoxious greengrocer with her practical jokes.Tosar’s character doesn’t discriminate, spreading his sociopathy to everyone. At first, it seems like the stuff César is doing is rather mild, like messing with a dog’s food or one of the tenants’ skincare routine. However, it is soon revealed that he also resorts to much more sinister and cruel acts that directly affect, and sometimes even ruin, people’s lives. As César’s dark secrets are about to get exposed, his actions escalate even further, leading to a murder. César’s story is a grim showcase of the sad truth that themost terrible violence is alwaysabout craving powerover another person.
This Thriller Has Minimal Gnarly Kill Scenes, Making it Even More Chilling
The idea ofa home being turned from a sacred space into a hostile territoryhas always been one of Balagueró’s favorite topics to explore. In his 2002 English-language debut,Darkness,he showed the house the characters moved into as a live organism with a mind of its own, a place where the titular darkness first eats up the youngest child’s crayons and then tries to swallow the whole family. The same motive can be seen inRec, and in several of Balagueró’s short films, like his 2014 dark comedy,Inquilinos, where new tenants areharassed by the ghosts of the former ones.Sleep Tightis a terrifying culmination of this idea, wherethe heroine finds herself confronted within her own apartment, the supposedly safe space turned intoa torture chamber.
This theme, which was also explored many times invarious home invasion movies, is twisted in Balagueró’s film in two major ways. First,there are almost no graphic depictions of physical violence. All the classic scares, like a bathtub full of blood and a literalarmy of cockroachesthat César unleashes on Clara, serve as a mere background to truly disturbing elements of this story. This is precisely what the second twist on the familiar narrative is based on:the whole story is shown from the invader’s perspective.
The genre cinema has knowna great variety of villains, but it’s rare to see someone like César — someone who does horrible things not because he has a specific agenda, or because he is ignored by reality, but because he has an existential beef with it.Jaume Balagueró does an admirable job balancing this character outby showing things through his voyeuristic perspective while also turning him into one of the cockroaches with the help ofPablo Rosso’s camera, depicting his constant crawling and squirming. Yet, the more the film shows César as miserable and pathetic, the more scary it becomes. Thesetup and the story are entirely too realistic, as we all live in a world where we put our safety in someone’s — sometimes a stranger’s — hands.Sleep Tightdemonstrates howthat trust can turn into a reign of terrorif those hands also hold minimal power and a master key.
Sleep Tight
