Skip to content

Jaume Balaguero

Mientras Duermes * Jaume Balagueró (2011)

“Sleep Tight” is a nice Spanish thriller of the director of [Rec]. It has an original and well-written story that is a bit too easy to give away. The film reminds a bit of the classic thriller “Manhunter” in the way that we follow the ‘bad guy’ in his daily life and thus some sort of sympathy raises. What is well-done is that after César tells us about himself in the beginning, it takes a while before I saw how things were. “Sleep Tight” has a nice atmosphere, it is actually more of a drama with thriller elements, but they are well done and they work both ways, for the victim and for César. A nice film to watch some time.

[•Rec] * Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza (2007)

[•Rec]This Spanish horror uses the Blair Witch idea of a filmcrew following a group of firemen into an appartment building where things are not what they expected. Anything more I say will deminish the surprise, but the film mixes a nice and dark Blair Witch atmosphere with horror gore and humour. Not too badly done either, since some scenes are pretty scary. A nice horror for people who can handle the contents of their stomachs.

Los Sin Nombre * Jaume Balagueró * 1999

I wouldn’t have chosen this film for the title, cover or story on the back, but my girlfriend thought it would be a nice film. “The Nameless” proved to be a very dark and particularly grim and gruesome thriller/horror. If you like Japanese films like “Ringu”, this one is for you. This Spanish film is shot in colour, but there hardly is any. The images are dark, the atmosphere pressing. This last is mostly caused by the constant deep rumbling on the background.
The story is about a women whose daughter was probably found dead six years ago. Back then an extremely mutilated body of a child was found. Yet the woman gets a call from her dead child and a haunting search for her begins. Claudia is lured into the web of a group of extremists who think that by means of pain they can concentrate the ultimate evil and gain evil powers. The atmosphere is fantastic, the story (based on a book by Ramsey Campbell) has details you would never come up with, but unfortunately the last 10 minutes and the conclusion are fairly weak. Especially see it if you like extraordinary dark films.