Writer(s): Alberto Marini
Starring: Luis Tosar, Marta Etura, and Alberto San Juan
I actually stumbled on Sleep
Tight through an online streaming service, completely by accident; its
front cover suggesting it was nothing more than an uninspired direct-to-video
snoozefest. For whatever reason—I
normally do not pay attention to movies like this—I happened to click into it,
figuring I would get a laugh out of its terrible plot or chuckle at its
terrible cast of grade Z actors.
Instead, what I found is this was actually a critically-acclaimed horror
film from the director of [REC], and
it was at that very point that I knew I had to check it out.
The brief plot outline is a thing of terrifying beauty:
Cesar is the doorman of an apartment complex.
Unbeknownst to its tenants, he also happens to be a depressed sociopath
whose sole means of happiness is causing those around him to be miserable. The entire movie, from the first minute, on
through to the final frame, focuses on his attempts at breaking the spirit of
Clara, a vivacious young woman who lives in apartment 5B
It sounds like too simple a concept to work, but writer
Alberto Marini, and director Jaume Balagueró cleverly imbue the film with
almost non-stop tension; most surprising of all, they avoid taking things too
far beyond the realm of implausibility, unlike most films of its ilk. For a few fleeting minutes, I even felt a
little sorry for Cesar, and I honestly can’t remember a movie that made such an
intensely unlikable character into a victim.
Of course, it’s only a matter of time before he crosses the line into
“irredeemably bad person”, but the ease at which Balagueró tosses our emotions
around is nothing short of impressive.
His attempts to torture his victim start off minor: He puts additives in her skin creams that
cause her to break out. When that
doesn’t achieve his desired results—when she just callously tosses it aside as
a minor allergy—then he goes back to the drawing board, coming back with
something even more despicable. But Clara is different. His “attacks” seem only to be minor
annoyances to her, instead of the life-altering torture that he wants them to
be. He gradually realizes that he must
pull out all the stops if he is to ruin her.
Just when we think this formula has run itself into the
ground, Marini throws us another twist--the little girl across the hall who
sees Cesar leaving Clara’s room in the middle of the night and knows
something’s up, or the surprise appearance of Clara’s out-of-town lover—that
forces Cesar to adapt his plans, sometimes on the fly. We know it’s only a matter of time until he
gets caught, and for poor Clara’s sake, we hope it’s sooner rather than later,
but even as the proverbial noose seems to tighten around Cesar’s neck, he
always has a cool-headed exposition that explains everything away.
At its most chilling, Sleep
Tight sometimes comes off as companion piece of sorts to Paranormal Activity, whose tagline “What
happens when you sleep?” could also be a very apt slogan for this one. Only, instead of an unseen entity, the
“monster” here is someone with whom you come into contact with on a daily
basis, who knows all about your life, but whose interactions, you assume, are
merely friendly banter; who, like you, is all too human. Alas, Cesar keeps his own “black book”,
though instead of the names and numbers of potential suitors, this one holds
notes on all of the building’s tenants.
Is the owner of apartment
3A
The most frightening thing is that the demented person here
is not some cheap genre stereotype, but rather a living, breathing human being
that could just as easily be you, or someone very close to you. About the only fault I can find (and its
minor) is that there is no motive given; how did Cesar come to be the way he
is? Alternatively, that can also be a
strength—at least we aren’t given some cheesy backstory, or simple “he was
abused as a child” copout—but given how adept Balagueró is at characterization,
it could have been interesting to see them add even more layers to Cesar’s
depth.
Still, if you like your horror firmly rooted in realism,
Sleep Tight is not a movie you should miss.
It tells a simple story extraordinarily well, and is fundamentally
gripping from the beginning all the way to the end. I hesitate to call any movie that’s only four
years old a “classic”, but it will be interesting to revisit it in a decade or
so to see where we stand. Does
“potential future classic” sound better?
RECAP: It tells a
simple story, that of a doorman whose sole purpose in life is to make others
miserable, but does it with an atypical gusto missing from most modern
horrors. The acting is solid all around,
and the story, which sounds like it would get old after a little while, is kept
emotionally gripping throughout its entirety.
If you like your horror grounded in reality, you simply cannot miss Sleep Tight; if you like horror movies,
period, then you simply cannot miss Sleep
Tight, either. We’ll check back in a
few years, because this may be a new classic of horror.
RATING: 8.5/10
TRAILER
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