Sleep Tight (2011) - Jaume Balaguero

Cesar works as a concierge for a Barcelona apartment building where he spends his time taking care of the residents in anyway possible.  On the surface Cesar seems like a kind man who only wishes for the best of his residents but in all actuality he wishes to inflict as much pain as possible in the residents.  Jaume Balaguero's Sleep Tight is a horror thriller that truly taps into a primal level of terror - the idea of being at danger while asleep in your bed, the one place where everyone is their most vulnerable.  Cesar is a man who is so miserable in his own life that he wants to inflict as much pain as possible on the residents of the building with their sorrow being the only thing which makes him truly happy.  He is a man who believes he was born with the inability to be happy so he wishes to inflict his pain on everyone around him.  Cesar is a character which the director seems fascinated with to the point that the entire story is told from this Antagonist's point of view.  Sleep Tight is a film that firmly believes that less is more, relying on very little gore or violence to achieve its horror.  It all works so well because of the slow building tension of the story, much like the madness of Cesar himself, which gets more and more terrifying and frightening as the film goes on with Cesar's methods becoming more and more extreme in an attempt to make his residents, particularly a beautiful upbeat woman, Clara, sad.  In a way the film is a portrait of obsession, showing how Cesar becomes more and more desperate to inflict sorrow to this character of Clara.  He wishes to bring her sorrow yet is obsessed with her, spending almost every night with her in bed (after drugging her), almost as if he is in love with her even though he lacks the understanding of the concept.  At times Sleep Tight teeters on the edge of preposterous, and while there is a rather unnecessary subplot involving a little girl, Sleep Tight is an effective, creepy experience and certainty one of the best horror films of the year.

8.25/10

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