The Baby's Room/La Habitación del Niño (2006, TV movie) - Creepy scares in Iglesias' psych. horror

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A blood-curdling German release poster for Álex de la Iglesia's The Baby's Room

A couple moves into a new, large house with their infant baby, but soon they start to see and hear strange things around their baby on monitors and via baby alarm. - Or is it all just a reflection of the husband and father's escalating paranoia?

 

The Baby's Room is written by Jorge Guerricaechevarría (The Kovak Box (2006)) and co-writer/director Álex de la Iglesia (Acción Mutante (1993)).

Skillful actors in grim scenes work wonders in this creepy, spine-tingling psychological horror, which also uses the score (by Roque Baños (Nuestros Amantes (2016))) as a considerable part of its dark magic. The simplified plot, which uses the modern technology angle well, could have been stretched out for even greater effect.

 

Related posts: 

Other TV movies from Películas Para No Dormir series: A Real Friend/Adivina Quién Soy (2006, TV movie) - Confusing TV horror drama

Blame/La Culpa (2006) - Undistinguished Spanish abortion TV-flick 

Álex de la Iglesia is guest on a Spanish talkshow in a 14-minute clip from 2020 here

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: Uncertain - mostly a TV release

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[The Baby's Room was released on DVD 31 July and on Spanish TV 12 January 2007 and runs 77 minutes. It is part of the Películas Para No Dormir TV movie series, the last in a row of similar TV movie series started in 1966 as Historias Para No Dormir by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador. Iglesia returned with Hitler Está Vivo (2006, short), El Código (2006, short) and theatrically with The Oxford Murders (2008). Javier Gutiérrez (Al Final del Camino (2009)), who plays Juan, in Días de Cine (2007); and Leonor Watling (The Vineyard/La Templanza (2021, TV-series)), who plays Sonia, in Teresa, el Cuerpo de Cristo (2007). 5,400+ IMDb users have given The Baby's Room a 6.9/10 average rating.]

What do you think of The Baby's Room?

Blame/La Culpa (2006) - Undistinguished Spanish abortion TV-flick

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Ugly poster for Narciso Ibáñez Serrador's TV movie La Culpa

QUICK REVIEW:

Blame is a Spanish TV movie that seems only worth seeing for Spanish film nerds, because it is both slow, weird and far-fetched.
A woman and her daughter move in with a lonely, lesbian gynecologist, and after an abortion, in which the fetus goes missing (!), murder begins to shake the large house.
It's partly about abortion, partly about Spain and a little bit about women. But it never comes together as a good movie. Some of it is due to the acting that isn't very realistic, in fact the characters often seem like strange soap-opera people.
This thriller drama from the otherwise horror-intended Peliculas Para No Dormir mini-series is a failure for its Uruguayan director Narciso Ibáñez Serrador (Death Is Child's Play (1976)), who has worked mostly in horror films and TV production, but ended his almost 50 year long career with La Culpa.

Unfortunately unsubtitled trailer for this undistinguished TV-movie

Cost: Unknown
Box office: None
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What do you think of La Culpa?
Any good Latino horror films that you can recommend?

A Real Friend/Adivina Quién Soy (2006, TV movie) - Confusing TV horror drama

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The girl with some unusual invisible friends make up this dark poster for Enrique Urbizu's A Real Friend

We follow a lonely girl, whose only friends are Leatherface (from Tobe Hooper's horror masterpiece The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)) and a vampire, SPOILER who turns out to be her father.

The end of this strange, Spanish horror TV-movie did not make a whole lot of sense to me, and the surely well-meant drama it contains before this also fell somewhat to the ground for this reason. The film relies mostly not on dialog but instead on its countless horror movie references, so that passages in it seem surreal. If the idea behind A Real Friend comes from a personal experience, I must admit it is disturbing.
The film is part of the Spanish horror TV movie series, Películas Para No Dormir ('films to keep you awake') in which I found Álex de la Iglesia's The Baby's Room (2006) to be the best, and, as opposed to the mostly merely strange A Real Friend, - very scary!
A Real Friend is written by Jorge Arenillas (Invader/Invasor (2012)) and co-writer-director Enrique Urbizu (Life Marks/La Vida Mancha (2003)), with James Phillips (Hiroku: Defendors of Gaia (2013)) voice-directing the English version.

Watch the great American trailer for the horror TV movie series that A Real Friend is part of here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: None - TV movie
= Uncertain
[A Real Friend premiered on TV on 25 October (Spain) and runs 73 minutes. It was shot in Barcelona, Spain. Urbizu returned with No Rest for the Wicked/No Habrá Paz para los Malvados (2011). Goya Toledo (Rated R/Los Años Desnudos (2008)), who plays widow mother Angela, returned in Joaquín Sabina - ... y Seguido 1992-2005 (2006, video), La Contessa di Castiglione (2006, TV movie) and theatrically in El Último Justo (2007) 888 IMDb users have given A Real Friend a 5.2/10 average rating.]

What do you think of A Real Friend?