Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on August 11, 2008, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
One door closes, another opens. While we wait to learn whether Filmax’s outstanding Spanish chiller [REC] will achieve U.S. theatrical release or be kept hidden in deference to the Hollywood remake Quarantine, the company’s 6 Films to Keep You Awake (Películas para no dormir) are at last making their appearance on Stateside DVD. Produced three years ago for TV broadcast in Spain (though only two made it to the airwaves), this anthology of short features was brainstormed by veteran filmmaker Narciso Ibañez Serrador, in the spirit of his hit 1960s series Stories to Keep You Awake (Historias para no dormir). It brought together the country’s foremost fright-directing talents, including [REC]’s Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, The Day of the Beast’s Alex de la Iglesia, Nobody Knows Anybody’s Mateo Gil, The Ninth Gate scripter Enrique Urbizu and Who Can Kill a Child?’s Serrador himself, and the results, in both craft and scare value, rival any modern series produced for American television.
Some of the entries find these filmmakers working on familiar ground: Balagueró’s apartment-set To Let (pictured above) could be seen as a dry run for the more crazily stylized [REC]. Others are departures, as de le Iglesia, with The Baby’s Room, eschews his usual black-comic sensibilities for a more serious approach to his tale of a couple whose infant monitor seems to reveal a ghost. Not every one of these Films is a direct hit, but there’s something for all genre temperaments here, and each of the movies feels crafted for the big screen; there’s very little sense that they were initially destined for television.
In Lionsgate’s three-disc package, all six are presented in widescreen transfers that are pleasingly sharp, with colors that tend toward the muted for the most part and fine Dolby Digital 2.0 sound in Spanish only, with subtitles. (The series’ animated introduction will evoke pleasant nostalgia in New York-area dwellers who remember the old Chiller Theatre show’s clutching hand.) Each movie is accompanied by a making-of featurette running around 20 minutes, the best of which covers The Baby’s Room, starting with de la Iglesia’s revelation that he and the other directors had initially hoped to weave connective elements into their respective Films. There’s good, in-depth discussion packed into the brief running time, along with glimpses of the director’s hands-on fight-scene rehearsals with lead actors Javier Gutiérrez and Leonor Watling. The stars get to speak as well, with Watling succinctly describing Room as “an hour of bad vibes” and Gutiérrez offering, “If another director directed this movie, it would all be darker, gloomier”—even though, in terms of tone, this is probably de la Iglesia’s darkest, gloomiest work yet.
Other highlights appear in the Christmas Tale piece, as both Plaza and his preteen stars (among them Pan’s Labyrinth’s Ivana Baquero) explore how the director got them to bond as a gang offscreen, the kids admit moments where they were scared for real and a stuntman with a soul patch is seen doubling for lead actress Maru Valdivielso. There’s even time for discussion of the film-within-the-film Zombie Invasion, featuring Snakes on a Plane and Beyond Re-Animator’s Elsa Pataky. Introducing the Spectre segment, Gil admits, “I cannot say that I am a great enthusiast of the terror genre,” and that’s not the only apparent contradiction here: An actor explaining the sensitivity of shooting a sex scene is juxtaposed with behind-the-scenes video of that very setpiece.
Serrador, in the course of examining Blame, makes brief comparisons between 6 Films and Stories to Keep You Awake, but without any backstory on the two series, this discussion will likely be lost on the uninitiated—especially since the latter phrase isn’t translated as a title for the most part in this and the other minidocs. Also curious is the fact that, here and elsewhere, many of the crewmembers’ faces are digitally blurred in the on-set footage (as are the pop-culture logos on de la Iglesia’s shirts). And there’s a sad irony when A Real Friend’s Urbizu notes, “I guess this will have great international coverage” thanks to the intended televised exposure that never came to pass. Score one more for the disc format’s ability to correct that situation, and kudos to Lionsgate for giving this project an attractively packaged U.S. release with a price that, given the volume, breadth and quality of the material, provides some of the best genre value for your DVD dollars this year.
