Rating: B
Dir: Jaume Balagueró
Star: Ester Expósito, Inés Fernández, Ángela Cremonte, Fernando Valdivielso
Between this, Sleep Tight, and To Let, it feels like Balagueró has a thing for “apartment horror”. This is a slick slice of raw meat, which starts off as one thing, becomes another, and then turns the weirdness up to eleven down the stretch. It’s supposedly based on an H.P. Lovecraft short story, The Dreams in the Witch House. But I think you probably have to squint quite hard to see that. Though it does begin with an ominous and somewhat Lovecraftian proclamation. “Three innocent girls will die at dawn. A new planet will appear out of nowhere and it will devour the Sun’s light. This will be the Coronation day. And so… LAMAASTHU WILL RULE.”
However, in the early going, we are more concerned about nightclub dancer Lucia (Expósito), who has just swiped a bag containing a large quantity of drugs and run off. She tries to hide out in the flat belonging to her sister, Rocio (Cremonte), who is terrified and just about to bail with her daughter Alba (Fernández). The next morning, Rocio has indeed vanished, leaving Alba in the care of Lucia, as the owners of the drugs close in on the building. It’s a weird place – Balagueró supposedly drew inspiration from the Dakota Building in Rosemary’s Baby, and that makes sense. Alba tells stories of a “servant” who lives in the attic, and brings her presents through dreams. “She makes me dream ugly things, then she can get in here.”
The further we proceed, the deeper down this rabbit-hole we go, until we find out where Rocio went. The stolen drugs are almost forgotten, save for when the owners make an ill-advised attempt to ferret out information, and then stage a frontal assault. Instead, the occult leanings intensify. It’s in a way which seems to have inspired They Will Kill You, between the battle to protect a younger relative, and the heroine’s tendency towards bad-assery. By the end, Lucia is stapling up her own stab wounds and improvising explosive devices, as she fights to save Alba. Meanwhile that “new planet” mentioned in the introduction is about to eclipse the sun, in defiance of accepted interstellar physics.
Just don’t expect to learn who (or what) Lamaasthu might be. Explanations there will not be forthcoming, because the focus here is deliberately kept smaller scale, almost entirely on the apartment building after which the movie is named. I would have preferred it to lean a bit more into the cosmic elements, rather than the “biddy horror” (top). However, it is a little more subtle about its shift from crime to horror than, say From Dusk Till Dawn. It’s less yanking the carpet out from under the viewer, than slowly rearranging the furniture in the room. Particularly worthy of praise is Expósito’s performance, gradually winning me over after a start where Lucia wasn’t exactly sympathetic. Overall, this likely solidifies Balagueró as one of my favourite current horror directors.