When Cesar (Luis Tosar) sees Clara (Marta Etura) leave for work in the mornings, he wants to wipe the smile from her face. And as the barely noticed caretaker of her Barcelona apartment building, he’s in the perfect position to do so. Cesar is a strange monster for this psychological thriller from Jaume Balaguero, director of the visceral hit [REC] horror films: a misanthrope so incapable of happiness, he feels others’ laughter like a stab. His hospitalised, mute mother is the silent confessor who weeps horrified tears at his plans. Otherwise, we’re his only, appalled witnesses.
His innocent victim, Clara, is a perky, likeable young woman, first met bouncing out of bed to work as if she’s in a romcom montage. Her problem is this is the same bed Cesar crept from a few hours before, anaesthetised Clara sleeping on unawares. He secretes himself under that bed each night like a troll, plotting a vilely petty campaign: rotten fruit left at the back of the fridge; a cockroach infestation (pictured below); even infecting her beauty cream so that pretty face is spoiled by a rash. Clara’s “mustn’t grumble” reactions are a red rag to her tormentor, so far a malign, subtle bully, not the lurid psycho normally piling up corpses by now. But the arrival of handsome, nice boyfriend Marcos (Alberto San Juan) to stay – such a perfect couple! – tips Cesar’s desire to despoil into violence.
Polanski has been particularly keen on apartments as fearful, unsettling places, from Catherine Deneueve’s claustrophobic lodgings in Repulsion to Rosemary’s Baby’s Gothic Manhattan pile and the Kafkaesque The Tenant. The combination of domestic intimacy and anonymity leaves a space where minds can crack. But here the building’s just the stage for a lopsided psychological duel. Tosar makes Cesar almost appealing, even attractive with his droll half-smile as tenants harangue him with their problems, not really seeing the sociopath looking coldly back. Etura, so pretty, bright and carefree at the start, convincingly lets Cesar’s mental scarring haunt and age her.
Clara and Marcos could be the glamorous heroes of a Hollywood psychological thriller, priming you for their eventual, predictable triumph, if they were lucky enough to be in that story. But here, creepy, contemptible Cesar takes the hero’s place. The jolts of tension are when he’s under threat of discovery by his victims or the law. Maybe that’s why even an efficient Hitchcockian set-piece (Cesar still trapped in the apartment by morning and trying to creep past the young lovers) can’t create real thrills or fright. We’re being asked to worry about a monster, whose tale we’ve somehow slipped into. His voiceover is our guide to events, and his point of view and personality poison the film.
Sleep Tight and Cesar are both nasty pieces of work. The cruelty isn’t mechanistic or impersonal, but queasily, intimately unjust. You may feel like scrubbing yourself down after watching it, as Cesar always does after cosying up to Clara. Luring you into such filthy corners is one thing horror films are for.
Watch the trailer for Sleep Tight on YouTube
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