To Let (2006)

Mario and his pregnant girlfriend Clara are trying to find in a short period a new apartment to live since they have sold their apartment and they need to move in fifteen days. When Mario ... See full summary »

Director:

Jaume Balagueró

Writers:

Jaume Balagueró (screenplay), Alberto Marini (screenplay)

Stars:

Macarena Gómez, Nuria González, Adrià Collado

Cast

Credited cast:
Macarena Gómez	...	Clara
Nuria González	...	Portera
Adrià Collado	...	Mario
Ruth Díaz	...	Chica
Roberto Romero	...	Hijo Portera
David Sandanya	...	Niño
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Julieta Marocco

Storyline

Mario and his pregnant girlfriend Clara are trying to find in a short period a new apartment to live since they have sold their apartment and they need to move in fifteen days. When Mario finds an attractive advertisement in his mailbox, he convinces Clara to visit the place with him. He drives to a far area in the periphery and meets the real estate agent in front of an old building in an abandoned neighborhood. When the couple sees the apartment, they do not like it but they are forced to stay.

---

Plot Keywords:

woman hits a man | woman in a bathtub | woman wears eyeglasses | apartment | hand stuck in a garbage disposal | 

---

Taglines:

El piso ideal... para sufrir tu peor pesadilla. (The perfect flat... to suffer your worst nightmare.)

---

Genres:

Horror | Thriller

---

Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Spain

Language:

Spanish

Release Date:

19 January 2007 (Spain)

Also Known As:

To Let

Filming Locations:

Esplugues de Llobregat, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Company Credits

Production Co:

Estudios Picasso, Filmax, Telecinco

Technical Specs

Runtime:

68 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Clara works at St. Jaume Hospital. The director's first name is Jaume.

---

Soundtracks

Hada
(uncredited)
Performed by Carlos Ann

User Reviews

Another excellent thriller from Jaume Balagueró

This movie clocks at around one hour, and accomplishes what most modern thrillers struggle to do in twice the time. It gets to the point pretty quickly, but gives a straight, well defined portrait of the main characters without using any "super obvious" scenes to do that. While in the process it actually utilizes pretty much every cliché of the whole "kidnapping" scenario of horror movies (like for example "the hills have eyes" by the late Wes Craven)but in the best way possible. It manages to hold the viewer at the edge of the seat for every single second, surprisingly without ever feeling predictable.

The cinematography and imagery is appropriately beautiful. The worn out color palette fits the ugly urban location perfectly and helps in creating tension throughout the movie. You could even say that (taking into consideration the extremely limited cast) even the weather and the building themselves are supporting characters in the film.

What is really worth mentioning is that this is one more Jaume Balagueró film that breaks the mould of American horror films by having the story placed in an apartments. With the obvious exception of Roman Polanski's "Apartment" trilogy, most American thrillers are set into suburban locations and big, very big houses. Although these houses are very scary (mostly due to their abundance of entry points, making the villains job much easier) this is not very realistic considering more than most people worldwide live in blocks of flats and cant' actually relate to that "50's America" scenery.

Top up all of the above with a great psychological/social study on people who are obsessed with other peoples lives and you've got an excellent, disturbing and actually very "thrilling" thriller. The only drawback I can think for this movie, is (as noted by most reviewers) the main characters lack of decisiveness at points, which, kind of feels like a mechanism for the film to go on.