Scary movie night! There were movies and pizza and wine and good company. I like these kind of nights. They’re sort of my favorite part of this crazy month of horror. It’s fun to share the scary.

Tonight’s post about the short(ish) film The Baby’s Room. It’s a part of the 6 Films to Keep You Awake series Lionsgate released a couple of years ago. The collection is actually really, really cool and I highly recommend checking it out. It’s a 3 disc collection from Spain (they were originally aired as a TV show there I believe?). I’ve so far only watched two of the six films but I really enjoyed them both. I’m looking forward to watching the rest.

I love this.

6 Films to Keep You Awake: The Baby’s Room – Spain, 2006. Dir. Alex de la Iglesia, Screenplay Jorge Guerricaechevaria & Alex de la Iglesia. Starring Javiar Gutierrez, Leonor Watling.

The Baby’s Room. It’s a pretty weird one. But I generally like weird. As you may have noticed.

A young couple, Juan and Sonia, have just moved into their dream house. Everything seems perfect. They have a great relationship, their infant son is adorable, and their house is what they’ve always dreamed of. It seems impossible for life to be this perfect. And yet, it is.

Or is it?

On only their first night in their new home, things take an unpleasant turn. As Juan and Sonia settle in to bed, they hear their son giggle over the baby monitor. Only, that’s not all they hear. There’s something else on that monitor. Something else speaking in the baby’s room. But when Juan goes to investigate, his son is alone, sleeping peacefully.

The thing I found most interesting about The Baby’s room is that unlike most haunted house films where it takes the characters several weird experiences to admit the house is haunted, Juan immediately jumps to that conclusion. He doesn’t need any convincing, he believes. Which, kind of surprisingly, works really well. His wife is much more skeptical, his boss thinks he’s crazy, and his buddy just thinks he’s having marriage problems. This creates a nice tension between Juan trying to come to terms with the terrifying events in his house and the disbelief he faces from everyone he’s close to. It also leads to a pretty satisfying conclusion.

The film starts a little slow with the scares, the voices on the monitor are a little creepy but that’s about it. Things pick up though when he buys a monitor with an infrared camera attached. Yeah. Staticy voices are one thing. A creepy dude sitting next to your sons crib is quite another.

Gah! Creepy!!!

There is some really cool stuff that happens with these monitors.

This isn’t really a traditional haunted house movie though. There’s some weird stuff going on his house that apparently has something to do with quantum physics, Schrodinger’s Cat, and a realm of evil.

I think I mostly followed what was happening? Mostly… until maybe the end. There was one little thing I was confused about. But I can deal with that.

Coming in at only 77 minutes, this is a short one. I think the story could have benefitted from a little more fleshing out but oh well, it was a TV thing so you’re limited. The acting also could have maybe been a little better. But the baby is super cute! And the house itself is great. Nice old wood staircase, really creepy artwork, hidden rooms and dark alcoves. Everything you could want in a haunted house. Except maybe the chandelier, this one was missing the swinging chandelier.

(In my Haunted House Drinking Game, the swinging chandelier gets you two drinks. I just made that up right now.)

Overall I really enjoyed it, it’s a smart twist on the haunted house movie. It’s a well done, solid little film. I’d watch more.