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Nameless, The
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| Year: |
1999
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Director: |
Jaume Balagueró
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| Stars: |
Emma Vilarasau, Karra Elejalde, Tristán Ulloa, Toni Sevilla, Brendan Price, Jordi Dauder, Nuría Cano, Isabel Ampudia, Carles Punyet, Aleix Puiggalí, Susana García Díez, Pep Tosar, Carmen Capdet, Manel Solás, Victor Guillén, Sebastia Sellent, Boris Ruiz
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| Genre: |
Horror |
| Rating: |
  6 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
Five years ago, Claudia Gifford (Emma Vilarasau) suffered a tragedy that left her with a broken marriage and massive emotional trauma. Her daughter had been kidnapped and early one morning soon after, she and her husband received the telephone call they had been dreading: little Angela had been found murdered in a well of water. As it turned out, nobody was ever convicted of the crime, another aspect that leaves it impossible for Claudia to put behind her, but now, as she lives alone and works with a publisher, it seems the past won't let her go either. One night the telephone rings: it's Angela and she wants her mother to save her...
In a better world, adaptations of Ramsey Campbell novels would be as common as adaptations of Stephen King novels, but as it turns out they are few and far between in spite of their quality and an industry searching for genuinely decent chillers to bring in audiences. So step forward and take a bow Jaume Balgueró, the man who was brave enough to bring Campbell's The Nameless to the screen, even if the results were not entirely satisfying. From an arrestingly uncomfortable beginning where the child's body is discovered, the film resolved itself into something of a one-note suspense piece, though not without compensations.
Those compensations would be for those horror fans who valued atmosphere over heart-stopping shocks, although there are a few abrupt edits to half-seen horrors to set the viewer's nerves on edge. The film may deal with child abuse in a non-explicit manner, but it was careful not to be too exploitative of a very real - and very disturbing - crime, preferring to not go for the all out bad taste angle and opt for the emotional impact on Claudia instead. Unfortunately, the story here is a prime example of the "Why the hell don't the characters go to the police?!" syndrome.
Those characters include Claudia, and also the detective who was on her daughter's original case, Bruno Massera (Karra Elejalde); when we catch up with him, he has quit the force two weeks previously so presumably has a lot of time on his hands to seek out Angela, if it is indeed her who made the telephone call. In addition, there's a reporter for a magazine specialising in the supernatural, Quiroga (Tristán Ulloa) who does a lot of digging around on behalf of the other two now that the lure of photographing holy statues weeping blood has palled.
They're all headed for trouble, or even more trouble, and all shot in shades of grey that make you wonder why Balagueró didn't film his work in black and white instead of colour. If there's one strong point about The Nameless then it's the way it looks, and if the sense of paranoia about the newly discovered secret society behind what might be a string of child abductions is less than what it could have been, then at least there's an ominous gloom about the rest of the production. The rushed ending might grow a little confusing and the motives behind the final act seem muddy and/or two-dimensional at best, but this is more of a film where you appreciate the mood the filmmakers conjure up, and as far as that goes it's not too bad if you can overlook the flaws. Music by Carles Cases.
Aka: Los Sin nombre.
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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