Tales to Keep You Awake – The Baby’s Room review

There’s a sort of conventional wisdom in the world of real estate that says it’s better to buy the worst house on a good block than the best house on a bad one. Álex De La Iglesia’s THE BABY’S ROOM (La habitación del niño) does well to prove otherwise in his contribution to TALES TO KEEP YOU AWAKE (Películas para no dormir).

Originally produced as one installment of a six-part series for Spanish television, The Baby’s Room tells the story of Juan and Sonia, a yuppie couple with a baby who’ve just purchased their dream home (or rather, dream mansion currently in a state of disrepair) in Madrid. When they open the box of hand-me-downs Juan’s sister brings over, they find a baby monitor that seems to be channeling something a little more sinister than just their little one’s coos and cries. Thinking the monitor is broken, Juan buys the latest state-of-the-art model, which comes equipped with an infrared camera and television screen. That night, he sees a strange man standing over the baby’s crib, watching, and things pretty much go downhill from there. The house appears to be occupied by people who can only be seen on the monitor’s screen, and bizarrely, also only by Juan. As his obsession with finding out who they are deepens, his behaviour becomes increasingly erratic and frightening. His job performance suffers. His wife leaves with the baby. He spends a small fortune on dozens of baby monitors that he places around the house to keep an eye on the figures that haunt it. With the help of a colleague with a passing interest in paranormal activity, Juan begins to unravel the mystery of the parallel universe found within the walls of his home.

The Baby’s Room is fast-paced and entertaining, and although a case could be made that’s it’s a little on the light side for something that’s meant to keep you awake, its uncomplicated plot and tongue-in-cheek tone work well for a television series. This mix of horror and humour is not unlike the one found on Tales From the Crypt, but fortunately, The Baby’s Room is refreshingly devoid of the kind of tiresome moralizing its American counterpart constantly offered up to the viewer. Overall, it’s a fun take on the we’re-not-alone-in-this-beautiful-new-home-of-ours genre, and while it might not leave you sleepless, it’s got an ending creepy enough to make you think twice about buying a fixer-upper.

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