To Let

Clara and Mario drive their car under pouring rain to visit an apartment to let. Their first impression is not good, but it is an abandoned and strange place., Clara and Mario have been looking for a new home since discovering that Clara is pregnant with their first child. Mario finds an ad in the mailbox for a bargain-priced flat. The couple drive to a derelict block in the suburbs of Madrid to view the apartment. First impressions are not promising, but when the eerily zealous estate agent shows up, Carla and Mario realise that the worst is yet to come., Director Jaime Balagueró’s short feature To Let constitutes an installment in the Spanish horror ‘hexalogy’ 6 Films to Keep You Awake (6 peliculas para no dormir, 2006) – a multi-director miniseries, comparable to the American Masters of Horror, originally produced for and aired on Spanish television. This episode concerns Carolina and Tony, a newly married, expectant couple searching for an apartment to rent. Caught in a pounding rainstorm, they happen upon an abandoned property with a third level available to rent. The facility hardly looks inviting: its floors are littered with dismembered store mannequins, its rooms seemingly vacant. The real estate agent nonetheless assures them that the building is being renovated, and that two families have just moved in. He then invites Carolina and Tony to visit the third floor apartment and have a look around. They unwittingly oblige him, and soon find themselves suddenly entrapped in a prison of horror ruled over by a venomous, malevolent landlady.