How to Terrify Readers Without A Single Paranormal Element

So today, I’m talking about a movie instead of a book. The movie’s name is Sleep Tight. 

It’s a foreign movie with subtitles. However, it’s the only movie that has scared me and still does to this day. 

Why does it get that distinction? 

Stay tuned and find out. 

Ok, so if you’ve been following me for a while, then you know I’m a big fan of thrillers and horror stories. It takes a lot to surprise me and even more to scare me. (though grossing me out, is relatively easy.)  

There are only two movies that ever actually scared me. 

The first wasn’t a real movie, it was a night gallery episode called the Caterpillar. I’ll probably talk about that one later. 

The other one was this movie; sleep tight. It was is a Spanish psychological thriller film directed by Jaume Balagueró and was written by Alberto Marini. And I am probably pronouncing those wrong. 

But the movie was terrifying. 

So exactly what made it so scary? 

Well, it wasn’t some kind of supernatural monster. It wasn’t any kind of ghost or creature. And there wasn’t a single jump scare in the entire movie. 

Nothing but a slow simmering suspense that built up by the minute.

It takes you into the mind of a truly evil man and just leaves you there.  

It starts with the main character, an apartment concierge, named Cesar, admitting to us that the only feels happy when he makes someone else miserable. Most of the apartment tenants are easy to annoy; a few carefully chosen words, a missed message, messing with their pets, and their day is ruined. 

However, there’s one resident, Clara who isn’t so easily aggravated. So Cesar goes to extreme measures to make sure she’s miserable. How extreme? 

Well, he uses his key to her apartment to let himself in and chloroform her while she was sleeping.  If you’re thinking he rapes her, you’re right. But since she’s not awake for it and has no knowledge of it, it doesn’t actually affect her mood. 

And he doesn’t stop there. While she’s in her drugged sleep, he does things to her apartment to ruin her life. Things like injecting dangerous chemicals into her beauty products, planting roach eggs in her refrigerator, and more stuff like that. 

The key to what made this movie so scary was the obliviousness of the character, Clara. As her life gets progressively worse, she has no idea that there’s an orchestrated plan to destroy it be a man she hardly knows. She thinks it’s just bad luck. 

The real terror of this movie comes from the fact that it taps into our deepest fear.

That we could be targeted by a human monster just for being ourselves. That, someone, could chip away at our lives bit by bit until there was nothing left. And that we were singled out for a punishment we didn’t deserve. 

So if you want to see what true horror is, watch Sleep Tight. The subtitles are worth it.  

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