Customer Reviews

The Nameless

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The film starts off with the gruesome, ritualistic-style murder of a young girl that's more graphic and disturbing than anything you'd see on CSI. This accurately sets the stage for the disturbing, underlying plot: that there's a secret society of pathological killers operating just under the radar and they're committing incredibly unspeakable acts of all kinds - without conscience, for the sake of evil itself. All the makings are there for a great psycho-drama, but too much happens in a vacuum for it to be believable. While the film does keep you on the edge of your seat, I found myself yelling at the screen asking the characters "how could you be so stupid?"; people going into potentially dangerous buildings alone, being forewarned about impending doom and yet still casting common sense aside and putting themselves in harm's way. If it wasn't for the the lack of intelligence of the characters portrayed in the film, this secret society couldn't stand on its own.

Putting that aside, the film's native language is Spanish and much of the character's personalities and torment, (however their own doing it may be) are lost in the English overdubbing.

This is a kind of film where you are given so much in the beginning you start thinking it can't be a bad movie. But as it often happens the ending ruins it all. In the opening sequence a couple is going to the forensic morgue to identify the body of a girl who is presumably their daughter and who was brutally killed some time ago. Mutilated corpse of a girl in the beginning of a thriller - what can (don't get me wrong) catch our attention better? OK, then we meet the girl's mother 5 years later, now she lives alone. And one day she receives a telephone call from somebody saying it's her daughter and asking for help. WOW! - I thought and drew myself closer to the screen. Fortunately those were not the only intriguing and catchy moments in the movie so I was watching with interest having high expectations about this one. And during all the narration the film kept this tension, dread and macabre feeling about it. Everything was great. What was unfortunate is the ending that killed everything director was building up during these 1 hour 40 minutes. After so many on-screen talks about the essence of evil and somebody trying to commit an act of ultimate malevolence and vice you really wait for something terminally vicious. But you won't get it, that's for sure. It was one of those moments when you stare at the rolling credits and say out loud: "So what?!"
I suggest an interesting thing - watch the first hour and a half of the film and turn it off. You'll be thinking about it for the rest of the month trying to figure out what was happening there - the atmosphere of the "The Nameless" (which in Spanish sounds like "Los sin nombre" implying "them" who have no name) won't leave you. Watch the finale - and it'll ruin the whole impression. But maybe it's just me.
I was hoping this film would be one of the European thrillers that become more and more intense and interesting lately, but it didn't live up to my expectations. Three stars only although it could have had all five. Better watch George Sluizer's "The Vanishing" or recent German "Antikörper" - really talented thrillers from Europe.

This is a great movie.
It will scare you.
It has a excellent story
It has good special effects,
BUT, this budget label version from EchoBridge Entertainment is listed as widescreen and it is not. ITS FULL FRAME!!!!
I am glad I waited and did not get rid on my Spanish import.
You can purchase the $17.99 version on the old Miramax label (its the one listed above this one on Amazons search page for The Nameless).
Such a shame-this budget version would have been a great deal for $6.99 if it was really widescreen.

Los Sin Nombre is a twisted and dark horror film about a woman who's life is shattered when her young daughter disappears one night. A few days later, her body is found and this simply destroyes the family. Years later, the woman is on her own trying to rebuild her shattered personnal life. But one night after a rough day in the office, she recieves a call that sends a chill down her sign and brings back painful memories. Who or what was this phone call about? To find out you'll have to watch NAMELESS a.k.a. LOS SIN NOMBRE.

Based upon the novel by British horror novelist Rasmey Campbell, the director Jaume Balaguero (DARKNESS) delivers the good once again in this dark horror film that'll have you thinking about the true meaning of horror. Is it real or supernatural? You be the judge!!

Highly recommended!!

I just hit play when the menu came up for "Los sin nombre" ("The Nameless") so I watched the film in Spanish with English subtitles, unaware that I could have listened to it dubbed into English. That is just as well because even though "reading" a movie can get to me at times I still have a preference for hearing the actors in their original language. Anyhow, you should be aware going in that you have a choice when watching Jaume Balagueró's 1999 thriller, so do whatever makes you happy.

"Los sin nombre" begins with the discovery of the body of a young girl who was tortured before she was killed and whose body was mutilated after she died. It is only because of a bracelet that she was wearing that her parents are able to make an identification of their daughter, because the police flatly refuse to let them view the body. Instead, the parents can only wail about what has happened to their daughter, Angela, and let their imaginations run away with the horrors that were inflicted on her. We get to see more than the parents, having been given glimpses of the murder and seeing the police examining the corpse, so we agree. It is better the parents not see what has happened.

Then we are five years down the road. Claudia Gifford (Emma Vilarasau), Angela's mother, has seen her marriage destroyed by the tragedy. Bruno Massera (Karra Elejalde), the detective who worked on Angela's case and a series of related murders that have remained unsolved has retired from the police force, having suffered some personal tragedies in his own life. But then Claudia gets a phone call from a young girl claiming to be Angela. She is alive, she tells Claudia, but being held captive. She begs her mother to rescue her before it is too late. As far as the police are concerned Angela is dead, but Claudia finds someone willing to listen in Bruno, who does not like that someone has been killing young girls any more than he does the idea that someone is tormenting the mother of a murdered child.

As the mystery of the Nameless emerges from the shadows we hear about a cult, founded by a crazy person and apparently with ties to Hitler, and that finds tattoos and piercings to be badges of faith. The group practices ritualistic rape, mutilation and murder for their own secret purposes and it is the idea that their activities are moving in accordance with some grand design that elevates the danger. The Nameless are obsessed with perversion of a kind that speaks specifically to taking something pure and perverting it to the cause of evil. If Angela is really alive what have they been doing to her for five years? Claudia has her own unspeakable thoughts along those lines and in her desperation to find and save Angela never stops to think how it is that her daughter can be placing phone calls. In other words, there is more than meets the eye going on here and not in a good way.

"Los sin nombre" is decidedly a European horror/thriller, sticking to the idea that less is more when it comes to showing things. . A story like this works much better in a Catholic country, where a religion that sees evil as a real presence in the world is woven into the culture, although I admit I was surprised that it ended up being a reporter rather than a priest who shows up to provide necessary exposition. Quiroga (Tristan Ulloa) works for a magazine, and like Bruno his main job is to dig up clues to give to Bruno to put before Claudia so that she can figure out the puzzle in time to try and save her daughter. This is because when she finally gets to talk to someone who actually knows about the Nameless, he insists that only Claudia can put the pieces together. Besides, Quiroga is going to have another obligatory function to fulfill in the final scenes of the film.

Another key thing that I liked about this film was that Claudia and Bruno are adults. I was reminded of "The Exorcist," where you had grownups trying to save Regan's soul versus all of the splatter flicks where it is groups of teenagers whose primary purpose is to die horrible deaths. Maybe it is just that it has been so long since I have seen a movie in this genre where I could really identify with the protagonist (or would even want to for reasons other than youthful virility). But what made me round up in the end on this one was that, on balance, I liked the ending, although Balagueró does not play fair with his audience in setting up that ending (he is not helped by having the pivotal character show up with a voice dubbed in Spanish). Sometimes a horror film should end with horror, and "Los sin nombre" certainly does.

I read enough reviews to figure I was in for at least a few fistfulls of adequately sleek visuals and perhaps more than the usual smattering of nail-biting tension but that I would -- as is the norm -- grimly watch as the plot deflated like a balloon animal twisted into shape by a pack of lobsters. So I put it way down on my shopping list and waited until I found a copy for $10. I can't help it; I'm a hopeless fan of horror and I'm always on a quest for that perfect flick. "Nameless" isn't perfect, but it's within hiking distance, closer than "Ringu" or "Ju-On" or "The Devil's Backbone," not to mention aggro thunkhead American drivel. And it's by far scarier and more intelligent than the director's more well-known effort, the delinquent and impotent "Darkness." Telling of the mastery behind this "Rosemary's Baby"-ish tale of a young girl stolen from her mother and either killed or enslaved by denizens of the occult are the number of tense, unsettling scenes woven into the framework for which the director is confident enough not to feel the need to slap viewers over the head with an immediate payoff. The cinematography and special effects leave nothing lacking. And the acting is top notch, unlike the self-aggrandising gesticulations in "Silence of the Lambs," which this matches in squeamishness. The film thankfully holds up like a prize fighter through to its knockout finale. I'm a sucker for mack truck endings that come out of nowhere, drop the payload and roll credits. Bye.

It was only as the opening credits of this film rolled that I realized the story was based on a novel by Ramsey Campbell - one I had read a few years ago. The only thing I clearly remember about the novel is the horrible ending, which I described as a betrayal of the evil Campbell had spent so much time creating. This movie, on the other hand, does things absolutely right in my book, creating a bold, shocking ending that made me want to stand up and cheer - not for what actually happened, but because the filmmaker ended the film in such heroic fashion - American filmmakers always seem to cowardly sell out at the end of films. The Nameless is in fact a Spanish production (Los Sin Nombre), directed by Jaume Balaguero, the same man behind the film Darkness. The film is dubbed in English, but I have no complaints about the dubbing whatsoever.

I love European horror. There is a completely different mood and feel compared to American horror films, which at this point basically consist of the same few movies made over and over again. Watching unknown actors, I had no predilections as to where the story would take their characters. The story begins with the horrible mutilation and murder of a little girl, likely the work of some cult or other. Then, several years later, the child's mother Claudia (and I must say Emma Vilarasau gives a wonderfully distraught performance as the traumatized mother) receives a phone call from her daughter, begging her to come get her. She goes alone to the location, braves the absolute creepiness of the place, and finds enough evidence to make her think her daughter may actually still be alive. She begs for the help of the cop (now former cop) who worked the case, and the two of them begin a search for what turns out to be a mysterious cult known only as The Nameless. It apparently has links back to the old Thule Society of fascist Germany, with a really weird Crowley-like guru (now incarcerated) holding the key to what his nameless children are up to these days. Carlos Lasarte is deliciously evil in the role of the madman Santini; he almost steals the whole show with his one scene. With the help of a paranormal magazine writer, Claudia and her partner finally draw a bead on the location of the cult - but suddenly it's not so clear just who is the hunter and who is the hunted here. I would love to talk about the ending because it's just fantastic, but you really have to witness it for yourself.

Maybe this movie doesn't translate all that well to the general American public. I for one thought this film was fantastic, and it certainly won a slew of awards in Europe. Ramsey Campbell's horror is of a somewhat erudite form, but Jaume Balaguero managed to take Campbell's story and bring it to vivid, haunting life in the most effective of ways. Best of all, he cast away the novel's disappointing ending and fully embraced the horror that fueled the entire story. I love The Nameless, and I hope those who come across it will give it a chance - it's really a terrific horror movie.

I love Spanish horror films. I admit this to you now, so you know I will be biased. I think that as a whole they are well written, well acted, and are stunning both visually and musically. The Nameless is no exception.

A girl is missing. Her parents are distraught when one morning they awake to a call that their daughter might be found. But it is not good news. The events are unexplained, and we only see the pain and the grief. Five years later, in a truly miserable state, we see the mother answer the phone. The caller says it is her daughter, and she is alive, but she needs her mother to save her. Who is this girl? What transpired five years ago? And how far is she willing to go to know the truth? All these questions are answered in a suspenseful plot. The twists and turns are appropriate and make sense. The story behind it all is innovative and engaging (as well as a bit confusing). I gripped my seat for the last 30 minutes, and the ending was perfect for the film.

I truly enjoyed this film. It is mysterious and suspenseful. The story is interesting. The acting was accomplished and believable. Visually stunning with a score that highlighted the tension and emotion of every scene only makes me wonder why more people do not consider this a near-perfect horror film. Highly recommended.

I took a few moments before writing this review to see what some of the other comments were, and if I could add anything by throwing my two cents in. Given the wide disparity of opinions, I don't think one more will hurt.

I gave this movie 5 stars because as well as being a terrifically produced movie, I think it touches on a more extreme side of true horror than almost any other movie I've seen. First let me say that I do not consider most slasher/revenge type movies as horror. In the end, they are almost cartoonish, albeit with a lot of blood and guts. A more accurate term in my mind might be 'terror films', because the director seems to be trying to terrorize the audience. Or frighten them by having somebody in a monster mask jump out and say 'boo!' There is nothing wrong with that, I can enjoy some of those movies too, but be forewarned, 'The Nameless' is nothing like that.

The story itself is simple. A mother and father apparently lose their daughter - killed in a horrific manner, possibly by cultists. The plot picks up five years later. The parents have split up, and the mother is still processing the loss of her daughter. She functions, but the weight of her murdered child is with her at all times. Until she gets a phone call, purportedly from her daughter, who tells her that she wasn't murdered, but kidnapped and abused by the cult.

The rest of the movie follows the mother, the detective who is assisting her, and a journalist who works for a supernatural/paranormal magazine. All of this is well done, and the tension continues to mount through the storytelling ability of the director. But it is the end where the entire movie gets its payoff.

Some of the reviewers felt a big 'so-what' at the end, but I have to say that for me, the ending stuck with me a long, long time. The ending is what gave me the reason for calling this movie true horror, the kind that is unforgiving, unreasonable, and one there can be no cathartic release from. You will not see good triumph over evil, you will not see the bad guy tossed into a shredder at the end by the plucky last female left alive, and you will not be given any cinematic release from the implication of the finale. It is unrelenting in the sense that I've not watched this movie in a couple years and I remember the end as though I'd watched it last night.

This movie is so far removed from what is generally called 'horror' that it is difficult to rate. By giving it five stars, the superlatives I'm most reminded of are excellent and most disturbing. Highly recommended for those who are always looking for a movie that pushes at or shatters their comfort boundaries.

The first half of this thriller is pretty arresting. The almost David Fincher-like dark look of the film (with its accents on chilly, decaying colours like black, silver, green and brown, tight framing, claustrophobic degenerated buildings and an overall dark tone) is pretty much arresting.
The fast, almost subliminal crosscutting between the static mise-en-scene and some eerie, blurred home moviestyle imagery, works on more than one level. It's scary, it gives a distinct feeling of unease, and intriguies because in those nightmarish one-second-flashes there might be clues hidden.
But then we start to notice more things we've seen before in classic horror suff.

The gruwesome autopsy scene on a young woman in "The silence of the lambs" is quadrupled here, but the scene is so graphicly disturbing that it breaks the carefully build-up tension and thereby misses the point entirely.
A bunch of policemen start to penetrate the dark with flashlights and we're back in "Se7en" again.
More and more references to a strange cult emerge, a sect that worships pain and torture because it would act like a drug to get into higher regions of extasy. The true horror fanatic knows we're in "Hellraiser"-country now.
Following this is a statue of a saint in a church with bleeding eyes. Outsiders who have to fight against the ignorance of their chiefs who don't want the stubborn employees to investigate any further. Have we seen this before too?
And to make things really corny, at one point the main characters visit a prison to speak with an insane creep, who gives them some important clues through cheesy riddles. While doing this the actor in charge throws all the incarcerated-psycho-clichés he can muster like manic facial expressions, brooding pseudo-fascinating gazes, hissing and howling, and so the whole wornout doctor Lecter-thing starts to sprout its little offspring too.

And all is wrapped up with an ending that is a complete let-down. I won't be giving spoilers, but why do thrillers, who have a terrific suspense all the way from start, have to end with an ordinary shoot-out?
"The Silence of the lambs" had a shoot-out, "Se7en" had, as did "Memento", "Resurrection", "Suspect Zero", "The Stranger within", "Mulholland Dr." and the list of good movies with this textbook final goes on and on.
Apparently filmmakers think there must be some kind of explosion at the end for the audience to release the tension. To give the viewers an easy and rather cheap chance be releaved of anything dark that has settled in their souls while watching the film.

I would suggest all genre filmmakers to read Thomas Ligotti's collections of short stories "Songs of a dead dreamer", "Grimscribe" and "In a foreign town, in a foreign land".
These are perfect examples of eerie, suspensefull storytelling and dark-atmosphere-creating with glimpses of true horror and the perverse, without having a "must have" shoot-out or a obligatory "kill-the-bad-guy-with-his-own-axe" scene.
And believe me, because of this, the effect is all the more horrific.

Don't get me wrong here, Jaune Balagueró is a gifted filmmaker with a talented young film crew and cast of enthusiastic actors under his wings. He just didn't get the right material to work with.