Best movie of this year hands down!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Blistering performances.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

I read Ramsey Campbell's The Nameless a few years ago and I bought the movie on video when it came out. The film, a Spanish film is a dark film that does do the book justice. The film goes into very dark territory indeed, with child murders, mutilated bodies, a psychotic ex-boyfriend and a character (Santini) that just radiates evil. The story itself is filled with suspense when the mother of a young girl supposedly murdered begins to receive phones call from her. From there on, the mother, still grieving is caught in a game of cat and mouse along with the recently retired detective and a journalist who try to discover just who or what The Nameless are. I felt a little let down at the end though because I felt it all ended a little too abruptly, but other than that, I found the movie to be extremely creepy indeed. It still is one of the better horror film to come out of Spain though and I recommend it highly.

I've seen lots and lots of horror movies. It's by far my favourite genre. I like a good scary movie; I also happen to like those laughable so-bad-it's-good kinds of movies; I even tend to forgive MEDIOCRE movies that rely on "jump scares" and "teen blood" to hold your attention. For good or bad, it's still entertainment.What I can't forgive, what I loathe, is, well, a BORING movie; and that's the capital sin of "The Nameless", its real "ultimate atrocity". For a start, this movie is slow. Let's face it, you really can't afford to be slow unless you have a good plot and a good cast, and "The Nameless" has neither.The plot is shallow, painfully so: clearly, no creative effort whatsoever was put into it. We're talking "copy-pasted straight from wikipedia" levels of dullness here. This is especially mortifying since the director stubbornly and dishonestly refuses to acknowledge it, and instead insists on feigning suspense where there's *none*.With a slow, broken pace and an unimaginative, tired plot, you're left trying your very best to sympathize with the characters in a half-willed attempt to justify what seems more and more like a waste of time. Well, too bad! The characters are clichéd, they're onedimensional and just fail to come alive. It feels like even their writer didn't really care for them either.So you hope beyond hope, you patiently wait for it to reach its climax, on its own terms, you keep waiting for it to surprise you, disturb you, redeem itself *somehow*... hey, this thing is supposed to be really... evil, and "extreme", right? Something *big* is bound to happen. Sooner or later. Or not. Suddenly, it's over.

I thoroughly enjoyed much of this movie, but it is the careless of the directing that left me feeling short-changed. The characters are good and atmosphere excellent, however the director was very poor when he did his story boards and the reporter should have been introduced earlier in the film instead of appearing out of nowhere as a major player. Even if it had been a couple of very short scenes he participated in, it would have added to the flow and texture of the film.The director fails to paint his picture fully at times and substitutes convolution for story telling. And the denouement while effective is slightly illogical and ill-conceived. The final five minutes are inconsistent and lack cohesion, making the final scene lose any power. The director has created distrust with the viewer, and I for one went away feeling slightly robbed. A great build up let down by a lazy and ill-conceived climax.I give it good marks for the first three quarters of the film and for the great camera-work and moodiness. The film should have been slightly longer and much more better handled. If there is different version or director's cut of this film then I would like to see what it could have been!!!!

"The Nameless" is a Spanish chiller from the director of 2002's "Darkness" (but this film was released a few years before and is in Spanish). The film is about a mother named Claudia, who is still suffering from the horrible memories of her daughter's brutal murder. Five years ago, the savagely mutilated body of her daughter, Angela, was found in a water hole - punctured with needles, tortured, and burned beyond recognition. Then one day, Claudia receives a bizarre phone call from someone who claims to be Angela, saying that she's been alive this entire time and that somebody is holding her against her will. With a detective to try and help her, Claudia searches for her possibly-living daughter before something horrible happens to her - but ends up involved in occult practices and unearths the history of a cult that originated from the Nazis forty years ago.I first watched this movie on DVD in the English dubbed version, and it was awful. The dubbing wasn't convincing by any means and it made the actors appear to give beyond terrible performances. So, I re-watched the film in it's original language (Spanish) with subtitles, and the acting was much better that way - the performer's tones in their natural language fit much better and made more sense. Trust me, if you're going to watch this movie, please watch it in it's original language, subtitles aren't that bad. So, with that cleared up, I'll discuss the good and bad things about this film. For one, it's slow. Quite slow, actually. So people who are all about fast-paced, bloody slasher films will more than likely despise this film - because it's not really exciting. But while it may not be 'exciting', this slow pacing builds a sense of unease and dread along the way, and that is a major positive for the film. It's atmosphere is beyond gloomy, and the slow pacing makes things even more unsettling and more eerie. The story (based on a British novel by Ramsey Campbell) reminded me of a cross between "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Wicker Man", but that's just how I see it, I'm sure that can be arguable from person to person. But all in all, I thought the story was really interesting and well woven, especially when the information about the cult begins to surface. The interlacing of the Nazi involvement was intriguing also. You have to let yourself become involved in the plot, and from that standpoint this is a really interesting movie.Now, the negative aspects. While this film is technically a horror movie, it fails to give very many scares. There are a few weird shots of the little girl that are randomly scattered throughout the film, but they fail to jolt or get any effect out of me. They're a little spooky, but weren't really needed. But, this film is scary on a different level, because of how subtle and atmospheric it is - most horror fans won't be scared by it though. And then there's the ending. I don't want to spoil it so I'm not going to give everything away - but it was a little bit predictable during the last twenty minutes or so. And then there's the final moment of the film, which ends far too quickly and was just much too abrupt. Everything is just beginning to come together after the considerably lengthy build-up, and then bam! It's over. The credits roll. All that build-up and all that tension that results in something that ends way too fast. Some falling action to conclude the story would've been nice. But I can't hate the movie just for that, because besides that there are so many really good things about it.Overall, "The Nameless" or "Sin nombre, Los" is an interesting movie. I love the story and the film escalates an impending sense of doom and is very unsettling. But there are some problems that keep it from being perfect. If you enjoy significantly slow-building horror films, you'll like this. But in my opinion, the ending could've used a little work, because it left me feeling kind of empty. Besides that though, everything that lead up to it was very stylish and very spooky. I understand it that many people can't stand this director (Jaume Balaguero), but from his two films I've seen (this film and "Darkness"), I like him. His movies are unusual, but that doesn't make them bad. 7/10.