Clara (Macarena Gomez) and Mario (Adria Collado) are a young pair in desperate need of their own living space. Until now, they've been living with Mario's family, but Clara is pregnant and now seems to be the best time to find a place of their own. It's just not too easy for a pair with limited finances to find something adequate. So it's a nice surprise when someone pops an advert for an apartment into their mailbox that seems like a very good fit.
The first disappointment hits before they have even set foot into the building where their potential future home is situated. The building lies in the outskirts of town in what looks like the brownest, greyest post-industrial catastrophe zone imaginable. When they follow the landlady (Nuria Gonzalez) inside, their mood isn't getting any better. The building is dilapidated (and probably smells less than ideal), with mannequins lying about as if Thomas Ligotti was planning on popping up every second, and still the woman gushes about the beauty of their surroundings and does not treat them as potential tenants but as if they had already decided for renting her apartment.
Which is in fact very far from their minds. When Clara has an episode of pregnancy-caused nausea and the two are left alone in the bedroom, Mario finds a pair of old shoes he threw away some time ago. Clara tops this puzzling find with the photo of Mario and herself she finds, though.
Most people would now probably try to get away as fast as possible, but Clara and Mario are very special movie people and try to get an explanation out of the woman. All they really get is a toaster colliding with Mario's head and a crazy landlady chasing Clara through the house.
Turns out the good woman is a little loony and in the business of populating her house with people. Even if she has to tie them up and gag them. Or probably even kill them.
To Let is Jaume Balaguero's contribution to a Spanish TV anthology of shortish horror films called Six Films To Keep You Awake and awake it most certainly kept me. It's quite difficult to fall asleep when you're confronted with this much screaming, camera shaking and running around. After the first quarter of an hour, during which the film makes a very convincing case for Balaguero's love for Argento, Bava and (at least colour-wise) Fulci, it turns into a very typical tour de force horror piece.
On the positive side, it's technically very well made. Clever framing and excellent editing come to Balaguero so natural that they look like easy achievements.
But a fast and hysterical carnival ride (and not a very effective one at that) is all the film is. The characterization is non-existent to laughable. Without some very game actors trying their best to let nothing look like something the film would come crashing down under a big dollop of "who cares"; as it stands they barely keep the film believable enough not to be completely annoying. The revelation of the madwoman's motives is the moment when the film just loses me - it would have been better to have no explanation at all than something this superficial.
To Let also contains some very puzzling directorial choices, like a short dream sequence in which Carla dreams that her experiences in the house have been just a dream, and that she is in fact just arriving there, threatening to go all Ground Hog Day on us, just to awake again with the first half hour of the film still having happened. Nothing of this is going to be important for anything during the rest of the movie. Also quite beyond my understanding is the question why Balaguero decided to make such a slow, moody beginning only to let the film drift into turned up to 11!!! mode as soon as the opportunity shows itself, without ever trying to build up to the inevitable escalation.
Of course there is also the obligatory odiously obvious twist (OOOT) to cope with, a genre tradition that always manages to annoy me when I encounter it.
When the film finally shouted itself to the end, I was nearly crying, although it were only tears of laughter threatening to drop. The film had become a victim of the fate of many other stories mostly occupied with topping themselves - once you have reached a certain point, the tense easily transforms into the ridiculous. The point at which this happens is very different for every viewer, though. I found myself with the same reaction to the finale of Inside (from the moment on the cop shortly revives), so your mileage may very well vary.
Still, I'd rather recommend Balaguero's own [Rec] as a film that achieves the tour de force effect a lot better and that finds more time for the kind of tension that's not based on screaming and running around.
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