Historias para no dormir

We all grew up hearing the same classic horror stories written by famous authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Ray Bradbury. Yet... we don't seem to get tired of them, do we?. Well, 'Historias para no dormir' demonstrates that even if we have already seen these stories before, that doesn't really mean that we won't find any interest in seeing them again. The main reason why this show can captivate many horror lovers nowadays, is mostly because of the beautiful display of Gothic imagery. It's a fact that sometimes it's all about the right atmosphere and imagery. Narciso Ibañez Serrador, the creator of the show, achieves admirable results with some of the most famous horror tales such as 'The Raven', 'The Cask of Amontillado' and 'The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar' among others. The music composed by Pedro Baldie and Waldo de los Rios creates the perfect dark and sinister atmosphere that should accompany what is seen on the screen. The background music is repeated in several different episodes, which could be considered as a lack of effort by some people. Personally, I think that is not exactly a bad thing. It is in some way emblematic and why not use the same music for different episodes when it is so well composed?.

"Historias para no dormir" is the right choice for anyone who is in the mood to sit back, relax and enjoy a nice display of dark imagery, atmospheric, bone-chilling music and simple stories that will reach you, even though you have probably heard about them before. Science fiction and comedy lovers are welcome to give it a chance as well, since this show also has room for them in many episodes.

Classic TVE series formed by a lot of episodes based mostly on Edgar Allan Poe stories , as well as Ray Bradbury , Henry James, Harlan Ellison, Robert Arthur , Robert Bloch , among others , furthermore , scripts from Narciso Ibañez Serrador .

Splendid TV series written and directed by the great Narciso Ibañez Serrador and many episodes starred by his father Narciso Ibañez Menta. It starts with a prologue in which Narciso Ibañez Serrador himself explains ironically and hilariously -in Alfred Hitchcock presenta style- some events to happen in the episode . There are several episodes , outstanding adaptions based on Poe as The Cask of Amontillado , The case of Mr Valdemar , The Raven , and The Last clock with Narciso Ibañez Menta . And other important stories shot as El asfalto or The asphalt , El Muñeco , El Regreso , La casa , La Zarpa , La Bodega , Pesadilla, El Aniversario and several others . While most scenes were shot in video at Prado Del Rey studios , the outdoors scenes were shot in film , and subsequently combined .

The series are compellingly presented and directed by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador , and a number of chapters performed Narciso Ibañez Menta , like father like son , they are deemed to be the greatest specialists on Terror genre in both countries , Spain and Argentine . As the prestigious actor Narciso Ibáñez Menta developed an overlong career tied to movies of horror as Television as cinema . Both of them starred the Argentine film : Obras Maestras de Terror or Masterworks of Terror 1960 by Enrique Carreras , an Allan Poe anthology movie with three segments : The Case of Mr Valdemar , The Cask of Amontillado and The Tell-tale Heart . These episodes to be copied in the Spanish series Historias para no dormir , in fact the last segment who starred Narciso Menta-Narciso Serrador looks exactly like El Ultimo Reloj starred by Narciso Menta-Manuel Galiana. This great writer , actor and director Narciso Ibáñez Serrador worked especially for TV getting his biggest sucesses with Un Dos Tres Responda otra Vez , Mis Terrores Favoritos , Waku Waku and TV films as La Cabina , El Televisor , Historias de Frivolidad and of course Historias para no Dormir . Although Serrador also made for cinema two known terror masterpieces , considered to be cult movies : La Residencia or The Boarding School and ? Quien puede matar un niño ? Or The Island of the Damned .

Narciso Ibáñez Serrador (NIS) is truly the Hispanic Hitchcock. To develop this "Historias para no dormir" he actually was inspired by the famous British series "Alfred Hitchcock presents". NIS was the first one who introduced this genres into Spanish TV.

In some chapters he adapted tales by Edgar Alan Poe or Ray Bradbury. In others, he created his own stories. He was a real genius, clearly a visionary filmmaker. One of the chapters of this series has a very similar plot like Carpenter´s "They live"... and was made years before! So Carpenter maybe saw this (or heard about it), and got the idea thanks to NIS.

Anyway, I´m not sure if there is some version with English subtitles of this series out there. In Spain, this was on TV in the ´60s, ´70s and first ´80s. Some of the episodes, like the Bradbury-style dystopic science-fiction, look quite prophetic if you see them now (kind of a pre-"Black mirror" maybe).

By the way, there is a book that reviews and analyzes all of the chapters of the series, and also the two feature films by NIS (unfortunately he only made two, "The house that screamed" and "Who can kill a child"). It looks like the book is only in Spanish for now, but if you speak this language and love intelligent horror and science-fiction, it could be interesting for you. The book is "Historias para no dormir: ...y otros inquietantes mediometrajes televisivos de Narciso Ibáñez Serrador" and you can find it in Amazon (ebook and paperback).