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It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

I don't know which movie other reviewers have seen, but this is far from scary. There are neither jump-in-your-seat scenes nor is there a brooding atmosphere; the main feeling is depression, mixed with a bit of boredom on my part. Apart from the last 20 minutes or so, there isn't anything much happening anyway. It starts veeery slowly, and only picks up the pace a tiny bit later. For about a third of the movie, it isn't even clear what the story is, there is no discernible plot apart from a grieving mother and an ex-cop who has also suffered. Then there is a story, but a very disjointed one with too many characters (what was the point of this guy Tony and his tattoo?), none of which are being developed to any extent. One might think it all builds up to a horrifying climax, but no, at the end there's just a comically smug uberbaddie, and the "purely evil" girl does nothing but shoot him and herself. – On top of that, there's the typical "scary movie" silliness, one guy goes in alone and gets killed, then the cop goes in and gets killed, then the mother goes in alone, all without calling the police. WTF?! – On a positive note, the cinematography is okay (does everything have to be in tones of gray nowadays though?) and the main actors are decent (though far from brilliant). – There are two things which can make a scary movie good: Genuinely frightening moments, or a compelling idea; preferably both. Here there is neither.

... because it's a perfect recipe on how to make an awful movie: First you screen the last 40 years of horror movies and pick out the worst and most repeated clichés. Then you mix and put them together randomly, and if this mix makes just the hint of a meaningful plot... you remix. When you have a script with no meaning or logic at all you progress to the next step.The actors. If you can't find amateur theatrical actors, you will probably have to pay professionals to over-act like it was a junior high school parents play: They cry, they shout, they make funny (scary ??) faces and strange looks with their eyes, they break down, they pretend with all means from their body language, they cry again, pretend again... and on... and on again.Then you will need a sound design and a sound track. Because you have decided that this is a horror movie, you off cause need violins playing and strange, SCAAAAAAARY sounds. And a lot of it! Actually, you need so much of it that there isn't no room for it in the movie. But don't worry - you just toss it in. Don't care whether or not the sound fits what happens on the screen - you just turn up the master volume so loud that it shocks the audience when effects or music starts. It's a horror movie... so it's OK.Now you are so deep into the production process that you have reached the point of no return. Despite the fact that you have realized that the ingredients have no taste, and the dish will end up with no flavor at all, you try to save it by using some spices.You hire an artist to make an impressive set design: Strange, abandon houses with mysterious interior, decorations and symbols. But the artist can't help you with a new problem: How to connect this design with the story? Then you try a last way out: The picture. You find a skilled cinematographer who shoots the film beautiful, and one of your tech guys turns out to be a true magician when it comes to color grading.You screen your final cut and realize that using the spices was in vain: The fine visual style of the movie turns pretentious when it's made to cover up a bad movie... like to much make up on bad skin.To give yourself an artistic excuse for making and releasing the movie, you decide to make a new end, and a new title to the movie. The common factor of the movie, the title and the final scene is now the total lack of meaning...--- This movie is a serious contender to the title of the worst movie ever made. It's a must see - must have: You can't conclude that you have seen a bad movie before you a seen this one. It has set a new standard for movies released for cinemas.

Well, after reading all the good reviews; some of which coming from reviewers that I often agree with, I was really looking forward to seeing The Nameless. After having sat down and watched it, however, I'm really disappointed. The film is not really 'bad', but it's not very good either and that's a shame considering that the film clearly so much wanted to be a great thriller. The plot is not very original, though that isn't the film's main problem. Many recycled plots have sprung great movies; the main problem here is that the plot moves too slowly and it's never interesting enough to remain thrilling for the duration. The film does have a few nice ideas, though. The Nameless starts with an editor named Claudia, who goes to identify the mutilated body of her dead daughter. The body has had every trace of its identity removed and can only be identified by a bracelet and the fact that one leg was slightly shorter than the other. Five years later, however, Claudia receives a call...from her daughter, who is begging her mother to save her.Director Jaume Balagueró, who later went on to make the even more disappointing horror thriller 'Darkness' does manage to create a nice atmosphere for the film. Everything looks slightly grey, which makes it depressing and in turn serves the film well. I would guess that the film's main influence was David Fincher's hit 'Seven' as the two are very similar in tone. The film was made in Spain, and that is also disappointing. Spain, along with Italy, made some of the very best thrillers in the seventies, but the recent output of this genre from both countries has been disappointing - the Italian 'Occhi Di Cristallo' is another example of this. The recent films have lost what made them great previously, presumably because they're attempting to copy recent American films. The plot sort of drones on for the first eighty minutes as the dull characters uncover various facts and clues, and finally the film becomes interesting in the last ten minutes - though by this time, of course, it's already too late. The film was based on a good idea and it does have a few nice moments; but overall I would have to rate this as not much more than an interesting failure.

Somehow, because of the success of movies like SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and SEVEN, some directors have jumped into the bandwagon and have come up with bad imitations of what psychological horror should be. Then again, maybe we should also blame H. P. Lovecraft for this as well, because a man who had a knack for creating pessimistic tales where unspeakable evils were unleashed in the name of Some Freaky God would eventually garner followers. And why not? People gravitate to what they relate to best. Lovecraft himself imitated Poe on several of his own stories, and Stephen King has reworked many horror classics without batting an eye.The thing is, not everyone can be as successful, and if you're going to create something our of a Lovecraftian universe (to mention a clichéd expression), it had better be truly horrific or it will be lost in translation. THE NAMELESS tells a story that visually starts out well but soon looses steam and ends up a complete mess. A girl is kidnapped and her body is found in a deep well, horribly burned beyond recognition. Only a physical deformity remains the identifying link -- one leg was four inches shorter. The mother grieves, her marriage soon disintegrates... and then, some time later, she receives a call. It's her daughter. She's alive.An interesting premise, but from here on the story becomes less and less horrific and more and more a by-the-numbers investigation which somehow never seems to involve the police (because of course, we need to place the heroine and the morally wounded cop back in the land of Fear). The fact that these two characters wind up where they do, and that the story unveils its bland denouement after so much build-up (with talks of "synthesizing" evil into some fantastic entity and a cataclysmic event, which winds up being a lot of mumbo-jumbo) is what makes THE NAMELESS fail: everyone moves according to plot requirement. If you're going to do a story that is supposedly that twisted, it had better drip conscious malice and make people squeamish. ROSEMARY'S BABY did just that in 1968 and nary a drop of blood to be seen. Hell (no pun intended), even THE OMEN, a rather mediocre movie about another Satanic plot, fares better. None of the "nameless" look particularly that dangerous, either -- little more than druggies who get their kicks smelling glue and cutting themselves to ease the pain. Would it that any of them could strike the menace that Mrs Baylock or those dotty Castevets did. Maybe Ramsey Campbell will like it. Assuming he understands Spanish.