Tales to Keep You Awake: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		0.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.0

Tales to Keep You Awake: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 2, 2023

Narciso Ibáñez Serrador is probably not a name that's overly familiar to even diehard movie lovers, but he's enjoying something of a mini- renaissance on Blu-ray courtesy of both this release and Arrow's recent offering of The House That Screamed. Though he was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1935, and irrespective of the long tethers between Uruguay and Spain, he's more frequently referred to as being Spanish, since his best known productions were created in that country. Serrador's fame in Spain stems in large part from his forays into Spanish television, including this celebrated anthology series which on the aforementioned Arrow disc commentator Anna Bogutskaya likens to The Twilight Zone, and in fact a supplement included on this release repeats the same connection in its very title (see below). However, as I mentioned in our The House That Screamed Blu-ray review, at least some episodes of Tales to Keep You Awake might seem to be more akin to that "other" show that is often compared (rightly or wrongly) to Rod Serling's inimitable masterpiece, namely The Outer Limits, and in fact there's an undeniable connection between The Outer Limits and this series which I'll discuss below. That said, having now been able to see the episodes aggregated on this two disc set, I'd perhaps tweak that even further to say that in some rather salient ways, Tales to Keep You Awake may in fact remind those with long term memory of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, at least insofar as Serrador appears in rather cheeky introductory comments at times which have the same sort of dry, often blacker than black, humor that often populated Hitchcock's own introductions on his series.

When I was doing some background research from my review of The House That Screamed, some online data on the always questionable Wikipedia suggested that one episode of Tales to Keep You Awake was another adaptation of the famous Demon With a Glass Hand episode from The Outer Limits, something that I overtly mentioned in my review. What was either unclear in that attribution or perhaps in my understanding of it is that it wasn't an adaptation, it was the actual episode from The Outer Limits, appearing here as the second episode of this series' first season (see screenshot 3). Rather interestingly, Serrador introduces it as an American film that had won some awards, but the episode itself is rather curiously lacking any credits for its American cast and crew, unlike many of the locally produced episodes in this set. I'd frankly love to know the backstory on the licensing arrangement Serrador may have made.

That interesting trivia tidbit aside, it's arguable that Serrador's own cheeky introductions are often at least as good, and perhaps better, than some of the episodes themselves. Serrador is on hand in the premiere episode's introduction lamenting his small budgets and making fun of how that's affecting things like special effects and production design, and there's no denying that the lo-fi ambience of this series does not always redound to its benefit. However, as the main supplement included in this set gets into, there are some notable exceptions, where it suddenly seems like Serrador and his team either suddenly had funds or maybe finally decided to spend some to achieve slightly more polished technical elements.

Serrador does adapt a number of notable authors, including Edgar Allen Poe (the Spanish pronunciation of the surname is kind of sweet) and Robert Bloch, and Serrador contributes several episodes himself under his frequent pen name Luis Penafiel.

Tales to Keep You Awake: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Tales to Keep You Awake is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 480i (!) transfer in 1.33:1. It may strike some others as it did me that it's downright curious why exactly Severin released this series on Blu-ray to begin with, other than the space the two discs afforded, when the only high definition contribution here is the main supplement found on Disc Two. As much as I've quibbled with the video quality on some of Eagle Rock Entertainment's so-called "SD Blu-rays" of upscaled material (notably a lot of archival Rolling Stones releases), as well as the upscaled 1080i presentations that are typically part of the older seasons of Doctor Who, which I also regularly review, at least those releases attempted an upscale. The standard definition presentation here is frankly lacking on just about all levels, not just with regard to basic things like detail levels, clarity and contrast, but also with regard to any number of video anomalies, including recurrent and pretty intrusive horizontal black lines that come and go with great regularity (you can see some in several of the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review). The color episodes may come through this technical gauntlet a bit better than the black and white episodes, in part due to the fact that they're decades newer, but they still show a number of anomalies, including combing artifacts and ghosting. The best single episode quality in my estimation is El Televisor (see screenshot 14). In this particular instance, I'd simply say screenshots speak louder than words, and I've attempted to give a range of some of the deficits on tap in the images I've uploaded to accompany this review.

Tales to Keep You Awake: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The audio probably fares a bit better than the video, but the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono track has some issues of its own, including flutter, a moment or two that can't recover from what seems like tracking issues on the video, and an overall kind of anemic if still rather bright sound. Highs tend to be either strident or at times slightly clipped, but the good news (probably a relative term) is that dialogue tends to be delivered clearly almost all of the time. Optional English subtitles are available.

Tales to Keep You Awake: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Tales from the Spanish Twilight Zone (HD; 29:55) features Dr. Alex Mendibil discussing the life and career of Narciso Ibáñez Serrador.


• Select Episode Introductions by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador were evidently done for a DVD release, per his comments, and are subtitled in English:

  El Muneco (The Doll) / El Asfalto (The Asphalt) / La Alarma (The Alarm) (SD; 4:06)

  
  

  La Oferta (The Offer) / El Pacto (The Pact) / La Cabana (The Cabin) (SD; 00:26)

  
  

  El Tonel (The Cask) / La Pesadilla (The Nightmare) / La Zarpa (The Paw) / El Vidente (The Seer) (SD; 2:18)

  
  

  El Cuervo (The Raven) / El Trasplante (The Transplant) / La Casa (The House) (SD; 1:27)

  
  

  El Fin Empezo Ayer (The End Began Yesterday) / El Trapero (The Junkman) (SD; 1:17)

  
  

  La Promesa (The Promise) / El Televisor (The TV) (SD; 1:30)

  Note: There is a Play All option for the above selections.


• Press Conference Promoting El Televisor (The TV) (SD; 6:45)

Tales to Keep You Awake: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Tales to Keep You Awake obviously has some historical curiosity working in its favor, and I have to say I was genuinely entertained by Serrador's often quite funny introductions. If Severin had released this on DVD, I think most would simply be saying the technical limitations are what they are, but putting this out on Blu-ray has at least the perceived imprimatur of a high definition presentation, which this is not, and in fact the only high definition content on this is the main supplemental feature.