El apagón
2001 · 12m · España
Directed by José María Caro
During a delicate operation, a power cut plunges everything into darkness; after some efforts the electricity returns and the operation can resume, with unexpected implications.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a locked-room thriller with the oldest gimmick in the book—blackout—but Caro refuses to milk it for jump scares or heroics, which is either radical restraint or a missed opportunity depending on your mood.
A formally precise exercise in suspense that knows exactly what it owes to Hitchcock's playbook: the power cut as mechanical betrayal, the surgical precision of mise-en-scène in darkness, and the moral pivot hidden in the third act.
The film pivots entirely on what happens *after* the lights return—that single choice to track the unexpected implications rather than resolve the crisis resets everything, and it's done on a 12-minute budget with almost no resources except narrative discipline.