Historias para no dormir
Historias para no dormir () is a Spanish horror anthology television series written and directed by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, produced by Televisión Española and broadcast on its flagship Primera Cadena network from 1966 to 1982.

History 

This series marked Narciso Ibáñez Serrador's rise to fame. He had already been working with TVE since 1963, directing several previous series like  and , but the success of this series made him a household name in Spain, as it covered a genre almost entirely unexplored in Spanish cinema and television at the time.

The first season was started with the chapter titled  (The birthday) on February 4, 1966. It was the only chapter shot on 16mm film; the rest of the series was produced on videotape. It was an adaptation of a tale by Fredric Brown. The rest of the series saw original stories written by Serrador, like  (The Alarm), or adapted screenplays from tales by Ray Bradbury, Edgar Allan Poe and others, in chapters like  (Demon with a Glass Hand),  (The Waiting Time),  (The rocket) or  (The Deal), the last one adapted from Poe's The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar. Although the most important chapter of the first season was  (The Asphalt), winner of the Golden Nymph for the best script on the Monte-Carlo Television Festival. It was the first international prize ever won by Televisión Española.

The second season was broadcast from 1967 to 1968 and it only had 8 episodes:  (The Nightmare),  (The Paw, version of W. W. Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw),  (The Seer),  (The Return),  (The Raven, special episode dedicated to Edgard Allan Poe's biography),  (The Promise),  (The House) and  (The Transplant). The series would be abandoned when Ibáñez Serrador started filming his first full-length feature film .

After the end of the second season, Ibáñez Serrador planned a new series which would have been titled  (Tales for the Night) which would contain deeper, more intellectual tales. A pilot episode was made in 1970, but it was not picked up. Therefore, he made in 1972 a special  episode titled  (The Wolf). In 1974, he would film another special broadcast, the first one in color, titled  (The TV set). Then with the success of  and his second feature film, Who Can Kill a Child?, he would not get back to  for years.

In 1982, Serrador produced the third and final official season of , which would only contain four color episodes; ,  (remake of season 1's  (The Deal), with the same actors reprising their original roles),  ("The End Began Yesterday", remake of a chapter from a previous series, ) and  (The Junkman). Due to low budgets and a rushed shooting schedule, the master videotapes suffered from visual damage, and the season was ultimately not a success.

In 2000, a new season of  was announced, and as a preview,  was rebroadcast with a new introduction by Chicho. That preview was the only thing that was known from that season, since months and years went by and the project was never made. Months later, on June 8, 2001, on an interview in the Spanish program  which was to broadcast his movie Who Can Kill A Child?, Chicho said that the project was cancelled because he wanted new directors for each of the episodes, because he didn't want to direct all the episodes like he did in the past. Since he couldn't find directors interested in the project, he cancelled the season.

The series was released on DVD in Spain in a six-disc set with new introductions by Ibáñez Serrador. Later, in 2008 another set with two more discs was released. The American cult film distributor Severin Films licensed the series for distribution in North America, releasing the complete series on Blu-ray in October 2022 with English subtitles.

In 2005, as an attempt to relaunch the idea, a series of TV movies was shot under the title  (Films to Keep You Awake). These TV movies were produced by Telecinco, directed by renowned directors such as Mateo Gil, Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza, Enrique Urbizu or Álex de la Iglesia and coordinated by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador himself, who also directed one of the movies, titled  (Blame).

In 2021, four remakes of earlier episodes were made for Amazon Prime Video and TVE.
The stories were  by Rodrigo Cortés,  by Rodrigo Sorogoyen,  by Paco Plaza and  by Paula Ortiz.
TVE broadcast the series around Halloween 2022 within .

In March 2022, a second season of remakes was announced by Amazon Prime Video.
They were published on 27 October 2022.
The episodes were  by Salvador Calvo,  by Jaume Balagueró,  by Alice Waddington and  by Nacho Vigalondo.

Awards 

 Golden Nymph to best script in the Monte-Carlo Television Festival 1967 for El asfalto.
 Critics Award to best foreign program in the Buenos Aires Festival.
 Ondas Award 1969 to Narciso Ibáñez Serrador as Best Author

Películas para no dormir series

References

External links

Historias para no dormir (1966-1982) at RTVE Play

Thriller television series
1966 Spanish television series debuts
1960s Spanish television series
Spanish horror fiction television series
Spanish science fiction television series
1960s anthology television series
RTVE shows
1980s anthology television series
Spanish anthology television series