A man scans the woods with binoculars behind his country house and sees a young woman taking off her shirt. He goes to look closer, finds her bloodied and unconscious. A silent figure with its head wrapped in bandages appears and stabs him in the arm.

He runs. On a stranger's instruction, he hides inside a machine in a nearby lab, and climbs out to find he has traveled back in time by about an hour.

TIMECRIMES, the 2007 debut of Spanish director Nacho Vigalondo, tightens around him from there, as every move he makes to undo the nightmare turns out to be the thing that built it.

There are almost no special effects. One house, one lab, few actors. Like Shane Carruth's Primer before it, the film is proof that a time-travel story needs only airtight ideas, not money or spectacle. It locks together like a watch.

Vigalondo wrote it, directed it, and plays the nervous technician who sends our man into the machine. He would later make Colossal with Anne Hathaway.

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Timecrimes (2007) was written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, who also co-produced it through Spanish companies including Karbo Vantas Entertainment, Zip Films, Fine Productions, and Arsénico Producciones. Theatrical distribution in Spain was handled by Karbo Vantas Entertainment, while Magnolia Pictures acquired the international rights and managed its North American release.