POSSESSION

Possession

Directed by: Andrej Zulawski

France/West Germany, 1981

Drama/Horror, 127min

Distributed by: Second Sight Films

There’s really only two ways to watch Andrej Zulawski’s breathtaking and mind expanding, monster metaphor movie, Possession – either you love it or you hate it. This is possibly THE film that polarizes its audience and so it should, with it’s sluggish pacing, manic acting and gob smacking horror twist. Andrey Zulawski’s Possession is a masterpiece of art-house drama molten together with gooey tentacle monster in horrific body horror!

Alienation is a key to Possession and Zulawski puts this all up front as the film opens with a harsh scene of rejection. Mark [Sam Neill] returns home from a journey abroad only to be met on the street by his wife Anna [Isabelle Adjani] who proceeds to tell him that she thinks their relationship is over. This is followed by scenes of the couple discussing the fact that they don’t really have any sexual feelings for each other any more, which leads to the reveal that Anna has been having an affair with another man… or at least that’s what we think so far.

Mark becomes obsessive in his determination to keep the family assembled (consisting of him, Anna and their young son Bob [Michael Hogben]) and going through the motions, he shouts at her, fights her, throws himself at her feet, submits to her, all without result. Mark descents into a deep dark personal space as he fights for what he believes is true happiness, fighting for a memory of something that no longer is.

Looking at Possession from a storytelling point of view, it’s a rather interesting film when it comes to the lead characters – keep in mind that this is early eighties, and the nihilism of today’s genre films was decades away – so it’s something of a fascination that Zulawski keeps his lead characters somewhat inaccessible to us. Neither Anna, Mark or Heinrich [Heinz Bennet] are sympathetic characters, so I don’t really root for any of them, they are all quite unlikeable, egotistical people completely coming apart at the seams, all by their own hands.

The only person that really is a likeable and empathetic character is schoolteacher Helen [Adjani in a double role] who plays an important part in Mark’s catharsis! In her own way a metaphor for innocence and the corruption of same innocence... Oh, and watching Possession again after quite some time, I also feel that there’s a pretty cool and subtle message in there concerning the two private investigators [Shaun Lawton and Carl Duering] and their relationship!  

Secrets. Yes secrets, dirty secrets. Zulawski lures the audience down a deceptive route as Mark learns of Anna’s dirty little affair on the side with Heinrich. But he certainly doesn’t stop there, but Anna has yet another affair outside of her affair with Heinrich… the rush of insight when one realizes what has been going on is powerful, and both men become completely obsessive. Only one of them can have Anna, and nobody want’s to let go of her, in a way it’s Anna who has who has possessed the men and they will stop at nothing to have her. Even the before mentioned detectives have their “secret”. Anna’s creature, the shape shifting homunculus that she hides in that damp murky Berlin apartment is her dark secret, and in some ways it also becomes Mark’s when he learns of it.

An important part of Possession is the constant disorientation. Multi award winning cinematographer Bruno Nuytten’s work here is fantastic, but the way the scenes are edited together, one rarely comes to insight in how rooms or locations are connected, this despite several splendid steady cam shots and flowing long in and out of location moves. This adds to the mental confusion of the piece. It’s also really important to watch how the shots are composed, as the way Adjani and Neill move and place themselves in the rather long and demanding shots are like watching strictly choreographed dances. The way the camera lingers and keeps us at distance is also part of the earlier mentioned alienation. Even the audience is held at arms length from everything.

Emotionally the film grinds down it’s audience and becomes a surrealistic nightmare perfected. There are no release valves and tension simply builds, on both the character levels and on the monster levels before reaching it’s devastating climax. Neill gives a great performance as the devastated Mark but Adjani showcases some outstanding talent as she with perfection slips between the many emotions and states of mind that Anna displays.

The monster. We can’t really talk about Possession without talking about the monster, metaphorical or not. Pocketed between two academy awards for his on Alien 1979 and E.T. 1982, Carlo Rambaldi's creature of Possession is a repulsive and magnificent one, kept off screen as long as possible and when it’s revealed we never really get a clear idea of how it comes together… it’s all slime, ooze and tentacles as the creature feasts off the blood and flesh of the poor victims Anna brings to their shared secret lair, and despite being a mix of Lovecraftian elder and total nightmare beast it doesn’t stop Anna from being intimate with the slimy monster. It’s a fantastic monster and is used in the perfect amount of screen time, any more and we would have been able to start looking for the wires, rods and any other revealing pieces of trickery. Once that monster is seen the fact that Anna is pregnant with it’s child evokes some haunting mental images, but nothing as surreal and disturbing as what Zulawski, Rambaldi and Adjani conjure up in the subway miscarriage scene in the second half of Possession. This is the concentrate of nightmares indeed!

Possession works in two ways, one as a metaphor for the disintegration of the Mark/Anna relationship, which is presented in a gut-wrenching fashion as the couple slowly, slowly, disintegrate and come apart at the seams. Emotional recognition is vital to understanding movies that want to tell situations we will never end up in (such as being traded for a gory monster that slowly takes your shape) so recognizing the suffering and torment that the characters are experiencing are important for the audience as this is what makes us know what they are feeling, experiencing and going through. The most of us have at least one really bad break up in our luggage and this is what Zulawski uses… at least to lure us into the strange freaky place he takes us.

But the movie also, as Andrej Zulawski points out on the commentary track, works as a metaphor for the “monsters” people became during the cold war and the terror of the Stasi. It’s possible to see this metaphor in the shape of Helen who “accidentally” is drawn into the world/relationship of Mark and Anna, and is the real and only true innocent victim of the piece. As mentioned earlier, neither Mark nor Anna are all that likeable as characters, Helen is the only one who we can empathize with, hence her in all her kindness and innocence becomes the victim. Just like friends and family turning on each other in Cold War Eastern Germany.

Loaded with a full batch of possessive extras such as TWO audio commentary tracks (one with Zulawski the other with co-writer Frederic Tuten); Interview with Zulawski, A DIVIDED CITY which sees Zulawski’s frequent composer Andrzej Korzynski talk about the soundtrack to Possessed, and if you like his work, you should pick up some of their collaborations released by Finders Keepers Records on LP and CD. REPOSSESSED; an expose on how the film was received in the UK during the Video Nasties era and how the US censors recut the film, OUR FRIEND IN THE WEST sees producer Christian Ferry is interviewed, and even the artist responsible for the amazing poster for the film is discussed in the featurette BASHA. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL is a feature length making of Possession documentary that gives even more insight into this fantastic film…

The Second Sight release of Andrej Zulawski’s nightmarish drama, Possession, is without a doubt one of the top five must have Blurays of 2013. Available from 29th July 2013.

From Beyond

From Beyond

Directed by: Stuart Gordon

USA, 1986

Horror, 86 min

Distributed by: Second Sight Films

Every movie reviewer has his or her genesis story. The initial films they started a repetitive viewing of, their portal into obsessive fandom. The first time I was swept up by the magic of Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond was back in the late eighties, when my mate Fredrik - through a quick exchange of a couple of hundred kronor - obtained a bunch of VHS dupes from this guy at or school who had an infamous Xeroxed list of genre films he’d sell bootleg copies of. The school genre fare pusher man one could call him. One of those tapes was Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond, and a continious dedication to the works of Gordon was firmly rooted from that moment on.

The story of From Beyond is classic horror fare, the exploration of the unknown. Crawford Tillinghast [Jeffrey Combs], Dr. Katherine McMichaels [Barbara Crampton] and Bubba Brownlee [Ken Foree] find themselves confronting creatures from another realm when they conduct experiments on the late Dr. Edward Pretorius machine that stimulates the pineal gland with its high resonance. From the other realm the creatures start slipping into ours, and pretty soon the late Dr. Pretorius [Ted Sorel] himself steps out of the pulsating lights unleashing an entourage of slimy creatures and hideously gory moments in his path.

So let’s talk From Beyond and ask the questions if it has stood the test of time? Well hell yeah, it’s still a great movie and I’d even go as far as naming it the best of the Stuart Gordon Lovecraft adaptations.  Lacking the dark comedic elements of Re-Animator, From Beyond delivers a more sinister and darker tone, which suits Lovecraft stories much better than the comedic horror of Re-Animator. (Which still is a blast of a film too.)

Starting off with an initial attack that definitely sets the Lovecraftian tone – as nothing is really shown, merely indicated and suggested through dialogue where Tillinghast tells of the monster that ate Dr. Pretorius head – the movie moves effectively into its post credit sequence narrative. With Combs Crawford Tillinghast character established and the mysterious Dr. Edward Pretorius seen briefly, it’s time to add the second lead character Dr. Katherine McMichaels. Frequent Gordon “heroine” Barbara Crampton is gorgeous as McMichaels, but perhaps even more important to the story is that she is introduced as the sceptic of the piece. Tillinghast is merely dismissed as insane and guilty of murdering Dr. Pretorius, the story he tells - of entities from another realm - is frowned upon as the ramblings of a mad man and he's facing being life behind bars following his evaluation at Miskatonic Hospital. It's when sceptic Dr. McMichaels passion for science and hard facts gets the better of her, making her want to take Tillinghast back to the mansion to check up on his story that the movie starts to change the characters. The Miskatonic Hospital is also where a small subplot with Dr. Bloch [wife of Stuart Gordon, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon] is introduced. The film returns to the location for it's third act and also some of the movies great gore sequences. She’s something of a nemesis to Dr. McMichaels and finds her methods of conduct to be highly controversial and unethical. Dr. Bloch is more of an old-school electroshock therapy kinda gal.

With the plan of taking Tillinghast, back to the mansion on the hill there’s the chance that they either discover that he is a murderer or that there might be some truth to his story.  Private investigator Bubba [Foree] tags along for security, and turns out to be more of a comic relief than anything else. BLinded by possibilities it only takes moments before her scientific curiosity draws Dr McMichaels towards the machine and the gateway to other realms. The enthrallment of possibly standing on the threshold of the greatest medical discovery of all time, lures McMichaels in and even knowing that there could be serious consequences, she hits the switches and brings forth the creatures from the beyond. It’s her greed that motivates her, the same greed that transforms her character from sceptic to believer, from passive to aggressive and also the same greed that leads her right into insanity.

It stands clear at the end of the movie that From Beyond really is an underrated piece of eighties gold. It simply oozes the traits that made Lovecraft’s novels such a thrill. Sparse on explanatory mumbo jumbo, plenty of slimy ancient ones drastic transformations of character roles, and the ever dormant insanity which where all a fundamental characteristics of Lovecraft’s works.

As for the characters in the movie, they are fantastic. The transitions from polarized sides of the axis are great. Crampton's Dr. McMichaels also goes through a full transition from the stiff restrained woman of science to full fledge sex maniac on the fringe of insanity. This makes characters so much more intriguing and filled with dimension than the regular mad scientist of say Re-Animator.

Combs knocks it out of the park with the portrayal of Tillinghast, Dr. Pretorius assistant, who at first has nothing but awe and respect for his master, but as the movie plays through, transforms into knowing the truth and finds that he actually hates and despises Pretorius. His characters role as the victim and his presumed insanity make him vulnerable and easy to empathise with.  There’s also a great use of guilt to fuel his transition, as the respect for his former master slowly wares away and turns into the hatred and repulsion he really held for Pretorius. This is due to the guilt he had over never questioning or opposing the cruel sexual games that the impotent Dr. Pretorius played out in his torture chamber. It’s the guilt of all these suffering women that he could have saved.  Note that even the impotent Dr. Pretorius has a transformation arc as he’s everything but impotent when he returns in his beast shape.

Special effects are brilliant; it shows that some of the great FX people of the era; John Carl Buechler, Mark Shostrom, Henenlotter regular Gabe Bartalos, Greg Johnson and a young Robert Kurtzman. The creatures look superb despite the high def – which usually is one of the areas where old-school FX can come off looking rather poor and revealed as only being effects. Swedish cinematographer Mac Ahlberg – who sadly passed away last year – works his camera magic, and this kind of work always shows what a great artist he was, not to forget the passion he held for his craft.

Gordon, with stable actors Crampton and Combs would all reunite a yet again with their third Lovecraftian tale on Castle Freak. Gordon himself teamed up once more with Brian Yuzna during his time in Spain under Julio Fernández Filmax, for Dagon before tapping into his, to date, last Lovecraftian adaptation with Dreams in the Witch House as part of Mick Garris Masters of Horror TV-series.

I couldn’t really discuss From Beyond without mentioning screenwriter Dennis Paoli, who wrote the scripts to all of Stuart Gordon’s Lovecraft adaptations. What he does with the characters is perhaps one of the key reasons why Gordon’s Lovecraft films resonate louder than other attempts to adapt the ancient ones and unseen horrors for big screen entertainment. The characters have advanced journeys, developing character arcs and frequently end up polarized positions from where they started. Dennis Paoli is undoubtedly one of the best screenwriters of horror film scripts, and where it would be easy to call it a shame that his talents have been so sparsely used, it may very well also be this simple fact that makes his work stand out so much more than others.

The Second Sight BluRay is an outstanding release, with an astonishingly crisp image, vibrant colours and an impeccable print. Much like their releases of Return of the Living Dead and the Basket Case Trilogy, this is a must have release, and Second Sight add yet another solid brick to the foundation of being the best distributor of fine cult fare in the UK. It wouldn’t be a Second Sight "must have" if it wasn’t filled with those customary extras one has come to expect, so how about a Q & A with Gordon about From Beyond, new interviews with Barbara Crampton, composer Richard Band, and screenwriter Dennis Paoli. Featurettes on the Special Effects of From Beyond, Lost and Found footage from the editing room, and a great commentary track with Gordon, Yuzna and Combs, and the reason that makes these films pop out amongst the rest,  spiffy new artwork by the legendary Graham Humphreys.

Make room on your shelves for Second Sight’s Limited Edition BluRay Steel book release of From Beyond, out in UK on the 25th of February.

(With more great eighties horror classic promised to follow)

Absentia

Absentia

Directed by: Mike Flanagan

USA, 2011

Horror, 87min

Distributed by: Second Sight

Trisha [Courtney Bell] is still somewhat in limbo since her husband Daniel [Morgan Peter Brown] went missing some time ago. Her sister Callie [Katie Parker] comes to stay for a few days, and together they help to have Daniel declared “Dead in Absentia”. This is when Trisha starts to have nightmarish visions of her dead husband, and Callie encounters a strange man inside a nearby tunnel who asks her to “trade…”

Every now and again there comes a movie that digs it’s claws into it’s audience’s mind so much deeper than an lot of others do. I say it’s the vulnerability within the characters, which make them such empathetic persons, hence getting inside the audience mind. I say it’s this vulnerability and values the characters hold that make them such easy characters to have emotional recognitions with. I say it’s emotional recognition that’s the key to great horror. If I feel for the characters, and believe what is happening to them, the effect of everything that happens to them is so much more intense. 

It’s an understatement to say that independent filmmaker, writer, director, editor Mike Flanagan has created a great movie. A movie that seeps into the mind of the audience, playing tricks on them through some impressive storytelling and well disposed manipulations. Low-key effects and cunning camera deception make it a sublime haunting. It’s the kind of movie that makes me drool mentally, and going back to check details, I ended up being drawn in once more whilst still having a great time watching the movie all over again.

 

Movies that want to take their audience on a dark haunting journey need to set up values and familiarity before plunging into a world of horror. Yes, I’m once again talking about setting up the ordinary world. Returning readers will know that this is what I consider a vital cornerstone to all good horror movies. Sell me the real world, make me believe that what you want to show me, and I’ll follow you anywhere. The set up of Absentia is phenomenal, I’m drawn in by the characters, discover their vulnerability, watch them struggle with everyday haunts, empathise with them as I learn their human traits, before the horrors are unleashed, and I realize that the transition from ordinary world into the supernatural realm has been a flawless one.

Four key ingredients are presented in the opening minutes of Absentia. The exterior of the tunnel where the title card is placed and moments later, it’s cobwebby interior. Trisha is out re-posting the “missing” flyers featuring Daniel’s face. When she gets back home, her sister Callie has arrived for a visit, earlier than intended. A brief chat later, and we have some kind of insight into the ordinary world that these characters live in. The pregnant Trisha is seeking some kind of closure from the disappearance of her husband Daniel, and Callie is a restless soul. One can feel somewhat of an animosity between the two, which will sit there brooding until later on in the movie.

 

Dialogue between the two women explores their relationship further, and we understand that Callie has been in and out of rehab for drug and drinking related problems, Callie obviously had no idea Trisha was pregnant. It’s been six years since the last met, and not only do they have a spontaneous relationship with each other, they obviously have a somewhat blemished relationship with their mother too. It’s more or less the same problems both you and I deal with on a regular basis, family beefs, internal struggles and toils of life. Now we not only have an insight into their world, but we now also know the “flaws” that make them human and believable too.

Releasing scares upon an audience is a moment that can make or break a movie. You can either start to build, with strings and cues, letting the audience in on the game and have them wind themselves’ up, or you can simply let the shocks rip through and have them stand on their own. I’ve noticed a trend of “when you see it, it fucks you up” aesthetics similar to those of the J-horror used when that broke internationally. Moments when the camera hangs in a scene and you expect some kind of cue proclaiming the antagonist pounce, but instead it turns out that the “antagonist” is already in frame, which gives a hell of a freaky scare when you see it already there and caught you with your guard down. This is how Flanagan builds his tense atmosphere, by slowly bringing us in to the realm, and then unleashing the horror on us. Yes, there are classic jump scares that will keep you on edge, but also a lot of assault shocks, with no builds, no cues, just wham! It will grind you down, because it get’s intense, but there’s also a hidden agenda behind this cunning deception.

 

With that said, I should point out that the ghost of Daniel first makes an appearance after the two sisters together burn the remaining “missing” posters. When Trisha takes that final step towards being free from her past with Daniel, the guilt that comes with it ignites the nightmares. It’s guilt that starts messing with her mind. Again, a key ingredient to innovative horror, guilt, and I love that Flanagan even has a scene where Trisha’s psychologist makes a point of the nightmares being a result of her guilt…

Here a fascinating thing happens, the jump-scares become part of the world Trisha is in. Where one commonly would expect a jump-scare and key shocks the ghost is merely reduced to a figment of Trisha’s imagination - her guilt - and therefore he makes no threat to her. The ghost can be in the scene with Trisha and other, but poses no threat. This is a beguiling display of how one can bring things in from a supernatural world and make them part of the natural one if you make the transition a reasonable one.

 

Then comes a fine twist to Absentia, where Trisha comes to insight and reason with the ghost she sees, Callie is confronted by ghosts of her own. During one of her daily runs, she encounters a man [Doug Jones] grey and worn out by exhaustion, in the tunnel from the opening titles. Although this man is obviously not a ghost, he’s something completely else, and he asks her to “trade”. It set’s off a whole parallel storyline that runs next to Trisha’s own experiences. Focus is somewhat shifted and Callie takes on a larger part in the narrative.

At times I talk of something called the contrast frame, and it goes something along the lines of presenting two options where one be more absurd than then next which helps sell the original one. One of the best examples is found in John Carpenter’s The Thing 1982, where MacReady after seeing the space craft theorises “ So it crashes, and this guy, whoever he is, gets thrown out, or walks out, and ends up freezing.”. Childs jumps right in declaring it’s all “voodoo bullshit” before Palmer goes off on a stoned rant about extra terrestrials all ready here, that they “taught the Incas everything they knew” and even goes so far as claiming the president is an alien… hence giving the result that we buy into MacReadys suggestion no matter how absurd it may seem, because the president couldn’t be an alien, could he?

 

I find traces of a variant of the contrast frame in Absentia. We have an explanation for the ghost Trisha sees, but none for the one Callie encounters. With no other explanation except whatever we have imagined ourselves, and the lack of answering the question of what the mystery with the tunnel is or what resides there we go for the closest most reasonable answer, which leads us to accept the theory Callie has presented. All the research she does leads to a shocking insight, hence the abundance of “Missing” posters, both human and pets all around the neighbourhood outside the tunnel. But don’t get your hopes up for a conventional closure to the mystery here, because there are still some hefty twists to come.

Remember that I mentioned an animosity sensed between the sisters in their meeting at the beginning of the movie? Well that comes back to the story when Callie’s “junkie” backstory is spilled wide open to create sceptic character of Trisha. My jaw hit the floor at this point! Because it’s outstanding to bring a sceptic character this far into the narrative, especially one who we would presume to rally up behind Callie and support her theory. As Trisha has been seeing “ghosts” of her own, one would think her to believe her sister’s story, or at least be more open minded about Callie’s tale. Instead she choses not to, and blames it all on drugs. Callie’s backstory and history with substance abuse is brought into light and now empathise even further with her. The emotional recognition of what Callie is experiencing – not being believed despite being right - is where we connect. Now we really want Callie to expose what the mystery with the tunnel is all about, at any costs, reveal it, solve it, save the day.

 

There’s an interesting subplot with Detective Ryan Mallory [Dave Levine], who is important to the narrative on more than one way. His importance to the story also puts a spin on themes already discussed.

Editing is flawless, time is valuable when it comes to movies, and crap pacing can wreck everything. It’s to an advantage to loose everything one doesn’t need. Without spoiling anything, you can find a solid example of this in the scene where Trisha talks face to face to Daniel’s parents. Timing, acting, deliverance and editing all come together in a perfect crescendo and the result is heart breaking – one can feel the tension, despair and anguish in that room.

 

Ryan David Leack’s score! Damn I like that score, it set’s a tone which more or less opens an expressway to your heart and soul, and when it’s prepared that road, it starts vibrating with a sinister vibe. It really suits the movie, and this is one of the perks of independent filmmakers, they frequently hook up with composers and musicians burning with the same passion for their craft as they are, and together they become a strong force to rely on.

I could probably use Absentia in my everyday storytelling examples because this is one hell of a well-crafted movie that deserves every piece of attention it gets. Do not be fooled by reviews that didn’t see the magnificence of this piece.  This is an impressive movie, and Mike Flanagan is from now on a name that I’ll be keeping tags on.

I’m not going to mention that Absentia is shot on a pretty small budget, and financed partially through a kickstarter programme, because it never really comes off as a low budget movie. The acting is grand, Katie Parker and Morgan Peter Brown both give great performances as tormented souls, and its neat to see Doug Jones in a small part and out of special effects makeup and suits. Courtney Bell’s real pregnancy is wonderful and brings a whole new level of vulnerability to her character, and thank god she’s really pregnant, because there’s something about the way women move when they are pregnant that no one ever get’s down in the right way.

 

Taking a “What if” cue from the old Norwegian fairy tale De tre bukken Bruse (Three Billy Goats Gruff) written by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in the late 1800’s, there’s a brooding despair that grows within this movie, a slow moving nightmare that slowly seeps into our world and into our consciousness. I’d also like to connect this film with the writing of H.P. Lovecraft, as the way Flanagan uses things that lurk in the dark, glimpses in the corners of the eye and things that move between dimensions, reminds me of the same rhetoric that Lovecraft used to describe his ancient ones. Needless to say I loved every minute of Absentia, and I'm already looking forward to the next time I watch it, and that's without me getting into the symbolism and small details I've found so far. From gloomy drama, the movie shifts into dark urban fairy tale that keeps throwing unexpected twists at its audience all the time. There are some really haunting moments in Absentia and films that take an unexpected path are rare things these days. It that scared the crap out of me, totally took me captive in its narrative, and left me with strong emotions as the end credits hit the screen.

 

Absentia is certainly one of the best indie genre movies I’ve seen this year. Genuinely creepy, it simply knocked me down. I fell for all the classic tricks and was captivated by the new ones; as far as I’m concerned this is an innovative future masterpiece of contemporary horror. In the years to come, people will seek out Absentia and wonder how the hell they missed it the first time around. Make sure you see it now and not later.

Absentia is due to be released by Second Sight in the UK on the 9th of July.

La herencia Valdemar

La herencia Valdemar +
La Sombra Prohibitda: La herencia Valdemar II
Directed by: José Luis Alemán
Spain, 2010
Horror

If legendary Spanish actor Paul Naschy hadn’t have passed away whilst this movie, and it’s sequel, where in production, I most likely would never have paid any attention to them. But researching this “last movie” – and the animated feature he was working on when he passed – the few stills and the teaser trailer definitely sold me the movie. Because not only do I love EuroGoth, I’m a sucker for anything remotely Lovecraftian, which there is plenty of in the La herencia Valdemar movies.

Shot as two separate movies, with two separate story line arcs, the movie could easily have been one long epic three hour. Both movies do hold their separate arcs, but are also linked together through longer storylines that flow through them both. There’s a wrap around found in the first film which in the second becomes the main narrative, and vice versa. In the second movie the past tense main narrative of the first instalment becomes the secondary plot in the “sequel”. As mentioned above it’s more of a continuation of the despite the La sombra prohibida: La herencia VAldemar II title.

An old Victorian building, the Valdemar House, sits on top of a hill uninhabited for an unmentioned – but long – time. Several real estate agents have vanished when attempting to value the place. Luisa Llorente [Silvia Abascal] ventures into the house in an attempt to value the place, but pretty soon shit goes astray and a drooling monster is chasing her through the corridors…

A private investigator, Nicolás [Óscar Jaenada], is sent out to locate Llorente, and finds himself on-board a train heading towards the Valdemar house for the entire first movie. On this train he meet’s Dra. Cerviá [Ana Risueño] who starts to tell him about the story and curse of the Valdemar Family.

The Valdemar family is obviously where the major part of the movie’s narrative is played out, with crosscuts to the two external stories every now and again.

Lázaro [Daniele Liotti] and Leonor Valdemar [Laia Marull] run the local orphanage, and more than anything they long for a child of their own. Circumstances lead to them almost accidentally come up with a way to make money off arranged séances where they take photographs of the visiting spirits – and giving Alemán an opportunity to stick in one of the finest nods to Naschy’s Waldemar Daninsky movies I have ever seen. But as all good stories nothing good comes without something bad, and here it presents a classic dilemma, which creates dimension in characters – it’s the age-old “Doing Wrong for Doing Good” question. Remember that Trier debacle from the last Cannes Film Festival, well that kind of thing. It’s the same reasoning, people doing bad things for a reason they believe to be good. All of the Valdemar actions are driven by passion and that yearning for a child of their own, which also brings logic to Làzaro’s actions later.

An obnoxious and scrupulous bastard – a journalist - figures out their racket and want’s part of the action. The Valdemar’s refuse which lead’s to Làzaro being tossed in jail facing a lengthy trial and a harsh punishment… until Alastair Crowley [Francisco Maestre] arrives and gives Làzaro a proposition of how they can get him out.

It’s also within the Valdemar family where we see Paul Naschy in his final performance. And it’s a delicate part for the obvious frail actor, who gives one of his most sincere performances. Jervás is all good, there’s not an evil bone in his body and it’s with real concern for the family he has served for presumably his whole life, that he comments and questions the events that he bears witness to.

Safely landing and ending several arcs there’s still several questions posed at the end of the movie, and there’s an obvious feeling that the Valdemar story isn’t ended, but merely a chapter closed, despite the main arc landing in the last act. Subplots are set in motion – like Luisa Llorente’s storyline, Nicolás and Cerviá on that train ride to the Valdemar house, which demand the sequel, and the sequel, demands to be seen. If you do choose to watch this movie, make sure to have the second part near at hand as the teaser for the second movie is will have you drooling.

The second movie takes place in modern time, with the odd flashback to the past woven in and to give further depth to the legacy. Here we see classic horror come face to face with old school Spanish EuroGoth. There’s a subplot with an old witch – and the ultimate Grimoire, The Necronomicon and even an appearance by H.P. Lovecraft [Luis Zahera] who’s woven into the story in a brilliant way. Yes, this is fantasy horror, and you have to accept it, just like you accept Alastair Crowley, Bram Stoker and Lizzie Borden in the first instalment. It works and there’s no reason to question it.

The subplots from the first movie come into play, Lusia Llorente’s capture escape and teaming up with Nicolás who’s been travelling towards this point for the whole first movie. Even secondary subplots such as the assistants – colleagues at the real estate agents - arrive at the house to help in the search for Llorente, but little do they know that they are walking right into a trap. A trap which will make them the 666th victims of the Cthulhu cult intent on bringing their god back to the face of the earth.

Yeah, the second movie takes on a complete different approach than the first, answers questions, picks up subplots and comes round full circle to complete the saga of the Valdemar Legacy.

I love the Spaniards. They have done more for European horror than anyone else has in the last ten-twenty years. A whole new wave of genre directors and movie companies – primarily Julio Fernandez Filmax - have emerged and in my opinion, they have been producing some of the best hits in the last decade.

One thing I find terribly annoying when watching generic horror is that awkward moment when they have to pick up their cell phones and deliver the mandatory “Oh golly I have no coverage!” moment… It bugs the hell out of me. La herencia Valdemar is the like the third of fourth Spanish flick recently where the cell phone has coverage and get’s the protagonist in trouble. Luisa’s cell signal buzzes off and her location is painfully obvious to the monster. Having seen this on so many different occasions now, I’m starting to feel that there’s a critique towards cell phones and the fact that you never really are alone or “out of touch” anymore. Which works great in horror!

Half hour into the first movie I reacted to the line of dialogue “You know what’s going on here, don’t you… how do you expect me to sleep if I don’t know?” – “If I told you, you wouldn’t sleep again for the rest of your life!” It’s one of those lies that completely sell me the movie. That single line made me fall in love with the flick, as it’s sheer concentrated Lovecraft. It’s the sort of dialogue I’d expect to find in his writings and the way it is used here is magic. Lovecraft’s texts often avoided giving detailed explanations of the creatures that inhabited his world, instead he hinted and suggested which left it all up the reader to fill in the blanks… and what ever we come up with is always so much more intimidating than whatever he could have put down in writing.

This is a brilliant flick, a two-parter that brings fear, excitement, adventure and horror to the same arena. It’s like a perfect concentrate of old school Spanish EuroGoth in the vain of Leon Klimovsky, Carlos Aured, Amando de Ossaroio, the Goth of Jess Franco and Jacinto Molina, combined with the new wave of Paco Plaza, Jaume Balugero, Juan Antonio Bayona, Guillem Morales and others. I for one will be eagerly looking forward to seeing where José Luis Alemán goes after this.

Among the extras you will find trailers, making off featurettes, filmographies and a very heart-warming tribute to the late Paul Naschy.

Now if these trailers don't make you want to see these movies, then I don't know what to say...