Le Territoire des ombres : Le Secret des Valdemar

The majority of critics have been unfair to this movie. This is a nice homage to the classics of the terror genre and to the world of Lovecraft. Aficionados will enjoy the references with delight.

The story is well told and interesting enough, and though it leaves some loose ends (the second installment will see the light on October), the main story (told in a large flashback) concludes in a spectacular climax that is something to be seen.

The production values are top notch.

The only setbacks are some pieces of dialog, too long and literary, that drag the pace in the middle section.

All in all, this is a remarkable first feature from director José Luis Alemán.

You could be forgiven thinking this is a TV movie of the week two parter (this one being part 1 of course). But the movie begins quite strong. The actors seem to really get behind the concept and the mystery is building slowly, but in a good way.

Of course this being only half the experience means that some characters are just being introduced more or less, so you can see where they will take this with part 2. The late great Paul Naschy is one of the better known actors in this, though don't expect his role to be big (especially considering the age he was when he shot it). For fans of his work this oddity will work, but some may think he should have had a better "farewell" movie. As it is, the movie does fail to live up to its good beginning.

THE VALDEMAR LEGACY is the first of a Spanish two-part horror film series that, despite the title, has nothing to do with the classic Waldemar Daninsky series of werewolf features starring Paul Naschy, even though Naschy himself has a small role playing a butler. No, instead this is a pure haunted house saga apparently influenced by Lovecraft's Cthulhu writings, although I'd call that a loose influence at best - certainly there's nothing explicitly Mythos related here. It starts off as the usual young-woman-visits-a-haunted house tale before moving into a lengthy back story. Sadly, the SFX are below par and the story is too long and too unfocused, just another low budget mess of a production.

... so don't start unless you intend to watch them both, preferably back to back.

It's worth it.

The comment made by that reviewer from Canada "I didn't expect much from the Spanish Cinema" is so broad and unfortunate about the Spanish cinema that is almost pitiful.

My previous comment was deleted (by a very sensitive reader no doubt) and I'm very sorry (and worried) to see that is so easy for anyone to erase other people commentaries when they do not coincide with their own: Dark Age minds living and interacting now, in the XXI Century.

I could write a long list of magnificent Spanish directors and movies produced in Spain, but I don't think it worthy of my time trying to enlighten closed and prejudiced minds.

To the movie: It isn't the Second Coming, of course, but it isn't the worse movie ever made either. The production is acceptable, the settings and atmosphere quite good and the plot interesting enough to have a pleasant time watching it.

One is left waiting for the second part (something I never saw) since I'm rewriting this review a long time after my first deleted one and since then I completely forgot about the sequel to this picture. In general: Quite an acceptable pastime.