Honourable Mention: La Herencia Valdemar

I picked up the Spanish Blu-Ray of La Herencia Valdemar, or the Valdemar Inheritance, not thinking that there would be a post here. The set has this 2010 film and the sequel. La Sombra Prohibida (the Forbidden Shadow), in it and my reason for getting it was that it was a known Lovecraft orientated film and the films were amongst the last that Paul Naschy made. The films haven’t been released in the UK as of yet, but the Spanish set has English subtitles. Because it is Blu-ray I couldn’t get a screen capture and so the screenshots below are the best I could muster from the trailer.

The José Luis Alemán directed film is set in the present and the nineteenth century, the modern storyline follows Luisa Llorente (Silvia Abascal) as she goes to value a decaying Gothic mansion in the Montenegro region, and the subsequent attempts to find her when she goes missing. The story flows over the two films making them a part one and part two more properly (though the “previously on” actually didn’t seem to accurately match what had happened!)

the Dunwich Rite

It is the story in the past that interests us. It follows the couple Lázaro Valdemar (Daniele Liotti) and his wife Leonor (Laia Marull). She runs an orphanage, he conducts séances and takes spirit photography. It is, however, a scam and he is arrested after refusing to bribe a newspaper reporter. His release is achieved by Aleister Crowley (Francisco Maestre), who then uses the house to perform the Dunwich Rite – which goes wrong.

Bram Stoker on the left

At the rite are various personages, including the reason for the Honourable Mention. Bram Stoker (Lino Braxe) is there. All the attendees have asked for a boon from the rite. Bram’s is inspiration for his literary affairs. I should also mention that the rite allows a demonic force to escape its dimension and inhabit a corpse. It uses the lifeforce of the worms to recompose the body, eats flesh and looks ghoulish. More revenant, perhaps, than anything else – in the next film it is referred to as an incubus.

The mention, though, is for the appearance of Bram Stoker. The imdb page is here.