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Released by: Degausser Video
Released on: March 26th, 2024.
Director: Alfredo Salazar
Cast: Lorena Herrera, Roberto Guinar, Margarito Esparza, Holda Ramírez, Alan Fernando
Year: 1993
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Herencia Diabólica – Movie Review:
When 1993’s opus, Herencia Diabólica, directed by Alfredo Salazar (better known for writing a bunch of Santo movies and a few super cool sixties Mexican horror films like Doctor Of Doom and The World Of The Vampires), opens we witness an old lady sitting quietly on the patio of a large estate, cradling a weird looking and brightly dressed clown doll. Though the doll looks inanimate, it soon moves its hand up and caresses her cheek.
From here, we cut to New York City – The Big Apple! – where a man named Tony (Robert Guinar) gets a phone call letting him know that his aunt, presumably the old woman in the opening scene, has just passed away and that he is the sole heir to her substantial estate. Soon enough, he and his wife Annie (Holda Ramírez) hop on a plan to Mexico and take up residence in the beautiful old home. While poking around their new abode, Annie discovers that very same clown doll (alternately played by an actual clown doll and a little person named Margarito Esparza, called out in the credits as “The World’s Smallest Actor,” with a lot of white face paint on) from the opening scene, now named Payasito. She is, quite understandably, weirded out by this but becomes even more upset when the doll keeps popping up in strange places without her or Tony having moved it. One dark sex scene later and Annie is pregnant but sadly not long for this world as the doll eventually tosses her down the stairs to her death, and then later tossing the maid off of the roof (resulting in a truly wonderful ‘dummy death’ scene).
Tony, however, isn’t one to rest on his laurels. Annie may by dead but their son, Roy (Alan Fernando), survives and a short time later and he’s remarried to a buxom blonde named Doris (Playboy Playmate Lorena Herrera). Weirdly enough, the doll is still around and Roy is really, really attached to it to the point where he sleeps with it and tries to bring it with him whenever he can. Doris, like her predecessor, isn’t a fan of the doll, however, especially when he hopes into bed with her, but any time that she tries to get rid of the thing, it pops back up somewhere in the house.
A movie that can be charitably described as wonky, Herencia Diabólica (Diabolical Inheritance in English), was obviously made on a low budget but it’s got a big enough WTF factor working in its favor to ensure that even during fairly long stretches where nothing happens, the movie is entertaining. Whenever Payasito is on camera, the movie is pretty great. Margarito Esparza, clad in white face paint and that garish clown suit, is a blast to watch while running around with a regular-sized knife that looks gigantic in those tiny hands. The clown doll never has any dialogue so it’s all about weird body language and strange facial expressions but Esparza nails it, while the rest of the cast sort of just wander around with the female cast members occasionally getting startled whenever the doll pops out of a cupboard of what have you.
The movie is frequently compared to Child’s Play but they really don’t have much in common aside from the presence of a diminutive evil doll. Child’s Play, in most regards, is a much better movie than this but there’s plenty of strange details in the background to keep easily amused viewers intrigued – from the tacky early nineties outfits to the oddball score to the details in the background décor like the posters on the wall in Roy’s bedroom. The performances are all over the place, with Guinar doing a pretty decent job with what he has to work with and Herrera overdoing it to an impressive degree. Alan Fernando, however, seems to have been sleepwalking through most of the movie, which somehow adds to the movie’s overall weirdness and strange, mind-melting appeal. Bonus points for a freak out scene in the attic where a bunch of animatronic toys suddenly all start moving under their own power.
Herencia Diabólica – Blu-ray Review:
Degausser Video brings Herencia Diabólica, which was shot on film but edited on tape (the original film elements lost and presumed destroyed) to region free Blu-ray “Newly transferred and restored from the best quality archival tape master“ taking up 22.5GBs of space on a 50GB disc. Presented in AVC encoded 1080p, the image shows its tape-sourced roots but it’s watchable enough and those accustomed to watching low budget shot on video movies from this era will have no problem with the picture quality. This isn’t the type of release you buy to show off your new 4k TV, as the picture is inherently soft, but the authoring is fine and compression is alright.
Herencia Diabólica gets a Spanish language 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 mix, with optional subtitles provided in English only. Audio quality is on par with the video quality in that it’s limited by the source materials but perfectly acceptable given the film’s low-fi roots. Sometimes the dialogue is a bit muffled but aside from that, it’s all fine for what it is.
Extras start off with a new commentary track with film critic and historian Hugo Lara that covers a lot of ground, going over the history of the main house location, Lorena Herrerra's career, details on who did what behind the scenes, Margarito Esparza's work in this movie and other projects, Alfredo Salazar's work as a director and as a writer, how the movie compares to other films that deal with a similar idea (killer doll movies), details on the other cast and crew members, the use of sound in the movie and more. There's a bit of dead air here and there and stretches where he simply narrates to us what we're seeing on the screen but there's also some good information about the movie's history here as well as some analysis of what works and what doesn't.
‘Memorias diabólicas: The Mexican Chucky’ is an eleven minute interview with actor Roberto Guinar who seems almost apologetic for appearing in a film that he clearly thinks is of very poor quality. He talks about how he came to appear in the movie, what it was like on set, getting along with his co-stars, the film’s director and how budgetary restraints affected the final product.
As far as the packaging goes, we get some nice double-sized cover art and copies purchased from Vinegar Syndrome's website can some with a limited edition spot gloss slipcover designed by Robert Sammelin that is limited to 3,000 units.
Herencia Diabólica – The Final Word:
Herencia Diabólica is pretty zany stuff, an otherworldly mix of low budget horror tropes and puzzling directorial choices that is as entertaining as it is perplexing. The Blu-ray release from Degausser Video brings the movie to disc for the first time in an English-friendly that looks and sounds as good as it probably can. Recommended for those with an affinity for low budget nonsense!