Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Herencia Diabólica Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Brian Orndorf April 20, 2024

Trends in horror are a common occurrence, and they often result in some weird takes on the source material. 1993’s “Herencia Diabolica” aims to cash-in on the “Child’s Play” craze (the film is also known as “The Mexican Chucky”), bringing the nightmare of a killer doll to life once again, only without much in the way of a budget or screenwriting. It’s a cheap endeavor from co-writer/director Alfredo Salazar, who doesn’t have the time and patience to establish a functional genre exercise. He’s more focused on filling the run time, delivering a heavily padded offering of tiny terror with “Herencia Diabolica,” which is dull and generally uninterested in craziness for almost an hour, and when the effort finally gets around to macabre happenings, there’s still a concerning lack of insanity to make the picture memorable beyond its severe creative shortcomings.

Tony (Roberto Guinar) is a businessman in New York City who’s been called back to Mexico after the death of his great aunt. He’s joined by wife Annie (Holda Ramirez), with the pair inheriting a mansion, excited to relocate and begin a new chapter in their lives. Excitement is increased with news of Annie’s pregnancy, though Tony is often away at work, leaving his wife to care for the property. While exploring the dwelling one afternoon, Annie discovers a hidden room that contains a satanic altar and a trunk with a large clown doll inside. Showing her finding to Tony, she learns the doll was emotional support for the deceased when her husband passed away, never letting it go. Unsure what to do with the toy, Annie looks to throw it away, only to find the seemingly stuffed doll return to view, and it’s happy to get rid of her. Six years later, Tony has remarried, taking office assistant Doris (Lorena Herrera) for a wife, while son Roy (Alan Fernando) has found a special plaything in the doll. Becoming best friends with the toy, Roy forms a strange bond with the clown, but Doris isn’t comfortable with such a presence in the house. She works to eliminate the plaything, learning that the pint-sized pal is actually quite alive and eager to kill again.

The writing in “Herencia Diabolica” isn’t big on introductions. Tony is a man of some type of business, and his relationship with Annie seems to be loving, with the couple happy New Yorkers (established with stock footage), eager to take advantage of the great aunt’s death and move back to Mexico. Motivations are decently clear, but Salazar doesn’t welcome viewers into the story, establishing the couple’s sex life long before we even learn their names. Perhaps that’s not a huge deal for most viewers, but some sense of character intimacy is always appreciated, getting to know the people who will soon be terrorized by a killer doll.

Annie is the one to discover the clown, finding her way to a special room devoted to the worship of evil. Much like “Child’s Play,” the story involves characters dealing with the mysterious ways of the seemingly inanimate object, with Annie unsure what’s happening with the toy. She tries to hide it, and it comes back, growing fearful of the doll, who’s sold as both a stuffed prop and a little person when movement and menace is required. There’s no effort to perfect the illusion, but that’s generally the “Herencia Diabolica” way, as Salazar doesn’t appear to have a game plan for the feature beyond Chucky-style horror.

The clown eventually makes its presence known, and Annie exits the endeavor, leaving Tony to raise Roy. Of course, there are nannies for that, and the man of money eventually marries Doris, a glamorous woman who tries to be something of a parent to Roy, only to be confronted with the doll. “Herencia Diabolica” sets up a bond between Roy and the clown, but it primarily recycles the central conflict, with Doris following in Annie’s footsteps, discovering the strangeness of the toy. She hides it around the house, and the toy reappears. She dumps it into a pond, and it comes back wet. She eventually tries to mail it away, only to have the package stolen out of her convertible, effectively transferring the problem to someone else. “Herencia Diabolica” takes 55 minutes before it really delivers a traditional horror moment, with blood finally flowing in the movie. It’s a long wait for mayhem to erupt, but Salazar doesn’t build on the moment, returning to lethargic pacing and repetitive scenes of paranoia.

Herencia Diabólica Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

"Herencia Diabolica" opens with a note from Degausser Video explaining that the movie was originally shot on film but finished on tape, and "the original film materials are lost and presumably destroyed." It also states that "during the film-to-video telecine transfer process in the early 90s, several instances of irregular frame and field cadences were introduced which present as dropped and/or repeated frames." With such information in mind, the AVC encoded image (1.34:1 aspect ratio) presentation largely resembles many video-based releases, offering a blurry look at frame information. A general appreciation of actors and doll events is present. Interiors around the mansion and exteriors are also passably appreciable. Color is adequate, with more vivid hues on the doll, with its red and yellow costuming. Brighter views are also found with a theme park visit and red blood. Some mild damage is detected.

Herencia Diabólica Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 2.0 DTS-HD MA mix provides a straightforward listening experience, finding some age with dialogue exchanges, which also hit technical limitations. Scoring is simple synth and adequately supports horror moods.

Herencia Diabólica Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary features film historian Hugo Lara.

• "Memorias Diabolicas: The Mexican Chucky" (11:11, HD) is an interview with actor Roberto Guinar, who began his long career as a child performer, developing a fondness for the work, also enjoying training as a singer. Time on sets allowed Guinar to understand the various parts of production, falling in love with the process, especially curious about direction. The interviewee discusses some aspects of "Herencia Diabolica," amusingly trashing the feature, calling it a "disappointment" and declaring he had no "power" to improve the movie. Guinar isn't kind when discussing co-stars and director Alfredo Salazar, but does recognize the "diversity of opinion" about the picture.

• A Trailer has not been included on this release.

Herencia Diabólica Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"Herencia Diabolica" does escalate with elements of dark magic, and there's a climatic chase to close with something of a bang. There's also the central image of the doll, which pushes the feature towards silliness that's meant to pass for scares. It's difficult to find anything in the endeavor even remotely frightening, especially when Doris has a tremendous size advantage over her tiny stalker. Unfortunately, "Herencia Diabolica" isn't a bonkers exercise in genre filmmaking or high camp. It's a loosely scripted tour of the house and character unsteadiness, with Salazar trying desperately to fill his effort with whatever he can to reach a sellable run time (this includes an admittedly interesting trip to a bizarre fairy tale theme park, and the ending simply recaps all the deaths in the picture). A killer doll. Mexico. Multiple marriages. This should really be a more exciting movie.