The Heirloom

Posted by Chris Beaumont (chrisbeaumont@filmschoolrejects.com) on July 8, 2007

Asia has churned out some very good horror films over the past decade. Breathing life into the genre, they brought new vision and new approaches to the making of horror films. Of course the first ones to cross the pond were the good ones, films like The Ring, The Eye, Dark Water and The Grudge, then when the top tier titles were spent we started to get middling titles, and as those began to run out the quality has become even more muddled. The Heirloom hails from Taiwan, and while it picks up in the latter third, it is such a dreadfully dull slog that you may not be able to make it all the way through. The Heirloom is one of those movies that has some very good things going for it making the whole quite frustrating.

James Yang (Jason Chang) is an architect recently returning to Taiwan after studying in the UK. He has inherited a large Gothic mansion on the outskirts of Taipei. It is an old decaying home whose origins date back to the Chinese occupation. Even though he is urged by others to sell right from the start, he decides to keep it, and invites his girlfriend, Yo (Terri Kwan), to come and live with him there. Yo has some initial misgivings, but soon agrees to move in. Shortly thereafter, in what any veteran of these haunted-house-type tales will soon recognize as a familiar pattern, strange things start to happen. The first victims of the occurrences are James and Yo’s friends Yi-Chen and Cheng.

I guess it would help to back up a little bit. The film opens with title cards that describe the ancient Chinese tradition of worshiping young ghosts. In the old days, the Chinese would take dead fetuses and keep them in jars, feeding them blood in return for good fortune. Again, as any old practice used in movies of this type, this tradition has dire consequences. In this case, a mass suicide by James’ family twenty years earlier, leaving him as the only one left to inherit the family estate. Now that James is of age, the estate is his. The problem is that he knows nothing of his family’s legacy, of their use of dead fetuses to better the family’s fortune.

James and Yo try to make sense of what is going on, but they don’t make much headway. Then part of the way through the film James’ committed aunt reveals the dead baby legacy to Yo, who starts to piece things together. From this point on, it becomes the young couple’s mission to close this circle of death.

The biggest problem with the movie is that it moves so slowly that I found my interest never even building to the point where it could wane. I never really cared about the characters or became invested in their survival. The further it went, the smaller the chances became that I would care. Sure, the post-exposition time did get better, but it was too little too late to save the movie for me.

Despite what a slog it was, The Heirloom was not a complete loss. The cinematography is gorgeous, the mansion set becomes a character in itself, giving an aura of menace, dread, and impending doom. There are some gorgeous tracking shots through the expanse that are just great. Combine that with an intriguing score and you have a movie that does give viewers the distinct feeling that something bad is afoot; ultimately it is the story and the dreadful pacing that sinks the movie.

Audio/Video. The film is presented its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and it delivers a very nice image, nicely detailed and free of any major defects. Audio is presented in Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1. I listened to the Dolby track, and there is nothing to complain about.

Extras. There are a few included here, but nothing terribly compelling. Included are a commentary track with the director, screenwriter, and production crew, a brief making of featurette, deleted scenes, and the original trailer.

Bottomline. You could do much worse, but unless you are starved for Asian horror, I would not really recommend this. The pacing is just a killer of insomnia. There is some nice atmosphere, but again, not enough to save this bore.

Not Recommended.

Read more articles by Chris Beaumont