Vallenegro
2007 · 24m · España
Directed by Raúl Jiménez Gil, Roberto Julio Álamo
Genres: fantasy, horror, mystery
Tones: contemplative, dark, surreal
After his uncle's death, young Carlos inherits remote lands near the isolated village of Vallenegro, where he finds a strange book hiding terrible secrets beyond human comprehension.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Vallenegro wants to be Lovecraftian cosmic horror, but it's too reverent to the formula—the book-as-McGuffin, the inheritance-as-plot-device, the village mystery box. Nothing here makes me say 'wait, WHAT?' because I've already seen this film twice, just in different fonts.
A formally considered entry in the literary horror tradition, where the inheritance-plot structure and the book-as-text serve as vehicles for exploring the relationship between knowledge and transgression; the restraint in not showing what Carlos discovers is the film's most rigorous formal choice.
That choice to keep the book's contents unseen—to let dread live in Carlos's face and the sound design rather than exposition—is the move that justifies the 24 minutes; a young directing team trusting negative space instead of revelation.