Incubus

This was a simple, odd but thoroughly spellbinding little film. Leslie Stevens [director], Conrad Hall [3-time Oscar winning cinematographer] and Dominic Frontiere [music] of OUTER LIMITS [1963-1965] fame are behind this one. It sort of plays out like an extended Outer Limits episode. All about a succubus [female demon who preys upon men] who gets tired of corrupting "tainted" or bad guys and wants a greater challenge---to corrupt a 'good' guy. Her victim, Marc, is a recovering war-hero played by William Shatner. The setting is a remote rural village reknowned for its healing waters where Marc, accompanied by his sister, has gone to convalesce from his war injury/trauma. The obscure healing sanctuary is fertile ground for predation, attracting the needy but often naive faithful. The dialogue in this film is in the artificial constructed language of esperanto which gives the film a very unearthly and stange atmosphere. Allyson Ames plays the succubus named Kia---she is intriguing and provocative throughout. However, she is warned by an elder she-demon that good men are capable of expressing and using something called "love" that can harm her. She scoffs at the warnings and goes on her way soon encountering Marc and his sister. Kia's arrival is followed by a solar eclipse which seems to portend both Kia's dark side but also a benign side [her human side?] as grazing cattle do come in during the dimming interposition and do not stay or gallop further out as they would if she were pure evil. After Marc, who is captivated by her, "defiles" her by making love to her the confused femme fatale attempts to procure revenge by summoning the dev himself. Bill should'a known this babe wasn't right when he asked her something having to do with love and having a soulmate and she replied: "I don't have a soul". This is just not something everybody puts down in their life-partner application. The dev sends an incubus [male demon who preys upon women] to settle things. He is expulsed from the ground in eerie fashion and goes on to attack Marc's sister and then battles Marc. The latter manages to "kill" the incubus but is himself badly wounded and struggles toward his Church. Kia, who is now irrevocably in love with Marc, follows but is attacked by the resurrected incubus who is transformed into an unsettling black ram. Both Marc & Kia, prone & wounded, reach out for each other's hands and Kirk---I mean, Marc---pulls her into the presumed safety of the Church with the ram staring at the two, its image emblazoned on the screen as the movie ends: good winning out over evil? More likely a reminder of the perpetual human struggle between good [i.e. spirituality/selflessness] and evil [i.e. excess/egoism], between conviction and temptation, and of the price of human heroism. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this unusual film. As is typical of Stevens and his Outer Limits episodes the setting is a benign, even beautiful [forest & ocean] place that yet conveys an uneasy sense of isolation and alienation, the latter resonating in the stoic, inscrutable faces of the protagonists. The perpetually pained look on Marc sister's face throughout was noteable. The great Hall b&w cinematography, the esperanto lingo, the Frontiere music all contribute to a uniquely eerie, metaphysical experience. I was glued to my seat. The subtitles positioned almost into the middle of the screen were annoying, making the viewer savor silence early on, but you do get used to it. I purchased this DVD and am proud to have it in my collection as the film is simple but unique and evocative and just something to be experienced. Interesting how demonic sexual assault, as suggested in this film, was dealt with in spectacular fashion only 3 years later with the landmark ROSEMARY'S BABY, [1968].

I was curious to see this curious gothic horror DVD due to several main aspects. The creators, producers and crew include a number of the same ones as *Outer Limits* ~ after they had gained good experience via that fine dark classic sci-fi series ~ even including the musical composer / director Dominic Frontiere [which I first noticed in *Invaders* via his darkly alien music] ~ as well as being produced by Anthony M. Taylor and written / directed by Leslie Stevens ~ with great presentation ~ via narrator Paolo Cossa and especially cinematography via Conrad Hall and William Fraker. Those last two evoking similar quality alien, stark and quiet *gothic graphics* ~ as the way more famous *Beauty and the Beast*. The [*Big Sur*] ocean, water, weather, visibility, cliffs, hills, trees, grass, religious and secular settings are all used to richly enhance the visual vibes of the *gothic gyre* ~ which is indeed quite *dark* at times ~ maybe even too much for some viewers [**warning**] ~ but completed the *gothic gyre* [for me]. BUT there's also the *fair stars* William Shatner and Alyson Ames and the *dark stars* Milos Milos and Ann Atmar ~ both sets of *stars* in a fine and fun *gothic gyre* [dark dance] mixing together ~ and all four of these vividly evoking their roles. The two *dark stars* even WENT dark soon after production ~ passing away for real [via separate deaths]. SO we miss seeing how Milos Milos and [especially] Ann Atmar could have grown as *stars*. AND this whole show is in Esperanto ~ for a truly otherworldly effect. There are subtitles in English that were re-done over the ones in French [which has a forced-bonus of these subtitles rendered onto black-out strips making them easier to read]. Mysteriously many copies of this film disappeared around the whole world [a number perishing via actual fires] ~ leaving only a few ~ with even an available one in France needing frame-by-frame optical copying and restoration. The DVD has a number of fine special features such as commentary, interviews and actor-bios. Otherworldly Esperanto Gothic Gyre ~~~

Before he was Captain Kirk on TV's STAR TREK, William Shatner did some brilliant and disturbing work in both TV and independent/small budget film. He appeared on THE TWILIGHT ZONE and did a seriously sinister turn as a racist preacher in the Roger Corman film THE INTRUDER (also known by the title SHAME, which is how I first saw it on VHS). His role as the virtuous man Marc in INCUBUS, this wild 1965 film from OUTER LIMITS creator Leslie Stevens, is equally strange and very daring. More than the gimmick of watching pre-TREK Shatner, however, this is a truly creepy and unnerving film about the primal fears of life/death, heaven/hell, soul/abyss, etc.While this film transfer is crisp and clear, I do have a complaint about it. All the film's dialogue was spoken in the made-up language of Esperanto. Here, you can't switch off the English-language subtitles so as to lose yourself in the surreal vibe you get from watching everyone talk to each other and not necessarily understanding what's being said. The best you can do on this DVD version is switch to French subtitles - even there, the words get in the way of the picture so that's an added distraction.Still, it's a wonderfully dark and fascinating film and certainly far more thought-provoking than the average viewer might think of a film featuring Shatner in the months before he took over the Enterprise.P.S. -- Watch for a young Robert Fortier in the opening moments of the film. For those in the know, Fortier played a number of roles in the films of Robert Altman throughout much of the 1970s (you may remember him best as the sad-eyed drunk who gratefully takes Warren Beatty's whiskey flask in 1971's MCCABE & MRS. MILLER).OK, so get this DVD -- all ye who care about film. And let's collectively hope they may someday produce a version of INCUBUS on DVD that doesn't use any subtitles at all - just Esperanto, all the way.

Incubus is weird-interesting and weird-weird but never weird-bad. It's gorgeously shot with crazy dialogue that is smudged over by translating the whole thing into the universal language Esperanto. Why Esperanto? It''s hard to know for sure. Did anybody on the production speak Esperanto? Nope. The male lead is a young William Shatner, just on the verge of doing Star Trek, and the rest of the cast are unknowns who are trying so very hard. Incubus is the stuff movie obsessions are made of.