Incubus (1982)

That was an excellent one.

A Disappointing Continuation

A Brilliant Conflict

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

In a small town, Roy Seeley (Matt Birman) and his girlfriend Mandy Pullman (Mitch Martin ) are camping by the lake. Out of the blue, they are attacked and Roy is murdered while Mandy is violently raped. Dr. Sam Cordell (John Cassavetes) is impressed with the violence and realizes that Mandy has had the uterus ruptured. Then the librarian Carolyn Davies (Denise Fergusson) is also violently raped and murdered. Lieutenant Drivas (Harry Ditson) believes that the women have been raped by a gang while Sam and Sheriff Hank Walden (John Ireland) believe that only one man did. The snoopy reporter Laura Kincaid (Kerrie Keane) is always interfering with the investigation and Sam has a love affair with her. Meanwhile the young Tim Galen (Duncan McIntosh), who dates Sam's daughter Jenny Cordell (Erin Flannery), discloses that he has premonitory visions of the deaths, but his grandmother Agatha Galen (Helen Hughes) tries to convince him that he has nothing to do with the murders. But when Jenny learns about his dreams, she summons her father and Laura and they discover a supernatural secret about the Galen's family."Incubus" is a horror movie with an intriguing story, good cast including John Cassavetes and beautiful cinematography. Unfortunately the screenplay is not well written and characters are left behind without explanation. The worst, the deceptive conclusion is awful. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "Incubus"

Years ago a movie going friend and I went to see a horror film that we thought would be good because it starred John Cassavetes. For the uninitiated, John Cassavettes was an actor, screen writer and director (married to actress Gena Rowlands), nominated for Oscars three times, who wrote and directed a variety of good low-budget films using his income as an actor to keep himself afloat. Up until seeing The Incubus, we did not understand that John Cassavetes income was made from any movie that was offered to him. Had we known what the film was about before seeing it we may have avoided altogether. But we did not walk out. At the time, my friend and I jokingly indicated it was the worst movie ever made. Now frankly, this is not true. I have seen many poorly made films on Friday nights on Cinemax (did I just say that out loud?) that are far worse than The Incubus. Almost any movie starring Brian Bosworth is by definition a worse movie than The Incubus. Certainly Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a worse movie than The Incubus. However, I have since consistently used The Incubus as a threshold below which I do not want to fall. When talking to this friend about a movie I may have seen I will always remark that it was better (or worse) than The Incubus.http://thevillagevideot.blogspot.com/

~Spoiler~ 1981's The Incubus is a hard film to review. There were moments that are tense and scary, and parts that are cheesy and dumbfounding (I love Bruce Dickenson, but that Samson video was lame, not to mention out of place). The film's plot follows several characters investigating horrendous rapes that are occurring in a small New England town. Many of the tense scenes come from these rapes and murders. One sequence in particular starts in a barn and finishes in a bathroom; it really makes the movie. And I guarantee this did not look as good on paper. John Hough is a good director (although he has made some stinkers) and it shows here. Not to mention John Cassavetes. Cassavetes brings a class and a presence to the picture. I guess the ending was the deciding factor for me. The person the Incubus turned out to be didn't make a whole lot of sense. And why did it have to be a character? This would have been much better if it was just a creature and not one of the cast members. It was a nice, dark ending for a change, but it didn't mesh with the rest of the film. So I can recommend The Incubus for a rental and nothing more.

Based on Ray Russell's dark bestseller, this John (WATCHER IN THE WOODS) Hough-directed bust has little going for it.Though it does not lack gory violence, it lack narrative sensibility and "characters".The "Incubus" of the title is a demon endowed with a mammoth penis that shoots red sperm into vaginas during intercourse -- or, to be more precise, rape.John Cassavetes, moonlighting from his successful directing career, is convincing as a doctor who questions the circumstances of the bizarre attacks on young women.Horrific possibilities of the victims spawning demonic offspring are not considered -- and neither is the audience's tolerance for slow moving garbage.The script's reluctance to explore the dramatic repercussions of a fertile premise exemplifies the major problems with this vapid Big-Schlong-On-The-Loose exercise.