Incubus: Mörderische Träume

There are many worse horror movies out there! Thank God most of them don't get saddled with John Cassavettes in the cast. This film suffers from his underwhelming acting. From his expression alone you are never sure if he is appalled by the bizarre violence that continues throughout the film or is just amused by it. The story itself is not a bad one but a better director could not have hurt.

I have to admit I was drawn back to this film after years of searching because the Library/Museum in the story, with it's Gothic look that might have come straight out of Lovecraft has always stuck in my mind. And there is enough true mystery involved to make you keep wondering who the culprit really is up to the final; moment. I wouldn't eat a lot of greasy popcorn while watching this one.

John Hough's horror films are a mixed bunch, but this one is far more interesting than its horrendous critical reception would suggest. It is ostensibly a detective story of a small town policeman (John Cassavetes) investigating a series of unusually vicious rape homicides. Hough uses the structure to raise some provocative questions about penetration as violation. Sex and violence as one, forged and bonded in repression, resentment, sadism and envy.

The film is riddled with hints of the incestuous desire the protagonist has for his daughter. Hough thus plays with audience identification, seeking to implicate the viewer in a repulsive sexuality which, in a graphic morgue-table scene of a naked female cadaver, extends to incorporate necrophilia. The otherwise conventional plot is spiced up by a contemplation of p.o.v. as moderating aberrant sexuality. No wonder that critics and audiences found the film overly offensive and distasteful. Undeterred, Hough would treat similar themes in his equally maligned "American Gothic".

Graphic, contemplative and unrelenting in its bleakly oppressive visual style, this is a disturbing film experience: one of the more confrontational of taboo-breakers dealing with the always problematic theme of sexual homicide.

Intriguingly enough, the film has some elements in common with Wes Craven's "Deadly Blessing" released around the same time, and dealing with sex crime, isolated communities, deceptive innocence, female independence and role expectations, and the other-worldly demon, the Incubus.

Shocking, well-made chiller is an undervalued tale of atrocious murder and evil forces.

Small town doctor tries to discover who, or what, is committing a series of violent sexual murders.

Incubus is a tight mystery, with some horrific murder sequences, that builds to an off-beat and eerie climatic twist. The murder scenes are intense and gory, so this isn't a film for the squeamish! The direction of John Hough, along with a bizarre music score, combine to create a dark atmosphere of dread that runs through out the film. It also carries a kind of Gothic vibe as well. Nice filming locations and some stylish camera work also highlight.

The cast isn't bad either. The great John Cassavetes does a solid performance as the new doctor in town. Also good are the performances of Kerrie Keane as the local reporter, Helen Hughes as the town historian, and Duncan McIntosh as a tormented psychic teen.

All around Incubus is a forgotten horror film that needs to be re-discovered and re-evaluated.

*** out of ****

I picked up this one solely on the basis of its having John Cassavetes in it. Yes, it is low-budget, but despite that -- or maybe because of it -- the film is surprisingly effective. It's creepy. There's some gore but the slicing & dicing is almost all off-camera. With the exception of one scene about mid-movie, we don't see any of it. That works to make the movie more eerie -- we aren't distracted by the gross-out effect.

Cassavetes shows his talent -- he can make the worst dialogue sound believable. Unfortunately, the side effect of this is to make his coworkers sound even worse than they might have. Because a lot of the dialogue in this movie does stink out loud. On the other hand, there were a number of interesting scenes where you expected someone to break out in positively bad, cliched dialogue and instead -- nothing was said.

Others have commented on the creepiness of the doctor's quasi-incestuous relation with his daughter. It's all true. In fact, it was so blatant I was shocked that it would even get onto the screen. That kind of behavior is something that almost never gets shown.

Summary: good if you want to see a creepy movie with a great actor and lots of strange things going on. Not great art but worth a look.

John Cassavetes stars as a surgeon in a small Wisconsin town where a series of bizarre rapes-turned-murders are occurring left and right against the area's female residents. Thrown into the mix is his teenager daughter whose boyfriend claims to be witnessing the crimes as they are occurring within nightmares he experiences.

As far as I'm concerned, John Hough is one of horror's unsung heroes when it comes to mood and atmosphere- if "The Legend of Hell House" or the marginal Disney thriller "The Watcher in the Woods" aren't enough proof of that, "The Incubus" is. This dreary thriller is considerably more violent than Hough's other horror pictures, but has his signature stylistics that I absolutely love.

Like in most of all Hough's work, the cinematography is slick and thoughtful, making goosebumps-inducing use of POV shots. In the film, the camera follows the victims almost like a predator before launching its vicious assault, and each attack is just as effective as the next. There is also a strong gothic feel underpinning the events, and the photography accentuates the haunting landscapes (actually Ontario, serving as a midwest stand-in). The film's musty and discomforting atmosphere is underlined by an unnerving string score, another signature element of Hough's films. A somewhat withered Cassavetes is still at the top of his game here, with John Ireland supporting as the miffed sheriff and Kerri Keane as a nosy local reporter.

The film's bucolic setting is recurrently upended by instances of explicit sexual violence, and it features some of the most disturbing and visceral assault scenes I've ever seen in a horror film (the library sequence near the beginning especially stands out). Despite the picturesque pastoral setting, a sense of decay can be felt bubbling beneath the surface. The script's medley of violence and female sexuality under attack is effectively grotesque, and even more bizarre are the incestuous undertones and gender-bending revelation at the film's twisted conclusion. While the finale is irrefutably shocking (and the monster makeup surprisingly scary, even by today's standards), I can say that the narrative build-up could have been a tad better handled as it all does seem to come crashing down rather awkwardly; a bit more finesse in script and editing could have remedied this, but the film still works in spite of it.

Overall, I found "The Incubus" to be a formidable and disturbing film. Hough's handling of the bucolic locales is wonderful, and the effective, moody cinematography really establishes a menacing and inauspicious feel. The film's one major flaw is the hackneyed pacing in its last act, but I personally found this a forgivable sin given how strong the rest of it is. It is definitely one of the more aggressive horror films of its era in terms of themes, but the quaint and gothic feel hearkens back to a more classical and almost British sensibility. A fantastic thriller best suited for viewing on a chilly autumn night with all the lights off. 8/10.