Incubus

A very weird, quietly creepy horror film... I think a big chunk of the weirdness and creepiness goes down to the fact that the film is entirely in Esperanto (and also the bit with the goat).

Put together by Outer Limits staffers (who were apparently obsessed with artificial languages), the production values are not dissimilar to 50s/60s TV (the odd camera shadow, out of focus evil beings, etc), but the effects are strangely effective and the use of sound is genuinely creepy in a way that made me think of "Eraserhead".

This film is worth seeing if for no other reason than to see William Shatner overacting in Esperanto. Most of the film he keeps the overacting in check, but about an hour in he clearly can't help himself.

The concept for this full-length film as well as its genesis are truly weird. The guiding force behind the television show "The Outer Limits" (Leslie Stevens) decides to produce the first (and probably only) full-length American-made Esperanto film--with a plot that is strongly influenced by his TV show as well as Ingmar Bergman's THE SEVENTH SEAL! Talk about strange! Yet, oddly, the experiment works, though in hindsight I am glad the idea never really took off and resulted in further films in this so-called "international language".

The film begins with a Satan worshiping siren who has delighted in luring people to their deaths. However, apparently this is getting rather old and this lady confides to an older Devil-loving lady that she wonders what it's all about, why they only take the souls of evil ones and why the Lord of Darkness, if he's so powerful, needs their help anyway! And, in fact, she'd like to try battling against a righteous soul instead of the typical damned ones! Well, the older lady will have none of that and counsels her to do her job and get such foolish ideas out of her head. But, given that the younger lady is apparently quite stupid, she sets out to seduce a "nice guy"--who turns out to be a young William Shatner. The problem is that once the evil incubus (a soul-stealing demon) is summoned to take Shatner, the siren has fallen in love with him and is torn between her duty and doing what is right.

While all this probably sounds a bit silly to someone who has never seen the film, it somehow works--mostly due to the efforts of Stevens. An old score from one of the "Outer Limits" shows is recycled and sounds very, very eerie--fitting the action quite well. In addition, the black and white cinematography is lovely as well as the odd yet appropriate camera angles. These work together to make the film seem other-worldly--like it occurs perhaps on another world or in another time.

As for the actors, they did a pretty good job and I was amazed at their speaking this odd language. In particular, it was a bit jarring to see Shatner both speak the language AND actually do a competent job acting. In some shows and movies, he has a tendency to way over-act--and especially to over-emote. Here, however, he seems quite capable as the nice guy who cannot allow himself to give in to temptation. Sadly, however, according to IMDb and interviews with surviving film crew, two of the main actors would be dead within a year of the completion of the film--one due to suicide and another to a murder/suicide! As they said, the film had the "curse of the incubus" on it!

While I am sure this film would not interest most people due to its artsy style, it is entertaining and worth seeing if you are a patient person. Spooky, strange and amazingly successful for a project that reportedly cost less than $100,000 to produce. And, of all the many, many Esperanto films out there, this one is surely the best!

It's tempting to jokingly call this the best William Shatner movie in Esperanto I've ever seen, but it deserves better than that - it's a delightfully weird low-budget horror film that might best be described as "Ingmar Bergman Meets `The Outer Limits.'" The reference to the 60s TV series is apt, since several of the creative forces from that show were behind this film: writer-director Leslie Stevens; future Oscar-winning cinematographer Conrad L. Hall, and composer Dominic Frontiere (although I suspect they simply borrowed his "Outer Limits" themes to score this film). In fact, "Incubus" looks, sounds and feels so much like an episode of the "The Outer Limits," there were times I half-expected it to fade to commercial; a flash of nudity reminds us this isn't a TV show.

In "Incubus," a seductive female demon - a succubus - named Kia becomes bored with luring morally corrupt men to their eternal doom and sets her sights on a virtuous soldier named Marc, played by a pre-"Star Trek" Shatner (who guest-starred in an "Outer Limits" episode titled "Cold Hands, Warm Heart"). The bucolic out-of-time setting reminds me of the medieval Sweden of Bergman's "The Seventh Seal," and Hall's black & white cinematography is starkly beautiful. The Esperanto dialogue lends an exotic flavor with its vaguely recognizable European word roots. It also dresses up dialogue that might have been too over-the-top in English (in his DVD commentary, Shatner can't help chuckling when Kia declares, "There are no heroes burning in the fires of Hell!"). I'm reminded of the old joke that a movie seems more "artistic" if it's in a foreign language with subtitles - I guess Esperanto, originally intended to be a universal language, effectively makes "Incubus" a "foreign film" to just about everyone.

Shatner, as the young, handsome, dashing hero, is unmistakably Shatner, even in Esperanto. Allyson Ames is frostily beautiful as the evil Kia, while Ann Atmar is sweetly vulnerable as Marc's sister, Arndis.

I don't mean to over-praise "Incubus." It's a very well done little film, comparable to the original "Carnival of Souls" - if you don't expect too much, you may be pleasantly surprised at how much there is. It's definitely worth a look.

Writer/Director Leslie Stevens was previously best-known as the man behind the TV series "The Outer Limits", and it shows. Everything about this film is moody, atmospheric and vaguely threatening, while still tinged with beauty. The real surprise is that "Incubus" is much better than just an extended Outer Limits.

Shot in Big Sur on the central California coast in just two weeks and under a very small budget, the film more than makes up for those limitations with an imaginative script, fantastic visuals and well-nuanced acting. William Shatner gives what I consider to be the most subtle, unmannered performance of his career as the protagonist -- a weary, wounded soldier. The succubus who aims to cause his downfall is more than ably portrayed by Allyson Ames, who would've been quite at home in any Bergman film.

Bergman is, in fact, a reference point, with a few scenes obviously inspired by "Persona", "The Seventh Seal" and perhaps "Wild Strawberries". Other influences seem to be some of Kurosawa's early work and even Greek tragedies.

Many people consider the fact that every bit of dialogue (and even the credits) were in the Esperanto language, to be merely a gimmick. In fact, it was an inspired decision, and makes the film independent of time and place; perfectly complimenting the otherworldly mood. Most of the actors do quite well with it, and after a few minutes it sounds natural, and a bit like a cross between Swedish and Latin.

There are a few niggling problems: the actress who portrays the older succubus has a terrible declaimatory style, there are occasionally irrational plot turns, and worse -- the obtrusive subtitles that block out a large swath of the screen. This was necessitated by the fact that only one print of the film survived, and it had had French subtitles printed on it. When the print was rediscovered, director Stevens had to restore it for English-speaking audiences by blocking English subtitles over the top of the French!

I must mention the score, by Outer Limits composer Dominic Frontiere, which perfectly compliments the film. Conrad Hall's cinematography is at times breathtaking -- especially in one scene where Shatner wanders through a field by moonlight, the grasses swirling around him.

The film's denouement stays just on the better side of moralizing and manages to avoid heavy-handed Christian references. Indeed, the statues of Jesus, Mary and various saints in the village chapel seem just as threatening as the demons outside.

Although not quite as morally ambiguous as "The Wicker Man" (and probably shot for 1/10 the budget and in 1/10th the time), Incubus nevertheless is one of my favorite "horror" films of the 1960s, and well worth viewing. By the way, I disagree with the other poster suggested that Incubus is best viewed in a large group. I suggest that the intimate scale of this film works best when watched alone on a rainy night. Prepare to be frightened, disturbed and surprised.

A macabre footnote: within a year, both the actress who portrayed Shatner's sister and the actor who played the incubus would commit suicide.

Made by some of the same folks who worked on the great Outer Limits television series, this little-known gem (shot entirely in Esperanto, a language conceived to become a universal dialect in the late 19th Century) is definitely one-of-a-kind and worth checking out. William Shatner stars as war vet and all-around good and decent guy who lives with his sister (some Freudian implications are present) in a nameless and nearly-vacant coastal village. He is briefly led astray by a seductive, blonde devil-worshipper (Allyson Ames) under false pretenses...he thinks it's for the mutual attraction and she is basically plotting to kill him and deliver another soul over to Satan.

The remastering job is a crystal clear b/w print, gorgeously shot by Conrad L. Hall (AMERICAN BEAUTY) around picturesque Big Sur locations. Director Leslie Stevens achieves some amazing shots, throws in some great camera-work and the films has faint echoes of CARNIVAL OF SOULS and many Mario Bava films. The plotting (Shatner falling in love in the course of an afternoon and some heavy-handed religious themes) is often at odds with the is lyrical and poetic tone of the film, but it has many standout sequences (including a winged demon seen only in shadow, a solar eclipse, the human "incubus" rising from the grave, an opening murder of the succubus drowning a drunken man in the ocean...) to recommend it.