HYSTERIA!: THE INCUBUS (1981) - minor spoilers
Justin Kerswell
THE INCUBUS
(1981,US)
(*** 1/2)
directed by: John Hough
starring: John Cassavetes, Kerrie Keane, John Ireland, Erin Flannery,
Duncan McIntosh, Helen Hughes, Harvey Atkin, Mitch Martin
(Version under review: UK pre-cert tape on the VTC label)
It starts with business as usual. Whilst a teenage couple frolic
by a lake in their skimpy bathing costumes- enjoying the sunshine, they
are watched by something unseen lurking far back in the shadows. After
the pre-requisite false scare (where the boy- Roy, pretends to have
drowned), the couple stay on into the night. Mandy, the girl, decides to
slink off into the nearby trees and play a little hide-and-seek.
Instead, she's pulled backwards into the blackness- her blood curdling
screams bringing Roy rushing to her aid. Whilst he searches in vain Roy
is whacked across the head with a nail encrusted plank. ... Like I said,
it appears to be business as usual...
However, INCUBUS resolutely ain't business as usual. It may be
littered with a smattering of the cheesy trappings of early 80's slasher
cinema, but this flick is a far few shades darker than your usual teen
pruner- it's an example of one of the early 80's most disreputable sub-
sub-genres: the rape/slasher movie- albeit one with supernatural
leanings.
It turns out that Roy was killed outright- his body lies prone on
the mortuary slab, Mandy, however, suffered a different fate. ... The
small town of Galen, around which most of the film takes place, seems to
be in the mood for recrimination and most of the cast we're subsequently
introduced to try to justify their movements during the previous night.
A stern Mother, Agatha Galen (Helen Hughes) (a woman with a secret of
her own to hide), quizzes her twitchy adoptive teenage son about his
nocturnal movements- Jim (Duncan McIntosh) (who's been having nightmares
of a torture chamber and hooded figures hissing "Confess!"). Across town
Dr Sam Cordell (John Cassavetes) solemnly surveys the morning's papers,
and his teenage daughter, Jenny (an elfin Erin Flannery) who alludes to
his own recent tragedy- the death of his girlfriend (shown in flashback,
her body lying in the rain). The town's officials mope around with a
look of shock that's rare to see in these kind of movies, as they
discuss the night's events; and all the while new in town reporter and
owner of the local paper, Laura Kincaid (Kerrie Kean) takes in the
grisly details with a reptilian coolness.
Things take a turn for the strange (or I should say stranger) as
it is revealed that Mandy, who's lying in a state of shock in intensive
care, was raped (described in grisly detail- "...her uterus was
ruptured"); and the fact that the authorities were after more than one
man, as no one man could be responsible for all that sperm. An autopsy
also reveals that her boyfriend was killed by someone (something?) with
unnatural strength.
As more rapes begin to occur and the body-count continues to rise
Cassavettes sets out to discover who is behind them- he's aided by Kean,
who, in a strange twist of fate looks identical to his dead girlfriend.
Cassavetes' daughter attempts to try and comfort the increasingly
distraught Jim as he becomes more and more delusional and plagued by
nightmares. Whilst Jim's Mother pores over ancient text in a dusty
tome...
INCUBUS is a strange film which despite its subject matter
manages to avoid the sleazy excesses of other similarly themed genre
films of the time. For much of it's running time it feels like you are
secretly watching someone else's nightmares (especially during scenes in
a suitably doomy looking museum)- in fact it would make a great
companion piece to that other slice of rural gothic from the same year,
Wes Craven's sublime DEADLY BLESSING. In contrast to many of the other
films of the time it is pretty sombre- almost mournful. Most of the
characters, seem haunted- Cassavetes by his lost love and sexual
yearning for his own daughter; and Kean who hisses "I don't want
tenderness!", before sobbing to herself when alone in her car- imbuing
the film with a rare kind of twisted pathos.
This is at odds with some of the film which seems to have been
forcibly moulded into a semi-traditional slasher story- of course it
depends which way you look at it. I guess scenes like the one where a
teenage girl goes to see the hilariously PO-faced midget rocker Bruce
Dickinson do a typically early 80's rock/new wave/art/theatre number on
stage (surrounded by similarly dour looking Noo-wavers with Flock-of-
Seagulls hair sculptures), could push the film either way- from
cheddarville to somewhere altogether darker. ... Although, I guess
eating cheese late at night is supposed to give you nightmares.
Given the title of the film it is, with no real surprise, that
we learn that the villain of the piece is the supernatural Incubus of
the title (a devil who assumes a male's body to sleep with women). No,
the real mystery is whether or not this demon walks amongst the
townspeople in another form during the day- and if so who is it?
The film is based on the book by Ray Russell, and the Aurum Film
Encyclopaedia of Horror comments that, "In the novel, the incubus
possess an enormous phallus and sexually attacks its victims, a factor
which, not surprisingly (even in the climate of 1981), is played down in
the movie.". ... Played down it may be but this often much maligned and
difficult movie is still pretty hard to stomach, but is worth
persevering with- finishing with a climactic twist which manages to go
beyond the realms of nightmarish into the genuinely unhinged.
--------------------------------------------------------------
...if you'd like more on THE INCUBUS I've got up at my site the
UK pre-cert video artwork; tag-line; choice dialogue; loads of screen
caps and a body-count.
--
Justin Kerswell
=:-0 HYSTERIA! 0-:=
slashers! - gialli! - cheese!
http://www.south-over.demon.co.uk/
* now with 111 reviews!*
(now incl. FRENZY (1972) and SHORT NIGHT OF THE GLASS DOLLS (1972))
**** news section now open! ****
"Hey Boogeyman- let's Boogie!"
Mary McDonough confronts mortal danger
with disco in MORTUARY (1981)
Steve Belmont
They just don't make serious, unsettling, terrifying horror films like this
anymore.