Incarnate

The movie takes some getting use to as it's a little off on genres.

Not a typical ghost story, Aaron Eckhart plays a doctor Who takes a very non religious method in exercising demons by using a gift he has to enter the minds of those "infected" by supernatural parasites and evicting as he calls it, the spirit by making its host realize that the perfect world the demon has created in its dreams is not real.

I was kinda expecting more of a horror movie theme but it's not that. that's what is a little off. It's not scary and it's not trying to scare you (At least I think, cause if it is it does do a bad job of it). It feels more like it's exploring or expanding the concept of a religious-less exercisium with a little background story to keep it interesting and keep it moving.

But it's a good movie to watch.

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The plot: a bitter scientist who can enter other people's dreams becomes an exorcist to hunt down the demon that killed his family.

If you're a fan of Aaron Eckhart, how could you not find this concept exciting? The problem is that the film gives you all kinds of promises and fails to deliver on any of them. Every step of the way, you're left thinking to yourself, "This movie could have been awesome." With such an over-the-top, absurd premise, you could have really gone crazy. Instead, it's by-the-numbers.

The dream sequences in particular could have been memorable. Remember The Cell by Tarsem Singh? That wasn't a great movie, but the dream sequences were great. Imagine what someone like David Cronenberg could have done with this concept! Instead, what do we get? A generic nightclub. A generic carnival. A generic park. When music videos from the 1990s look more visionary -- and disturbing -- than your horror movie, that's a problem.

Perhaps one of the more perplexing aspects of the story is that our hero rejects spiritual mumbo jumbo when it comes to demons, but he uses psychic powers to fight them. I suspect this was done to explain why he must fight the demons personally. But given that he's already obsessed with vengeance, why can't that be enough? Why does he also need superpowers?

The story is OK, but it often feels like it could have been so much more. Despite throwing several interesting ideas at you, it never rises above the pedestrian elevator pitch: "Fallen meets Inception". However, it's not boring, which is truly the only unforgivable sin in a horror movie.

I'll simply say this about Incarnate, if you're looking for a film that is in the vein of Insidious or some other horror film that relies on the viewer actually paying attention to the story over the typical guts and gore, then you're in luck. However, if you're looking to just kill an hour and a half with something mindless, look elsewhere. This movie, while by no means perfect, is also highly underrated and at least tries to put its' own twist on the whole possession sub-genre. Don't let the negative rating or reviews put you off, this is one film that you'll regret not viewing several years later. In this viewer's opinion, this is a future cult classic.

As a die-hard horror fan, a fan of Demonic Possession films, and a fan of great acting, I immediately wrote off this movie as being another Hollywood cash grab. Blumhouse is the worst thing to happen to horror since Rob Zombie started making movies, so seeing as this is another bullet to add to their arsenal in murdering the horror genre, I was weary about watching it. Couple that with the film not having any marketing up until a few weeks before it was released, and all of the signs pointed to a very half-a$$ed film to join the ranks of all of the other failed horror films of the last 10 years. After watching it, however, I am very glad to have been proved wrong. Incarnate ended up being original, entertaining, and the acting was really top notch, especially that of the three leads.

The problem I have with Possession films is that they rarely deviate from the formula; girl is possessed. Family calls priest. Priest needs okay from Vatican. Priest battles demon. One of more people die. The end. That has been the premise of every possession film of the last few years. Surprisingly, this movie goes completely left field, not adhering to any of the clichés that make the genre so deathly stagnant. The demon is now a "spirit parasite", the girl is replaced by a boy, there is no Catholic priest in sight, and the people who die actually deserve it this time. The movie does so many things right that it is really easy to overlook the things is gets wrong, and everything from the special effects to the script is written with an actual appreciation of what makes these movies entertaining in the first place. Sure, some parts are cheesy and straight out of the horror handbook, but when they are handled this well, does anyone really care? It's much better than the abominations we have gotten in the past, like The Last Exorcism or The Vatican Tapes.

Overall, if you like Possession films, good acting, and movies that are not made for children and teenagers, give this film a shot. You just might like what you see. I was thoroughly impressed by this, and although Blumhouse has a long way to redeeming itself, this is a great first step. A solid effort all around.

As far as Possession movies go there really isn't a whole lot left to do, and most films on the subject tend to not try anything new at all. That's where "Incarnate" stands out, the film does try to approach possession in a different and more science fiction way which on paper seemed like it could be really interesting, but unfortunately the execution was so basic that the whole thing ended up feeling really flat.

The film opens fairly promising, the opening scene kind of has an eighties horror feel to it and that continues on through the opening credit which I really dug. But from there the movie starts to take on a very strange vibe, the overall tone is serious but some of the characters and lines just felt like they were bordering on parody. Some parts of the movie were just so dumb that it was impossible to take it seriously. The main character (played by Aaron Eckhart) speaks in a very gruff severe tone and honestly I found myself laughing at his delivery on some of the lines. Eckhart is a good actor but his performance here was a little comical.

With all that said though the film does manage to be entertaining for the majority of it's run time. It's a very short film (clocking in just under an hour and twenty minutes) and the pacing is very quick so boredom was never really a big issue. So if you are interested in some cheap thrills and you are not easily put off by very dumb/cheesy movies than you may find yourself enjoying this.

5/10