Movie Review – Incubus (1965)

This oddball movie has a pre-Star Trek William Shatner starring as a completely pure soul. Feel free to “read more” and learn if it’s worth your valuable time.

Premise

A Succubus (a demon that lures impure souls into Hell) decided to face a real challenge, and lure a pure soul into Hell. The soul she chose was that of Marc, a war hero, had a secret weapon: love.

Cast, Crew, and Other Info

William Shatner as Marc
Milos Milos as the Incubus
Allyson Ames as Kia, the Succubus

Written and directed by Leslie Stevens
Cinematography by Conrad L. Hall

The IMDB page is here.
The official site is here.

Additional Trivia

This is the only Hollywood produced film to date with dialogue entirely in Esperanto. The DVD has English or French subtitles. This was tricky, as the only remaining copy of the print had French subtitles on it, so the English subtitles had to be superimposed.

High Point

It’s got to be the novelty of seeing this movie at all. This is actually a good movie, a surprise since I was expecting a Plan Nine From Outer Space type of film. Even the pre-Star Trek William Shatner did a capable job as Marc.

Low Point

Kia and Marc fall in love far too quickly, as is often done in movies involving romance.

The Scores

This film is nothing if not original. The concept, including the decision to make it in Esperanto (as there is no reason for demons to speak English, and Esperanto is easy to learn), is unlike any movie I’ve seen (that predates 1965.) I give it 6 out of 6.

The effects were few and flawed. Even allowing for the age of the film, the fight with the goat and the wings (built by one of the actors) were never convincing. Aside from the summoning of the Incubus, none of the effects were particularly good. The summoning manages to pull the score up to 3 out of 6.

The story had only two weak points; the short time required for Marc and Kia to fall in love, and the amount of time it takes for one character to die. (I think this character took longer to die than Paul Reubens did in Buffy The Vampire Slayer.) I give it 4 out of 6.

The acting is surprisingly good. Normally I’d give it 4 out of 6, but the added challenge of working in a foreign language is worth a little extra, so the final score is 5 out of 6.

When rating the emotional response, I have to admit that I honestly didn’t know if good would triumph over evil until the last few minutes. Even then, I was still interested in seeing how events would play out. I give it 4 out of 6.

This was obviously a low budget production. However, it wasn’t terrible. The cinematography was by far the best element. The directing was capable, but not fantastic. The musical score was impressive for the first few minutes, but rapidly grew repetitive and tiresome. I give the production 3 out of 6.

When determining the overall score, I find myself wondering how well it would hold up to repeated viewings. The best part of the movie was certainly the novelty that it even exists, although the rest of the movie is actually a decent film. I’ll account for the novelty by dropping my instinctive score by one point, leaving it with 4 out of 6.

In total, Incubus receives 29 out of 42, which in all honesty, was almost 10 points higher than I expected it to get when I ordered it.

2 replies on “Movie Review – Incubus (1965)”

    • Re: Buffy?

      Someone say Buffy?

      I guess it’s safe to assume I wasn’t
      the only Bureau 42 user who was laughing his/her head
      off at Spike’s negotiating techniques on Tuesday.

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