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INCUBUS
Produced by Kevin Collins, Tommy Chase, Sol Clink, Peter J. Evanko, and Casey Yip
Written and Directed by Jess Franco
Director of Photography -Johan - Cartsen Frank
Lucy/Lorna - Carina Palmer
Johan's Wife - Lina RomayI must be a glutton for punishment. I'm talking hot curling irons in the bad place punishment. Why else would I go straight for Jess Franco screener right out the of the box? With his recent Sub Rosa track, BLIND TARGET and VAMPIRE BLUES, this one should have been left sitting....behind my dresser...bookshelf....refrigerator. Maybe I was just putting off the inevitable. Get the worst out of the way first and things can only get better...
And I'll sell you prime beach front property in South Dakota...
The sad truth is that I'm obsessed with Franco. Not so much the man or his work, just the rabid cult following he possesses. I might be well on my way to the next plain of existence, but even if it's the last thing I ever do it I will find out what the big deal is over this guy. Why do people worship him the way they do? Pound for pound, toe to toe, famously "bad" directors like Ed Wood come across like Orson Wells compared to this guy.
To it's credit, INCUBUS is a step up compared to the atrocity of VAMPIRE BLUES. Franco at least makes an attempt to tell a story with clearly defined characters and relationships, or at least as clearly defined as they can be with exposition-laced dialogue that reveals all key plot devices. It's a case of telling and not showing, just the opposite of VAMPIRE BLUES, where it was all showing and not telling...well, more like exhibiting and not showing. Watching VAMPIRE BLUES is like being stuck at the 25 cent peep show booth because all the 50 cent girls are taken.
If nothing else, INCUBUS is the 50 cent booth. Why would anyone take the 50 cent booth? Because all the table dancers are taken.
I'm not even sure Franco took the time to research out the monster correctly. Isn't an incubus and male-oriented sexual predator, like the ghost/demon in THE ENTITY? A succubus would be the female version...maybe in Franco's world the title creature is hermaphroditic... I think Franco didn't care enough to bother finding out, he knows his fans will buy his product blindly. Who in the heck can I get that kind of following?
Regardless, the female incubus, named Lorna, has returned to recover what's owed to her, the child, Lucy, which she helped Johan conceive 20 years prior. With his Johan's wife sick and dying, Lorna told Johan that if he made love to her, and then to his wife, the wife would recover, a child would be born, and all of his dreams come true.
I think I've used the same line myself once or twice....
...and was subsequently laughed right out of the bar.
Lorna spends much of her time torturing Johan, both sexually and mentally, with whips, bondage, and phone calls promising that she'll collect on their bargain and take Lucy away.
Carina Palmer protrays both Lucy and Lorna, and Franco plays it to the perverse hilt with some disturbing incestual overtones. While not played for the completely wasted, sleazy thrills as in VAMPIRE BLUES, INCUBUS does contain a sexual frankness that's a Franco staple, probably more so than any other movie of his I've seen. Incest. S&M. Rape. Sodomy. All hallmarks of Franco's twisted sexual world, but they've never meshed as cohesively as they do in this tale of family dynamics.
Don't get me wrong, there's no change of heart on my part. The movie's still bad, and I can't recommend it and still have a clear conscious. There's no getting around that whatsoever. But I can at least now see what might have once created the Franco fanbase, wall to wall sex.
The DVD presentation is a few steps down compared to Sub Rosa's masterful MARI COOKIE disc, which as a movie gets better and better with ever subsequent Franco I see...even though I didn't care for it one bit at the time of viewing. INCUBUS' digital print quality and transfer are fine with no visible artifacing. Like every Franco, this is dubbed into English and the actors sound about as flat as a two Eunuchs comparing notes on bunions.
Complementing the disc is a behind-the-scenes documentary that contains no rhyme, reason, or rational, just free-flowing footage highlighting different moments of production. Of note are two short films that are vastly superior to the main feature in all regards, MARRAKECH LONDON and THE PERFECT TAXI DRIVER. There's no visible evidence for their inclusion on the disc other than a title card indicating they are from the same production company the produced INCUBUS.