Wednesday Review - Incarnate

Incarnate is a movie with potential that it fails to live up to. The ideas are clearly there, but really don’t seem to fit together. We have an agnostic exorcist more concerned with the practical aspects of casting out demons than the theory. But, we also get hints of a crisis of faith. Those hints are then never properly explored, and the whole issue of his world view seems largely irrelevant by the final act.

That’s not to say this is a “bad” movie. I’ve certainly given favorable reviews to movies with far less talent behind them. However, here it seems quite obvious that there was so much more to be achieved with this concept. The idea of an exorcism being treated like a true medical procedure has the potential for some truly groundbreaking drama.

The problem with this aspect of the film is that the manner in which the exorcism happens is laughable. The procedure involves our exorcist (referred to as an “Incarnate” once in the entire movie as best I can tell to justify the title) going into the minds of the possessed Inception-style, and attempting to break whatever illusion the demon created to keep it’s host passive. However, if the Incarnate remains in a trance for more than eight minutes his heart will stop.

We’re also given two ways by which the demon can transmit itself to a new host. During the trance it can jump into the Incarnate. It can also jump into anyone who touches it’s current host. In fact, the primary host of the film is a little boy who was attacked by the previous host, apparently in a bid to get someone more innocent and helpless.

This sounds like a great set-up. You have rules that can easily be manipulated to drive a strong narrative. You also have obvious safeguards like restraints on the victim and Incarnate, and bio hazard suits, that we can watch the demon trying to bypass by clever means. We’re even told the boy won’t survive more than three days, so we have a ticking clock.

But, we don’t get that. The possessed and Incarnate just sit in a room unrestrained, with nothing more than a warning of “don’t touch me.” Of course, when the Incarnate needs to be brought out of the trance, it’s done by an assistant, wearing a sleeveless shirt, with a syringe.

As for what actually does drive the plot...the demon that killed the Incarnate’s family. Rather than creating high drama, this just emphasizes that our main character is a dick who wouldn’t help save a little boy from demonic possession unless he, personally, was able to get revenge by doing so. And no, that is not speculation, he directly refuses to help until he is absolutely sure it’s the same demon.

So, like I said, there’s stuff here that’s entertaining, and some good ideas. Unfortunately, the movie could have been so much more, but fails utterly at that. Instead, we get a fairly simple Inception-style exorcism movie. Not something I’ve seen before, but not more than average without greater meat to the drama.