IMDb RATING
6.1/10
2.1K
YOUR RATING
On a strange island inhabited by demons and spirits, a man battles the forces of evil.On a strange island inhabited by demons and spirits, a man battles the forces of evil.On a strange island inhabited by demons and spirits, a man battles the forces of evil.
Jay Ashworth
- Monk
- (uncredited)
Forrest T. Butler
- Monk
- (uncredited)
Paolo Cossa
- Narrator
- (voice)
- (uncredited)
Ted Mossman
- Monk
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaWhile theatrical distribution was being sought for the film, actor Milos Milos murdered Barbara Thomason Rooney (also known as actress Carolyn Mitchell, then wife of Mickey Rooney) and then killed himself following Rooney's discovery of their affair. Twelve days before the San Francisco International Film Festival premiere, actress Ann Atmar committed suicide. Two years following the premiere, Marina Habe, daughter of actress Eloise Hardt, was abducted and brutally murdered. The case remains unsolved. Domestic theatrical distribution for the film was never obtained, the film elements were stored away, and the film fell into total obscurity in the US.
- GoofsOn one of the DVD commentary tracks, Anthony M. Taylor explains that the original screenplay was written in English and then translated into Esperanto. A sole surviving print of the film was found in Paris, subtitled in French. A copy of the original screenplay was found and the English language subtitles are based on the script, not a translation of the spoken Esperanto dialogue back to English, so any mistranslations are actually from the English to Esperanto, not vice versa, or else were changes which were not incorporated back into the original English language script. The English subtitles are sometimes erratic. For example, at one point Marc says to Kia: "I want us to be together. To stay together ... as man and woman." This matches the Esperanto dialogue. Then he says, "Mi volas havi infanon." The correct translation: "I want to have a child." The subtitles say: "The right way." He also says, "Mi deziras, ke ni estas kune." Translation: "I want us to be together." Subtitles say, "I want your body ... and I want to give you mine."
- ConnectionsEdited from The Outer Limits: Nightmare (1963)
Featured review
Ingmar Bergman Meets `The Outer Limits'
It's tempting to jokingly call this the best William Shatner movie in Esperanto I've ever seen, but it deserves better than that - it's a delightfully weird low-budget horror film that might best be described as "Ingmar Bergman Meets `The Outer Limits.'" The reference to the 60s TV series is apt, since several of the creative forces from that show were behind this film: writer-director Leslie Stevens; future Oscar-winning cinematographer Conrad L. Hall, and composer Dominic Frontiere (although I suspect they simply borrowed his "Outer Limits" themes to score this film). In fact, "Incubus" looks, sounds and feels so much like an episode of the "The Outer Limits," there were times I half-expected it to fade to commercial; a flash of nudity reminds us this isn't a TV show.
In "Incubus," a seductive female demon - a succubus - named Kia becomes bored with luring morally corrupt men to their eternal doom and sets her sights on a virtuous soldier named Marc, played by a pre-"Star Trek" Shatner (who guest-starred in an "Outer Limits" episode titled "Cold Hands, Warm Heart"). The bucolic out-of-time setting reminds me of the medieval Sweden of Bergman's "The Seventh Seal," and Hall's black & white cinematography is starkly beautiful. The Esperanto dialogue lends an exotic flavor with its vaguely recognizable European word roots. It also dresses up dialogue that might have been too over-the-top in English (in his DVD commentary, Shatner can't help chuckling when Kia declares, "There are no heroes burning in the fires of Hell!"). I'm reminded of the old joke that a movie seems more "artistic" if it's in a foreign language with subtitles - I guess Esperanto, originally intended to be a universal language, effectively makes "Incubus" a "foreign film" to just about everyone.
Shatner, as the young, handsome, dashing hero, is unmistakably Shatner, even in Esperanto. Allyson Ames is frostily beautiful as the evil Kia, while Ann Atmar is sweetly vulnerable as Marc's sister, Arndis.
I don't mean to over-praise "Incubus." It's a very well done little film, comparable to the original "Carnival of Souls" - if you don't expect too much, you may be pleasantly surprised at how much there is. It's definitely worth a look.
In "Incubus," a seductive female demon - a succubus - named Kia becomes bored with luring morally corrupt men to their eternal doom and sets her sights on a virtuous soldier named Marc, played by a pre-"Star Trek" Shatner (who guest-starred in an "Outer Limits" episode titled "Cold Hands, Warm Heart"). The bucolic out-of-time setting reminds me of the medieval Sweden of Bergman's "The Seventh Seal," and Hall's black & white cinematography is starkly beautiful. The Esperanto dialogue lends an exotic flavor with its vaguely recognizable European word roots. It also dresses up dialogue that might have been too over-the-top in English (in his DVD commentary, Shatner can't help chuckling when Kia declares, "There are no heroes burning in the fires of Hell!"). I'm reminded of the old joke that a movie seems more "artistic" if it's in a foreign language with subtitles - I guess Esperanto, originally intended to be a universal language, effectively makes "Incubus" a "foreign film" to just about everyone.
Shatner, as the young, handsome, dashing hero, is unmistakably Shatner, even in Esperanto. Allyson Ames is frostily beautiful as the evil Kia, while Ann Atmar is sweetly vulnerable as Marc's sister, Arndis.
I don't mean to over-praise "Incubus." It's a very well done little film, comparable to the original "Carnival of Souls" - if you don't expect too much, you may be pleasantly surprised at how much there is. It's definitely worth a look.
helpful•554
- genekim
- Jun 19, 2003
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Leslie Stevens' Incubus
- Filming locations
- Santa Catalina Island, Channel Islands, California, USA(underwater scenes)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 18 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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