Rating: 
Summary: Good
Review: I bought this DVD mostly on a whim, being a fan of Shatner's. I had heard nothing about it beyond the fact that it was in Esperanto and was a lost cult classic. It was an interesting film, an excellent low budget horror film. Certainly a worthy addition to my collection. Conrad Hall shows early flashes of his later brilliance in operating the camera. Shatner does a good job here too. The other actors are OK, though you can tell from the most part that they got their jobs because they were friends (or the wife) of director Leslie Stevens (a fact disclosed in the on-disc interviews). The supplements were nice, better than I expected for a smaller release. Shatner's commentary, though sparse and occasionally repetative, was informative and funny. You can definitely hear his personality come through (especially in the thinly veiled egotism and jab at Leonard Nimoy). The interview section was also a welcome addition. I am glad I purchased this film. If you are a horror or Shatner fan, you will be too.
Rating: 
Summary: Remarkable
Review: I bought this film thinking "William Shatner in the world's only movie filmed entirely in Esperanto. This HAS to be funny". Instead what I got is one of THE best horror films I have seen since Jacques Tourneur's Curse of the Demon. This film is very beautiful and very creepy. And Shatner does not ham it up like he would later on in Star Trek.
Rating:
Summary: Remarkable
Review: I bought this film thinking "William Shatner in the world's only movie filmed entirely in Esperanto. This HAS to be funny". Instead what I got is one of THE best horror films I have seen since Jacques Tourneur's Curse of the Demon. This film is very beautiful and very creepy. And Shatner does not ham it up like he would later on in Star Trek.
Rating:
Summary: Remarkable
Review: I bought this film thinking "William Shatner in the world's only movie filmed entirely in Esperanto. This HAS to be funny". Instead what I got is one of THE best horror films I have seen since Jacques Tourneur's Curse of the Demon. This film is very beautiful and very creepy. And Shatner does not ham it up like he would later on in Star Trek.
Rating:
Summary: Unusual film for discriminating viewer
Review: I eagerly awaited the arrival of this DVD version, fascinated with the idea of Shatner before Trek, and the whole Esperanto idea. I am NOT disappointed! Before writing this, I read the first 7 reviews so I'll try not to repeat stuff (I agreed with most of what was said). I first heard of Esperanto back in college at U of Wisc--Madison, where it was offered in night classes. Apparently, it's been around since the 1880's, developed as a "universal language". There have been resurgences of interest periodically since, most notably during the 60's. The director chose Esperanto because he wanted an "other-worldly" language for the demons that couldn't be compared to any other. It works, phenomenally well!! Shatner is quite good, as is Allyson Ames (Kia) and Ann Atmar (as Shatner's sister). Unfortunately, the acting of Eloise Hardt (as Kia's sister) and Milos Milos (title character) is reminisent of Ed Wood's films, WAY over the top of respectable limits. The music score by Dominic Frontiere is eerie, moody and thoroughly appropriate and the photography of the great Conrad Hall is among the best black and white you'll ever see...his use of shadows and fog and back-lighting gives the film ALL of its considerable atmosphere. The location of the Big Sur area in California is perfect.I would recommend this film for anyone with an appreciation of the unusual. Sure, there are a lot of slow moments that were annoying (but just look at the scenery); the overall craft of film-making here has indeed reached a new (if different) level. By all means, check this one out!
Rating: 
Summary: The return of Incubus
Review: I finally got around to watching Incubus, having read about this "lost film". But upon watching it, I realized that it would not have been a tragedy had Incubus stayed lost.......Something of an arthouse horror film, Incubus was released in 1965 and has gained a cult following of sorts. The reason has less to do with the film itself than circumstances surrounding it. The negative and seemingly all existing prints were accidentally destroyed not long after the films release. It was indeed a "lost movie". We also get to see a pre-Star Trek William Shatner. But nearly as interesting was the filmmakers decision to have all the dialogue in the artificial language of Esperanto: a butchered type of Latin. Anyway, the film was "rediscovered", cleaned up.....and released. And, well, it really is a terrible film in almost everyway (I say almost because of the exquisite cinematography by Conrad Hall). The story revolves around an evil Sucubus named Kia who gets bored with destroying the bad, and now she wants to destroy the good. Enter William Shanter, a truly saintly soul. Kia now has the challenge she has been seeking. As a "morality play", it is a laughably thin story with all the philosophical depth of a child. The ending in particular was just plain silly. The Esperanto language doesn't give Incubus a foreign film atmosphere because it's so obvious (and I mean OBVIOUS) it isn't anyone's mother tongue. Though it does give the film a stench of self-importance. The budget contraints makes Incubus look more like Plan 9 From Outer Space than Night of the Living Dead. The acting? Yeah, sure. In the end, Incubus might be worth checking out by the curious, but it's a terribly dated and silly film.
Rating: 
Summary: Below Average Art Horror Flick
Review: I found this at the local library and it sounded interesting because sometimes some directors can do a good film on a low budget so I checked it out. I also saw, "filmed in Esperanto" on the cover and didn't know if that was a warning or just a statement.
Well, the budget is non-existent, I heard they only used money for sandwiches because the locale was filmed in the countryside by a beach somewhere. We don't know what time period it is or much for that matter, what we do know is that there are evil minions of satan who lure men with their wicked ways to drown in the seas. So, does it sound like a horror film or a Bergmen film, probably it attempted to be both and failed greatly.
Try to forget about the terrible Esperanto language and merely concentrate on the film's deep shadows and camera angles, that is about the only thing this average horror film has going for it. Shatner plays some sort of soldier, from which war we don't know but he lives in the countryside in a small hen farm with his sister who is played by a dumb waif of a lady. So comes along the beautiful witch who wants to corrupt a "good" man and Shatner, in his usual overacting and limited abilities, falls in love instantly. The scene is so absurd that I thought it was contrived merely for time purposes but then later in the film Shatner expounds, "I have loved her for 1000 years." Corny huh? Yup. We also see his sister get blind after he told her not to look at the eclipsed sun, that was dumb.
The story gets more dull after that, the couple walk hand in hand along the tiring country while repetitive music is played. Looking out for her evil sister, an older witch woman begins to contort evil to lure Shatner to his downfall. Well, none of that works so the two sisters go worship some hanging bat, it was blurry probably because they didn't have enough money for a decent creature and they call up an incubus from the ground and guess what, more budget woes, he's played by a naked man from Yugoslavia named Milos Milos! (who shot some Mickey Rooney's wife in real life and then committed suicide)!
The ending is bland also, after wrestling with a fake goat's head that was painted black, the evil witch becomes good and then it finishes, wow, what a dull movie, especially as it was so overrated by the box, "Classic horror film found again!" Reading other people's reviews I was lead to believe that 1) they were too young to understand any of the boring scenes 2) they were drunk or 3) they have no real artistic tastes and are pretentious 4) they are excessive fans of Shatner and refuse to believe he does bad work. If you can sit through this sleep fest, then go ahead but don't expect anything worthwhile.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, a movie for me!
Review: I had thought for years that my hours and hours of learning Esperanto, and my ensuing service in my school's Esperanto Education Club, were all going to be in vain, much like the time I got my car's dials and gauges converted to the metric system. I hadn't used my second language in years...and then I found out about "Incubus", which is ENTIRELY in Esperanto!I'm not a big fan of subtitles, but I am a big fan of Esperanto and William Shatner, so I quickly got over my objections. Pretty soon, it was like the subtitles weren't even there. I enjoyed the film so much, I'm even working on a reunion of our club! Once again, I'm proud to be an Esperanto speaker. Mi parolas Esperanton!!
Rating:
Summary: fun...lush california dystopia
Review: i really went in for this more than i thought. i was hoping for an awful train wreck with hilarious shatner speaking esperanto and silly satanic stuff. it is, in fact, quite silly, but really has a beautiful lush california landscape and a kinda of quaint quizzical sounding orchestral score that really transported me to a strange surrealistic place. i felt very transported into a kinda of purgatory or middle world. for instance, these female minions of the devil wander around captivating and "harvesting" corrupt males...yet the place is dead, relatively uninhabited. it could be the middle ages, yet it's not. it feels like a modern place, but one of respite, almost like a large ranch for fractured people like the place julianne moore ends up at in "safe." a beautiful serene dystopia, where monks are currupt and blond succubi infest the place.
very interesting! one reviewer found the pace and cheesyness of the esperanto and the simplicity of the dialog and story to be boring...which i guess is valid, but i chose to surf on the atmosphere of this one....and atmosphere there is no shortage of here. the chessyness helps somewhat. i like that it seems a bit like a crackpot bergman.
also of interest is that it presents a kind "satanic" morality. the older succubus is genuinely concerned about the younger kia's "falling" into the "grips" of goodness. i'd have thought that followers of satan would be somewhat competitive or spiteful of even each other, by nature of evil itself, however these satanic followers seems quite bonded and empathetic to each other and very devout to the devil and fearful of god. i thought that this movie presented "evil" as having nearly the same values as "good", just a different perspective. i've always thought by nature of darkness, that a true satanist should "hate" satan, as hate would be the great expression of evil. but then again maybe that explains why so many christians "hate" the devil....'cause they're really satanists!
ok i digress. check out this movie if you like something a little strange. it's not really a horror film, but a kind of odd 60s art film that wasn't and can't be reapeated.
shatner!!!!
Rating:
Summary: And now for Something COMPLETELY Different...
Review: I remember seeing this film in college back in the mid-seventies, and it struck me as one of the strangest movies I had ever seen. The Esperanto dialogue fits in perfectly with the otherworldliness of the film. It seems that Director Leslie Stevens was paying homage to his Outer Limits partner Joseph Stefano by making one of the most Gothic themed motion pictures ever. The film has may haunting scenes perfectly framed by cinematographer Conrad Hall--two of the creepiest are when a coven of succubi are walking ever so slowly on a beach and the scene where the Incubus is summoned is a sequnce worthy of horror grandmaster James Whale. The DVD edition has a wonderful interview with producer Anthony Taylor and cinematographers Conrad Hall and William Fraker. Their commentary track is very good. I was EXTREMELY impressed with William Shatner's commentary track. Listening to Mr. Shatner talk about the "curse of the film" is especially chilling. My only fault with Mr. Shatner's commentary is that he wasn't joined by someone like David Schow (the renowed OUTER LIMITS expert). I think a dialgue between these two would have been fascinating. Schow has written extensively on Incubus, and the website (for the movie Incubus) links to his commentaries. The DVD is truly a chilling and fantastic experience!
|
