Review of Incarnate (2016) by Thequietgamer — 24 Oct 2017

Certainly a unique concept. Incarnate uses Inception-esque dream jumping to put a new spin on the familiar exorcism tropes. The movie puts a lot of focus on explaining the science behind how Aaron Eckhart is able to enter the minds of others and perform these "evictions." So much time is pent on this that the horror element is almost completely lost in the process. So what we end up with is more a sci-fi thriller. One where one the actual science is kind of dumb and clashes awkwardly with it's supernatural conflict. The only thing the movie has going for it is Eckhart. The whole basis for the movie actually has little to do at all with the little boy who has been possessed. This is instead about Eckhart's character "Dr. Ember's" quest for revenge against the entity that killed his family. The kid in question just happens to have the same demon up in his head. Everything else sort of falls to the side in favor of letting us know just what Dr. Ember is going through and what exactly happened that caused him to take on all these exorcisms in the first place. Everyone else is just there to serve as plot pieces. Eckhart is only one playing a real character. As a result there's no emotional connection to anything going on as basically everything else is just window-dressing for this man vs demon conflict and to act as an excuse to show off their admittedly neat science-fiction concepts. Kudos to Eckhart though. He still gives a fantastic performance despite having been given this crap material.

Everything kind of play outs like a cheesy horror-comic book movie. The action is lackluster and the conflict is basic. The way it shoves it's lore in our face feels like they're pulling it straight from a colorfully illustrated panel. It ultimately doesn't have the excitement, fun, or bloody action to make it compelling. It's attempts at scares are poorly executed and of the blandest kind of jump scares anyway. In the end it falls short as a horror film as well. It's the kind of movie that tries a lot of different stuff at once, and ultimately pulls of none of them very well at all. As interesting as the idea is the execution is so lackluster one has to wonder why they bothered at all. It needed a better script and more reasons to care about anyone or anything onscreen other than Eckhart, the one saving grace in an otherwise really bad film. There's simply nothing to see here that hasn't been done so much better elsewhere.

3.