Incarnate (2016) Horror Exorcism

Incarnate (2016) - In theaters now! I listened to some heavy rotation advertising for this film on the Shock Waves podcast and seeing the Blumhouse logo at the beginning of the film I understood why since they are the company that also owns the podcast and (distributes?) the movie I can see why they would push it. The early show on a Friday afternoon (4:40pm) was a quiet show. In fact I was the only one seeing the movie in the audience. Its a mixed blessing since I hate noisy rooms when watching movies but on the other hand you only have your own reactions to judge the film by. Wondering who this film is being geared towards? Maybe the previews can give an indication. Split, XXX: Return of Zander Case, Annabelle 2, Underworld: Blood Wars, Assasins Creed, Sleight, and The Belko Experiment tell me that this is geared to a young audience but that seems appropriate.
    The film is definitely in the new screenwriting school of thought where the acts are clearly defined the breadcrumbs dropped and paid off later and there is a clear character arc for the main character. I say new screenwriting school, it has got to be twenty years since the screenwriting has firmed up the approach to film. Whether that be better more structured teaching of screenwriting or smarter choosing of scripts by executives there is a marked pattern in the structure of script that is quite identifiable and this film is in that category. The judgement is neither good or bad of this approach, on one hand the script is tighter and there is less extraneous material to sort through. Plot points and backstory are introduced and later developed further with just enough early information to make it work. On the other hand the structure is more predictable and less surprising, experimental and creative. Still overall it's a sign of a more professional approach that generally works more than it does not.
  The story by writer Ronnie Christensen centers around Dr. Seth Ember (Aaron Eckhart) who years before lost his wife and daughter in a car accident caused by a drunk driver who happened to be possessed by a demon. This demon called Maggie has been become the single focus of his life. Maggie also for some reason really wants to taunt Ember sensing his ability even though he has spent years trying to hide it. He is  gifted in the magical ability to sort of sense what people are thinking. He as a doctor has developed a drug that allows him to enter the mind of a possessed individual and attempt to break the possession by getting the possessed to choose to leave the fantasy world the demon has trapped them in.  He has had some connection to the Vatican but has a different approach to possession than they. Where they look through the Christian lens seeing a struggle against the corrupting evil, Ember sees the demon as a parasite which can be interrupted in the dreamworld it creates in the host.
  For a film that is advertised as a new approach to a possession film it jumps through hoops to gloss over the thing it claims makes it different. Ember's thinking that possession demons are just parasite approaches their removal through science but the science is weak. A drug that allows him to enter the mind of the victim, some mumbo jumbo about auras and ions and near death experiments might put a clock on Embers encounters but overall there is not much there, in fact where it starts with the idea that he has a magical gift nullifies the science completely. Also countering the idea is the principle of choice on the part of victim, if the demon is a parasite, choosing to not have it should not be an option. All the machines and computer displays are a ruse to sell the audience but it is really still just a possession film.
  The case at hand is one where a boy, actor David Mazouz has been possessed by the Maggie demon and the Church has not been able to free the boy. His Mother (Carice van Houten, Game of Thrones) will do anything to get her kid back, and the Church goes to Ember and offers him a suitcase full of money to take the job. The plots and subplots are Ember wanting to settle his personal score, one about demons wanting to infiltrate the church, and the story of a Mother wanting to save her son are all compelling enough to move the story forward even if all of it does not hold up the science premise. There is an interesting mix of concepts in this films that are reminiscent of other films. Entering another mind and manipulating from the inside Inception, passing on demon possession through touch Fallen, exorcism and science Exorcist 2 as well as the classic demon possession scenes and for the most part it works but is not particularly exciting. Still all in all the film works for what it is. The beginning, middle and end are well structured and everything setup early is paid off. Even the final little twist where they flip the expectation around saving Ember is well done. I have this horrible aversions to scenes where someone gets brought back from the dead and the scene in the ambulance where this happens to Ember had me writing notes "Damn it! Fucking happy fucking ending, Fuck!" but the twist pulled me out of this rage and that was appreciated. It at least gave a real reason to have Catalina Sandino Moreno (besides being incredibly talented and beautiful) in the film since her role as church liaison was a bit weak.
  I have a feeling that it will not pull very big numbers at the box office mostly because in the end we have all seen this film before. Sure it has some newer ideas not used normally with this kind of film but it misses key features we want in a movie about possession. The first is we don't care about the victim he literally has one scene before possessed and then all of his backstory is framed through the experiences of his mother or father. Next by taking the religion out of the story the imperative for his soul is blunted, he does not seem like the imperiled one instead that is shifted to Ember who after the accident is in a wheelchair and he is the soul at risk. In fact the best scene in the film was when he goes back to his friend, Felix (Tomas Arana) to find him possessed by a demon. The struggle of a handicapped man against a walking demon was well executed by Director Brad Peyton but much of the rest of the conflict with the demon Maggie was dull taking place in the victims fantasy. Playing off this idea the last failure is that this movie is really not scary, the just mentions scene and the first possession scene are good but most of the movie is about dropping breadcrumbs and back story but not frightening. I wanted more of a nervous growing dread but did not get that. Still its well structured and there is enough to reluctantly recommend this film to others. I left it feeling like I was entertained even though it did not knock my socks off.
  As I have done so far this year; I am doing as an experiment my Twitter account @Soresport is dedicated to following and being followed by people in and behind the scenes. Then I am also hoping some of them follow me back. (Not really expecting that though) It really is an experiment and where I love the horror community it is a way to keep track of what is going on by the people involved in it.  I am now following over 239 people while the followers is only 35 so as you can see people in the biz do not follow just anyone back. :)

At The Devil's Door (2014) Horror Demon

At the Devil's Door (2014) - I have not been writing in this blog for the last couple months. Work for me is doing quality assurance at a software company and we have been going full tilt on a project. After next week that project will have launched and hopefully the 50+ hour weeks will slow down and I get start gearing up and doing more reviews.  It will be Holiday season always a tougher time to get movies in but also a fun time for seasonal horror.  Then in February attending the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival. What I am saying is although I have been negligent I do look forward to getting back on track which means watching and writing about the genres I love.
 This film being reviewed here is the stories of  the people targeted by a demon for possession. This possession includes supernatural rape, violence and unwanted pregnancy. It is structurally unusual switching and mixing the protagonist through the film until it finally settles after about the one hour mark on the character who will finish as the protagonist. Early on the story is an origin story of how the demon comes to target a young woman named  Hannah (Ashley Richards). She is a troubled teen who while on vacation meets a boy. In an period of her life where she is pushing against boundaries she is convince by the young man to go the a guy where she can sell her soul to the devil ( and get $500). The ritual of being chosen is nicely done but may not have been essential.  I think the demon would have been fine with any child bearing woman and it did not matter that later victims never made a deal with the devil. Still the "show" is essential to create mood and weight to the story. The girl is chosen and then goes down to the crossroad (any will do I think) and say her name.
  We will rejoin her later at home where she is in her room where she is trying on her new red shoes purchased with her ill gotten cash. We have the PG-13 demon rape scene which consist of her pushing her hands towards her crotch once and then being lifted in the air while struggling and screaming. When dropped hard she looks injured or dead. There is nothing exploitative about this scene, fully dressed, trying for a certain MPAA rating, the scene gives you just enough to let you know what happened without pushing moral buttons. There was a time when this scene would have included her shirt being ripped,  in close up, then her screaming face as we the audience hears more ripping sounds. The horrible sounds of her pain as she is raped, finishing with a shot of her partially exposed ass as she cries a ball. That horror being about the repulsion of the act in graphic detail. This is not that kind of film though so instead you get the idea without the exploitation.
  Inexplicably the film shifts to the story of Liegh (Catalina Sandino Moreno) introducing her as a caring older sister to Vera (Naya Rivera) and a hard working real state agent. All the necessary information is present in these scenes. A lonely woman who can't have children she crosses paths with the house that Hannah once lived in.  I use the word inexplicably in this part of the movie because either writer / director Nicholas McCarthy or editors Bill Neil and Jake York decided to cut between character building for Leigh as she meets the people selling the house, parents with a red herring troubled teen girl named Charlene, and the rest of the Hannah origin story. It is designed to bleed information out slowly about why the creepy haunting stuff is happening. It does that but the side effect is that you are never quite sure who the story is about. Thinking it is probably Leigh since we follow her around quite a bit in scary situations. Then at an hour into the story this all changes what it does is mix the first and second acts never allowing the viewer to connect with the characters. There certainly enough spooky stuff in the flashbacks to Hannah for this to be her story. In the end it may be about the demon but that is never quite developed fully. So the first hour is Hannah in the past Leigh in the present, and then there is a turn.
  Vera becomes the focus of the film as she investigates what happened to her sister. It is an awkward switch in the the first act is a shared story and then the second is the investigation and all three pieces of the tale have different leads. Vera though needs to find out what happened to Hannah and then Charlene and so it is still necessary to keep the flashback scenes part of the second act of the film. Once all the back story about Hannah is done the film sticks mostly with the Vera story through the climax. The strange structure was disruptive to the viewer never really creating someone we can cheer for. Sure there are a great deal of scary material in the flashbacks but it was not as enjoyable with out main character to cheer for. Vera at the end of the second act goes to the ghost house and becomes the next target of the demon. I am guessing that the house is the connecting point here. She has another one of those floating in the air demon rape scenes at the end of which she is thrown out a window from her fourth floor loft window. This ends the second act in such a strange way.
  The third act is Vera waking up in the hospital eight months later. The horror of knowing she is carrying a demon baby and is too late term to have an abortion she is determined to give it up for adoption. A C-Section and she is free of the thing. It can't end there though and again we shift to six years later. Vera has looked up the adopted parents of the little girl she gave birth to. Her intent is pretty obvious and the climax centers around Vera's decision about the little girl. All of this later stuff is obviously, ..full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. There can not be a recommendation for this film. I am sure some younger teenagers might just like it but for adults this is lightweight horror not compelling enough to satisfy.

Odds and Ends
- The couple times they flashed on the demon were done well enough. Once hiding in a wardrobe and then again in flashback.
- After seeing The Conjuring  and now this film is the stand alone wardrobe a  thing that will come back into fashion? It worked as a nice anchor for knowing which house the character was in, since the house sets were so bland. (except Vera's awesome loft.)
- The slightly "Rosemary's Baby" birth and climax scene are what they are  but are they original?
- A couple times there was background noise, radio or TV in both cases the commentary was about how bad the world is Raise in Poverty, the collapse of the social safety net.  The TV images about the Japanese Tsunami or the earlier one? I find it interesting this is what was there. Possibly implying that the second coming was  was on the verge of coming. Christian mythology says that an antichrist will rise before then. This could be that story like in the movie The Omen or The Seventh Sign? The opening and closing Bible verses (were they real one?) gives credence to this idea.
- When Vera woke up the police completely overlooked asking how she got thrown out a window 5 feet over her head. Later this was explained away with a reference about medication and people not believing her.
- Ashley Richard is a fine comedic actor from the teen show "Awkward" it's nice to see her try another genre. Naya Rivera is a regular on the television show "Glee". Catalina Sandino Moreno who get more lovely as older is having a fine career since her break in film role in Maria Full of Grace (2004)
- How many times have we seen a character using an insane asylum as a hiding place from some evil. So nice the trope worked in this case.