~Cast of Characters~
~Paolo Cossa as the Narrator~
~William Shatner as Marc~	~Allyson Ames as Kia~
~Eloise Hardt as Amae~	~Robert Fortier as Olin~
~Milos Milosevicz as Incubus~	~Ann Atmar as Arndis~

~Cast Filmography~

{William Shatner plays in one episode of "The Outer Limits" ' second season: "Cold Hands, Warm Heart". He begins his cinema career in 1958 with Richard Brooks' "The Karamazov Brothers" and then in Roger Corman's "The Intruder", Martin Ritt's "The Outrage", Robert Fuest's "The Devil's Rain". He is well-known for his lead in the "Star Trek" series. We can see him in many series like "Studio One", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "One Step Beyond", "The Twilight Zone", "Thriller", "Gunsmoke", "Naked City", "The Fugitive", "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", "Mannix", "Mission: Impossible", "Columbo".}

{Allyson Ames plays in one episode from Leslie Stevens' "Stoney Burke": "The King of the Hill", and two "Outer Limits" ones: "The Galaxy Being" and "Production and Decay of Strange Particles". She used to have a small part in John Cassavetes' "Too Late Blues". She participated in series like "Maverick", "The Virginian", "Gunsmoke", "Perry Mason".}

{Robert Fortier plays three times in "The Outer Limits": "Controlled Experiment", "Production and Decay of Strange Particles" and "Demon with a Glass Hand". His screen credits go to Jacques Tourneur's "The Fearmakers" till Robert Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller", "Three Women" and other Altman's films of that time. He is a guest in series such as "Gunsmoke" and "Star Trek".}

~Narration~

~Listen to the: narrator.mp3~

~Prologue in Esperanto~

En la vilagho de Nomen Tuum antikva cervfontano estas supozata enhavi kuracakvon. En certaj okazoj personoj estis resanigitaj sed pli ofte ili akiris certan belecon. Tial la loko altiris la vanajn kaj la koruptitajn same kiel la kriplajn kaj malsanajn personojn. Kiel loko de mallumaj mirakloj la vilagho farighis chasloko por demonoj. Aperantaj kiel junaj virinoj, tiuj demonoj altiras makulitajn animojn en profunda malnobligho postulante ilin en la fino por la dio de mallumo.

~Prologue in English~

In the village of Nomen Tuum, an ancient Deer Well is reputed to contain healing waters. In certain cases, people have been restored to seeming health but, more often have acquired a subtle beauty. For this reason, the area has attracted the vain and the corrupt as well as the infirm. As a place of dark miracles, the village has become a searching ground for demons. Manifesting themselves as young women, the Succubi lure tainted souls into final degradation, claiming them at the end for the God of Darkness.

~Plotline~

In Nomen Tuum, Succubus Kia (attractive female demon), who just killed Olin, a rich idle man, wants to seduce and corrupt an honest believer and a wounded war hero named Marc but in vain.

~Comments~

o me, "Incubus" is the flip side of Joseph Stefano's unsold pilot: "The Unknown"; in other words, it is the answer to "The Unknown" and Leslie Stevens' testament: his Icarus' flight. In both films, it begins with the murder of a man (Olin/André) by a woman or women (Kia/Kassia Paine and Leonora Edmond) in a water place (sea/lake) as in Henri-Georges Clouzot's "Les Diaboliques" (1955). They have both "avant-garde" photography due to the work of Conrad Hall. The film is a mystic and symbolic drama about Eros and Thanatos in the tradition of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa (oddly enough, both directors used to have a high officer father).

It is, above all, a bare, dry, minimalistic, Protestant (even a bit Hamish-esque) and Nordic type of fantastic film (watch the women outfits out). The composed music by Dominic Frontiere is a blend of The Outer Limits' dreamlike scores, for instance, music editor John Caper, Jr. let us hear the samples from: "Controlled Experiment" mixed with the Church's bells from "A Feasibility Study" (editor's note: subsequent moody sound effects from that episode are used) in the opening credits; cues from "Nightmare", "The Mice", "The Architects of Fear" and even "The Outer Limits" signature loop. Like in "The Unknown", we can witness the outstanding craft of the uncredited cinematographer William A. Fraker (watch the last scene with the goat shot in high angle with a turning hand-held Arriflex camera). Stevens has the sense of the wardrobe's details (the two black feathers in the hair of Allyson Ames and Eloise Hardt give them a Walkyrie's touch and their religious outfits: one white altar boys' albs for Ames and one black for Hardt. We notice that the women wear their opposite clothing in terms of color) and the sense of nature (the importance of the eclipse and the moon). It is a demonstration of Stevens' Hymn to nature as a pagan festival (full of backlit trees and flowers, cloudy water views from a fountain and weird underwater low angle shot: Conrad Hall's typical trick).

Stevens' recursive insular sense of the topography with its look of the shore and the tide are reminders of Defoe's utopian adventure novel "Robinson Crusoe" or the escape from the industrialised civilisation—the Big Sur (beach) and Californian (countryside) locations are superb. There is a recursive shot all along the film, it is the corpus of Olin (Robert Fortier) who floats in the sea. The whole film has the mark of the German Expressionism. One scene also reminds the semi-documentary technique used by the French New Wave of the 1960's (which was originally inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Romantic trick-shot), when the diabolical sisters talk to each other on the beach: we can witness a wonderful revolving shot at 180° made with a hand-held camera. Leslie Stevens uses one of his favourite motif (that I call the direct emotion fader) as in his previous productions: "Hero's Island" and "The Outer Limits" (see "The Galaxy Being" and "Production and Decay of Strange Particles"). One simple and evocative shot—producer Anthony Taylor's favourite one—which integrates a view from a window—with the framing around—was reminiscent of Stevens' very first film, produced at Kana productions: "Private Property", an American new wave manifesto. The subject (here, Kia) escapes from the church and comes charging at a fixed camera equiped with a wide angle lens. We can witness six visual levels in the scale of the shots (long shot—>medium long shot—>full shot—>medium shot—>medium close shot—>close shot). We first see her at the exit of the church and at a far distance (in long shot), then, at the end of her running while she approaches the framing (in close shot) and finally, editor Richard Brockway links it with the next shot by using the fade over process. The lapse of time between the two shots produce a shocking effect with a raw intensity.There is also a shot similare to the one in "The Mice" (see "The Outer Limits") when Kia runs away from the church and falls down to the meadow; we can see a close-up of her, with grass around, made with a wide angle lens.

But my favourite shot remains the one in the church sequence when Allyson Ames is scared to death and runs in a hurry. We can see an upside-down camera shot and the background is an overexposed shot of the outside (It looks like Billy Fraker's signature but it is Charles Rosher, Jr.'s work). Charles Rosher, Jr. was the son of the pioneer cinematographer of the silent era.

"Incubus" has an incredible charm because it is a blend of the Hollywood glamour into the realm of innovative film-making: a crossover between the classic and the modern. It's a beautiful poetic tale and a real tragedy.

~Cinematic Analogies~

Incubus has an Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" (1957) touch, because of the Mediaeval aspect and the beach scenes (which reminds me Max von Sydow playing chess with Mr. Death), combined with an Orson Welles' Baroque orientation. Allyson Ames is a perfect Bergman-like actress with her Bibi Andersson's face. "Incubus" is a direct reference to silent movie; when pictures and music could tell you more than dialogues, when pictures and music had a meaning.

In a certain way, "Incubus" anticipates three horror films: Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" (1968), for the rape scene, William Friedkin's "The Exorcist" (1973), for the look of the demon, and, Sam Raimi's "The Evil Dead" (1982), for the rise of the Incubus from the bottom of the Earth with the detail of the arm.

~Review~

For more informations, read: Video*WatchdoG, n° 53, Autumn 1999 which contains three articles: a video review by Tim Lucas (pp. 13-15), a complete analysis by David J. Schow (pp. 18-25) and an interview of producer Anthony M. Taylor by Tom Weaver (pp. 26-35).

Also, read the following French books and magazines:

Vers l'invisible by Julien Green (Paris, Plon, 1967). ~Read the extract~

50 ans de cinéma américain by Bertrand Tavernier and Jean-Pierre Coursodon (Paris, Nathan, 1991, volume II).

Fiction, n° 156, November 1966, a review by Bertrand Tavernier.

Cahiers du cinéma, n° 182, September 1966, a description by Leslie Stevens.

Cahiers du cinéma, n° 186, January 1967, a review by Serge Daney.

Midi/Minuit Fantastique, n° 15-16, December 1966-January 1967, a review by Paul-Louis Thirard.

~Links~

Producer Anthony M. Taylor's website: Incubus - The Film David J. Schow's Black Leathered Required: Incubus - Dark God Rising Interview with Anthony Taylor by Jonathan Hickman: Incubus Born Again! Incubus Video Review by Jonathan Hickman: Incubus Movie Madness Review by Brian Thomas: Otherworldly Esperantics Film Threat Review by Ben Letzler: Lost William Shatner Film Found! Culture Vulture Review by Scott Von Doviak: Incubus Salon Review by Cara Jepsen: Curse of the Incubus L.A. Times Review by Donald Liebenson: Cult Classic Returns Supersphere MediaMix Review by Sam McAbee: Incubus Savant Review by Glenn Erickson : Incubus on DVD Incubus Message by Thomas Rucki: Incub-mail

~To the Realm of Leslie Stevens~