One scientist is the key to saving a possessed child, in WWE films newest shriek-fest “Incarnate”. “San Andreas” director Brad Peyton helms this story that takes place after a single mother (Carice van Houten) witnesses terrifying symptoms of demonic possession in her 11-year-old son (David Mazouz). Within days, a Vatican representative (Catalina Sandino Moreno) calls on wheelchair-bound scientist and spirit chaser Dr. Seth Ember (Aaron Eckhart) to rid her boy of the evil spirit. Ember developed a technique to enter the mind of his patients and rid the mind of evil, where possessions take place. Driven by a personal agenda rooted in his own tragic past, Ember enters the boy’s unconscious mind where he confronts a demon as ferocious as it is ingenious. “Incarnate” is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of horror violence, terror, disturbing images, brief strong language, sensuality and thematic elements.
“Incarnate” has enough solid ideas for the possession genre, but falters along the way with speedy, flimsy execution that fails to articulately describe the visions it has for its script. In short, WWE Films fails again at making something cheap into a diamond, but luckily its the 79 minute run time that doesn’t leave much room to do a lot of harm to the moviegoer mind. As far as horror movies in 2016 goes, there’s a lot worse that one can do, but this movie is bad none the less. As something that tries to make its own rules within the world of the film, this movie relies heavily on classic possession films that do things much better than the story depicted in this movie. The ending is stolen from “The Exorcist”, the rules of the demon passing the sickness from one person to the other is stolen from “Fallen”, and entering the mind of the victim feels far too familiar with the 2013 possession achievement “Insidious”. This one feels like a desperate cash in on a recent popular craze, instead of ever validating its own voice within the overcrowded genre.
A lot of this movie feels like a television procedural, and that is because this is a legitimately failed television pilot from 2014 that never materialized. That lack of urgency or dire consequences to our characters is never there because it always feels like something better will happen in the next episode. There’s also not a lot of noteworthy special effects or budget that went into these sequences, leaving me always wanting more visual examples of just what this female demon can do. Those are perhaps some of the biggest examples of material importance that is never presented, but the biggest nuisance comes in the form of the rules. The movie describes this man with the ability to enter the dreams of these possessed people, but never says how he does it. I guess we’re not supposed to ask many questions. There are no wires or mutual setup from one character to the other, and the only thing we see is that they are in the same room together. So my question is does this possession work like Wi-Fi? If a character is in the living room, will he be able to connect? If they’re in the same room together and possession happens by touch, wouldn’t Aaron Eckart worry about the trouble of being at his most vulnerable while asleep? Logic…HA.
As far as thrills go, there was nothing of any notable instances. There are a couple of jump-scares for those of you who dig this annoying horror trope, but they won’t have the same effect upon this sitting because of a glaring problem in the technical achievements of this film. The sound editing/mixing was slightly off with the movements of the event unfolding in front of us, and that premature sound jump takes away from the full effect in each desired scare. An example happens towards the end of the second act when the little boy makes a move towards Eckhart, yet something is off slightly in triggered effect. We hear the noise, but the character doesn’t move for nearly a second later. One could write this off as maybe a theater problem with their projector, but it happens far too often and inconsistently in the movie to blame this on an outside source. Sometimes the sound is right on point, but more times than not it lags in execution, and this negative failed to even set the mood for this story.
If there is one saving grace to the film, it’s in the performance of Eckhart, who never flounders any opportunity to stand out. What’s truly compelling about Aaron’s body of work so far is that he accepts roles in movies that are clearly beneath his standing, yet makes the most to turn every negative into a positive. As Seth, Eckhart channels the pain and trauma of losing the two most important people in his life, and the lack of desire to hang on if only to fight for revenge in the face of the taker. Aaron never flinches when it comes to his delivery here, and there’s something admirable about a man who believes in delivery the kinds of things that he’s told to say, no matter how silly or inane they might be. It’s great to see one of Hollywood’s most dependable here. Even when I held little to no faith with this project before seeing it, I knew Eckhart would never falter in the desire to add a layer of human emotion to the script, and Aaron’s constant professionalism kept this movie from ever being worse than it finished being.
“Incarnate” won’t inspire you to change your pre-conceived notions on B-grade possession flicks, but it is too brief of a presentation to ever leave any lasting damage. It is a creative, albeit flawed tweaking to the genre ideal that is marred in cheap, technical execution, but the dedication by its male lead lifts this dreary dud as something slightly above tolerable. It is time though for WWE Films to get out of the horror genre altogether, because in their hands “Incarnate” is IncarNOT.
4/10