Studio: Cinedigm
Director: Isaac Walsh
Writer: Isaac Walsh, Tyler Clair Smith
Producer: Mike Hatton
Stars: Taye Diggs, Jessica Uberuaga, Michael Madsen
Review Score:
Summary:
A struggling couple invokes a malevolent demon when they turn to occult magic to solve their financial problems.
Review:
On average, it usually takes me somewhere in the neighborhood of three hours to write a review once I have all of my initial notes organized. The process ordinarily involves reevaluating evolving thoughts, reworking structure, then rewriting until I get to a point where I can be proud enough to hit ‘Publish.’
That won’t be the case with “Incarnation,” a throwaway thriller in which Taye Diggs and Jessica Uberuaga purchase, from Michael Madsen, a home where they semi-inadvertently invoke a demon. Whether you only watch the trailer or, Crom forbid, the movie itself, it won’t take more than a minute to identify “Incarnation” as a hasty horror movie exploding with telltale signs of a fast, cheap, fully forgettable indie.
Lucky for me then, I don’t need to waste any hours reevaluating, reworking, or rewriting anything. I can just bullet point bits of blandness like they’re “You know exactly what kind of movie I’m talking about, right?” elbow nudges and then meet you at the bottom in mere minutes.
The first dead giveaway of “Incarnation” having fallen off an assembly line for DTV dullness is its distinct shot-on-digital patina. Every frame of the film has that milky, bleached look of coming from a camera overexposing exteriors and flattening interiors so there’s no shape to any scenery.
Not that looking good matters much since “Incarnation” only uses one generic location. You’ll recognize it from every other VOD quickie about a couple in a suburban haunted house. The home consists of nothing but white walls and indistinguishable furnishings, unless you count the empty bottles of Maker’s Mark that laughably adorn entryway nooks like they’re supposed to be valuable vases or something.
Outside of a fleeting flashback that’s as unnecessary as the need to see this movie, “Incarnation” only features three actors. One of those performers is a person whose best days are behind him. Another is a person whose career peak is even further behind him. It’s a 50/50 split if their scenes together, particularly the opening, owe their awkwardness to sloppy improv, or merely the men repeatedly forgetting their lines.
24 people have title cards awarding them some sort of producer credit, with most of them being “executive.” By contrast, the end credit scroll lasts less than 60 seconds because of how few people contributed to the actual production crew of camera assistants, gaffers, electricians, etc.
“Incarnation’s” idea of horror consists almost exclusively of pat paranormal activity like flickering lights, knocking noises, and doors creaking open on their own. Yeah, try not to wet your pants from the fear. Or, more likely, from drinking too much booze in order to make it through the movie and then dozing through your next bathroom break.
If you’re not busy wondering why you haven’t hit the Stop button yet, you can thrill to the interim action of someone preparing an omelet, someone else filling out a bank loan application, digging a tree stump out of a dirt patch, making idle conversation on the couch while concurrently futzing on the phone, moaning about mandated building restorations, bargaining with skeptical investors, staring at computer screens for seated internet searches, or Michael Madsen talking about his torn rotator cuff before hocking a loogie, then hocking a second loogie because the first one apparently didn’t get the job done.
“Incarnation” is another common case of a makeshift production company having access to a vacant house and enough cash to attract a low-level celebrity as a headliner. So they threw together exactly what anyone would expect those conditions to create: an unoriginal filler film interested only in the bare minimum, allowing everyone involved to get in and get out as quickly as possible. That includes the audience at least. Now I have a spare two hours and 50 minutes to do something else. I’ll probably start by forgetting everything about “Incarnation,” which shouldn’t take long since it has nothing worth remembering in the first place.
Review Score: 20
“Kraven the Hunter” might as well be renamed “Kraven the Explainer,” as it’s much more of an unnecessarily tedious origin story than an action-intensive adventure.