Inkubus (2011)
Starring: Robert Englund, William Forsythe, Joey Fatone
Writers: Glenn Ciano, Carl V. Dupre
Director: Glenn Ciano
Story:
A police station skeleton crew are working their final night in the precinct building before it gets demolished. Detective Caretti gets one crazy fucked murder case thrown into his lap with the kid in custody, when some dude named Inkubus comes walking in with a severed head in his hand. This creep spins an unbelievable yarn, about doing similar deeds dating all the way back to the middle ages. Basically any murder that went unsolved.... Inkubus was the bastard behind it. Why has he shown up at the police station? He has a score to settle with a retired detective who threw a monkey in his wrench some years back. Mind fuckery and murderous acts quickly ensue, and everyone at the precinct becomes a participant in Inkubus' game.
Review:
I'm about half-n-half on this one. There's certain aspects to the film that are well on point; other things suffer from a severe case of fucking blah. With the exception of Inkubus (the character) and retired Detective Diamante, most of the characters are below one dimensional. The story is simple and easy to follow, and there are surprisingly a couple of bad ass twists. The gore ranges from non existent to awesome. There's two hot women teasing you in their bras, and maybe it's just me, but I hate when people fuck with their clothes and/or undergarments on. I guess I'm just a dirty bastard who wants all the goods delivered. Anyway, this is why Inkubus is ultimately mediocre. For every awesome element, there's something lame to drop it down a notch.
Here's another thing: The character Inkubus is a great and evil master of magic. He fools with these tools, manipulates them to the point that no one knows exactly what the shit is going on. He alters their surroundings, gets in their heads and makes them do unspeakable things. But one scene didn't make sense to me, where Officer Cole, Detective Caretti and Retired Detective Diamante are parading the halls of the police station looking for Inkubus. ****SPOILERS→→→They are trapped in repeat (think Elm Street 4, sorta), running down the same flight of stairs, walking through hall doors only to end up back in the same hall on the other side.←←←SPOILERS**** All three of them together. Then we go to someone else for a following scene, then back to Officer Cole and Detective Caretti... but WHERE THE FUCK IS DIAMANTE? He shows up later, on his own, with no explanation. I understand hocus-pocus is part of Inkubus' gig, but I'd imagine that Cole and Caretti would be like “Uhhh, where the fuck did Diamante go?” It didn't seem like this was just a part of Inkubus' game; it seemed like a fuck up or maybe a missing scene. But since the DVD is bare bones as shit, I have no way of knowing. Bah.
Camera placement and editing is where I feel the film excels. There's tons of cool quick flashes of gruesome shit and fast snaps to back up the trickery. I'm a fan of overhead views of winding and/or square staircases, and there's one in Inkubus that raises Hitchcock. A lot of the nifty cinematography is helped by visual FX, too. Though, some of the computer stuff shows an obvious tight budget. Nothing wrong with that, but sometimes less is more.
Acting... oh boy. Truth be told, I am a fan of B-movie acting, and even sometime just plain shitty performances. Like, when someone is trying to give it their all but fails miserably, that shit is magic. Stiff acting, eh, that's when it's almost embarrassing to watch. There's a bit of both, here. Most of the fodder character police officers are horrendous, and they are given one liners that leave little to be desired. Jonathan Silverman isn't very convincing as the 'no games' Officer Tech. He just doesn't emit bad ass, and honestly every time he popped up on screen I half expected a Weekend at Bernies reunion to come popping around the corner. Hoped for it, actually. Michelle Ray Smith as Officer Cole has little depth, but is smokin' hot. Kevin DeCristofano is surprisingly awesome as the "blood spattered" Miles. He could have been given more screen time. Joey Fatone is severely OuttaFuckin'Sync as Detective Caretti. Whether he's striving to give a mournful performance, or one of madness, he's pretty transparent. I wish he had been laughable, because it would have made things more interesting.
Now, on to the two heavy hitters of Inkubus, one at a time. First, the great William Forsythe as Retired Detective Giamante. Forsythe has snow white hair going on here, and from a distance kinda looks like Tom Atkins. FROM A DISTANCE, I repeat. Anyway, I don't recall the dude ever giving a bad performance, not even in a horribly shitty movie, and same goes for his work here. He's awesome and someone you can feel sorry for. Next is the man that makes this film more entertaining than it really has any right to be, Robert Englund, as Inkubus. This character is a mean, evil, detestable motherfucker, and it's highly obvious that Englund is having a goddamn blast. He nails all his lines and shit eating grins, taunting his victims while he mind fucks them the whole way to hell. Englund is just seriously fun to watch as Inkubus, and this is exactly the kind of performance I am talking about when I say I love B-movie acting. He simply kills it.
SFX and props. Kinda wish more had been done here. The parts that are gory are definitely cool, and some of the kills are fairly inventive. However, when I see a character that is said to be covered in blood from head to toe, I don't want to see someone that looks like they had a mild bicycle accident; I want to see a dude covered in blood from head to fucking toe. Favorites would be a cool severed head that Englund carries into the police station like a fucking beast (as mentioned in the synopsis), ****SPOILERS→→→ a van full of body parts, a pile of intestines, Black Dahlia type death, and the absolute best thing...Demon baby (imagine It's Alive baby if it listened to Sammi Curr backwards in the womb).←←←SPOILERS**** No heavy hate here, just wish I had been swimming through guts to get to my kitchen by the film's end.
Overall, I can recommend Inkubus as a rental. Maybe if you are a Robert Englund completest, I'd say add it to the collection, and I can certainly understand being a completest. It's not a terrible film, just not anything overly amazing, either. Though, I will definitely check out any future projects Glenn Ciano has to offer.
****SPOILERS IN SOME OF THE SLIDES****
