INCUBUS (1982)
Starring John Cassavetes and Kerrie Keane
Pretty bad. But maybe not as bad as some of the direct-to-video stuff that comes out in stores today.
Cassavettes, between directing art films, had to star in fear flicks like this. In the early 1980s, a number of fairly big-budget horror films came out that failed to please either mainstream critics or horror fans, and this movie was one of them. We should all remember star Cassavettes for being the sleazeball husband in "Rosemary's Baby." In this movie, he's a surgeon who moves into a New England town with his teenage daughter.
He teams up with police and your standard schlock-movie gorgeous TV news reporter to do battle with some kind of monster that rapes women to death. "What we had here was a real intercourse, and a hell of a lot of sperm," he tells police. It turns out the creature has something to do with the occult, and it possesses a tormented young man who lives in town. The film has slick production values and nice-looking professional actors, but the story just drags on and on.
This is all in spite of the fact that it was directed by Hough, who helmed the awesome "Legend of Hell House." The film does have a nice slick professional style, and during its best moments is basically a body count film. One "Friday the 13th"-like moment has a guy getting a shovel shoved into his neck, causing him to blow his own foot off with a shotgun. There's also a gratuitous shower scene to remind us that this is no class feature, despite the presence of Mr. Cassavettes. Without a good story the film just doesn't hold together. Ultimately, a pass, unless you don't have anything else to do. As put by the characters in the film: "No sperm?" "No, nothing."