Incarnate

It's all a wild jumble of half-baked, derivative ideas and arbitrary rules, all of which add up to a suspense-free horror narrative as murky as its lighting.

Strident rhetoric is required for describing Brad Peyton's latest film, a maddening hodgepodge of ideas that range from undercooked to unoriginal.

Incarnate, much like its central character at key moments, barely seems to have a pulse.

Dense with plot and mythology, the film is refreshingly unpredictable - if only because guessing what comes next would require understanding what the hell is going on.

Incarnate is such a pointless bit of hackwork that it almost makes the recent horror dud Shut In seem focused by comparison.

Offers a relatively fresh take on standard-issue exorcism-melodrama tropes, along with a performance by Aaron Eckhart that is more than persuasive enough to encourage the investment of a rooting interest.

While it attempts to change up the exorcist themes, it ultimately falls flat, as it really isn't giving the viewer much by way of entertainment or scares.

In Incarnate, we get the latest in a fairly long, uneven line of exorcism movies. And while it is far from the worst of the bunch, it also fails to do much with what starts out as a fairly interesting idea.

Too convoluted for its own good. The film takes itself seriously when it probably should have embraced its borderline silliness.

While Incarnate exceeds many of my expectations, there are still things that fall a bit short of what could be a near perfect reinvention of a possession film. The scientific aspects and the acting are definitely the highlights.