Kirk vs. Incubus

 

 (wikipedia)

INCUBUS-1966-In a coastal village where demons prowl its shores, Kai (Allyson Ames), a very successful succubus leads many to hell. But she feels her powers are being wasted and wants a big score despite the warnings from her sister Amael (Eloise Hardt). Kai sets her sights on Marc (pre-Kirk William Shatner), a soldier recovering from a wound. While he walks with his sister Arndis (Ann Atmar), Kai follows Marc. Once again Amael warns her. Kai pretends to be a lost traveler and meets Marc and Arndis on their farm. During a brief eclipse, Kai seems to enchant Marc. After lovemaking, Kia falls asleep and Marc carries her home. Meanwhile Arndis has gone blind from looking at the eclipse and wanders in the woods. For some reason Marc takes Kia to a church and she freaks out. Amael urges sis to seek revenge for being violated. They unleash the incubus. It rapes and kills Ardnis but in its showdown with Marc, Marc seems to slay it. But it isn't dead. When the incubus confronts Marc and Kia at the church, she renounces the devil and makes the sign of the cross which turns the incubus into a goat. Not exactly sure what to make of the ending. 

INCUBUS was the second feature to be made in the artificial language of Esperanto (the first was a film called ANGOROJ, filmed in 1964). There's a difference of opinion as to why Esperanto was used but director Leslie Stevens (creator of TV's THE OUTER LIMITS, which had been canceled by ABC in 1965) says it was just to give the film “an eerie, other worldly feeling”. One the film's cinematographers, Conrad Hall went on to win 3 Academy Awards for his work. The film is a weird concoction and sometimes feels like a horror movie made Ingmar Bergman (not sure if this is a complement...). 

The film was heavily criticized by speakers of Esperanto because of the actors' pronunciations and accents although this should have been a trivial matter since the film wasn't made to promote the language. Added to that the actor who played the incubus, Milos Milos killed himself and his girlfriend (the estranged wife of Mickey Rooney) shortly after the film was released, the film could not find a distributor in the US. 

Once thought a lost film, a damaged print surfaced in France in 1996 and The Sci-Fi Channel (now called SyFy) sponsored the restoration, an admirable effort but let's face it, if Capt. Bill hadn't been the lead this would have been left to decay....

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Lost But Found

PRIVATE PROPERTY-1960-Two hoodlums, Duke (Corey Allen) and Boots (Warren Oates) use intimation and switchblade to get their way. Duke also rides Boots for still being a virgin. They take a shine to a Ann Carlisle (Kate Manx, the director's wife) who they spot at a gas station and force an old guy (Jerome Cowan) to follow her to her house. Fortunately for them the house next door is unoccupied and they squat there and spy on her and her husband Roger (Robert Wark). Duke's sick plan is to seduce Ann and then turn her over to Boots but it doesn't quite work out that way when Boots winds up doing the dead man's float in the swimming​ pool and Duke is shot to death by Ann. 

Though rather mild and irritating by today's standards, PRIVATE PPROPERTY caused a lot of controversy in its initial release and was condemned by The League Of Decency. It played very few venues and disappeared. So much so that it was thought to be a "lost" film until a print was discovered and restored around 2016. 

PRIVATE PROPERTY was the first movie directed (and written) by Leslie Stevens, a busy TV screenwriter at the time. He went back to TV after the failure of this feature before returning to the big screen in 1966 with INCUBUS, the supernatural Bergmanesque parable with dialogue in Esperanto and starring William Shatner. His last work is on the series THE OUTER LIMITS. Sadly, leading lady Manx committed suicide four years after this was made. Star Corey Allen had been in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and other films and later became a successful TV director.

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