The Incarnation is the directorial debut by Isaac Walsh, starring Taye Diggs (Empire, Chicago) and Jessica Uberuaga (Take Back, Vigilante Diaries) as a married couple desperately seeking success and new beginnings in Los Angeles. With a business venture rapidly going south, the couple moves into a lush property that seems too good to be true. After discovering the occultist secrets that are locked behind the door of the spare room, their luck begins to turn. However, with their hunger for riches becoming more and more insatiable, they soon learn that everything comes with a devastatingly high price.
Based on the infamous demon Mammon, which in the New Testament of the bible means riches and material wealth, The Incarnation is an exploration into the depths at which a person would sink to make sure their wildest dreams come to fruition. Where the film suffers its downfall is the lack of clear demonology and an explanation of the lore behind this certain entity, raising more questions that are never fully answered. More screen time is wasted on unnecessary interior and exterior shots of the house which are continuously repeated throughout the running time which gives rise to a feeling of the shots being filler fluff rather than fulfilling any sort of need.
Taye Diggs provides a solid performance as Brad who is constantly grappling with a traumatic past and a demanding marriage however with a lack of any real scares or chilling tension, The Incarnation, unfortunately, falls flat and fails to conjure any sort of raison d’etre. Perhaps with more time spent developing the occult factor of the film and living up to the infamy of the demon at hand, it may have been a stronger addition to the demonic subgenre.
The Incarnation gets its UK premiere on DVD and DIGITAL this March courtesy of 101 Films.
THE INCARNATION – YGRAINE’S ARCHIVE
