Day 8 as we meander through the macabre, and up today is a different take on the possession movie, 2016’s Incarnate. Lindsey (Carice van Houten) is separated from her husband after a violent incident, and her and her son Cameron (David Mazouz) are making a go of it on their own. One night while returning home from groceries, Cameron spies a homeless woman rooting through a dumpster, and is later attacked in the apartment by her. Turns out the woman was possessed by a demon, and the demon has now entered Cameron. Dr. Ember (Aaron Eckhart), a scientist who has developed a technique for entering the minds of the possessed to evict demons, is called in to help by Camilla (Catalina Sandino Moreno), a woman with ties to the Vatican. Ember and his helpers, Oliver (Keir O’Donnell) and Riley (Emily Jackson), work to save the boy and combat a demon with ties to Ember’s past.
The movie does attempt something different with the possession formula, treating demons as more of a parasitic entity than as a malevolent minion from Hell. Eckhart (The Dark Knight) does a fairly good job here as the scientist with a unique gift and a desire to hunt down the demon that took his family. Carice van Houten (Game of Thrones) is convincing as the mother, and Mazouz (The Darkness) is decent as the possessed Cameron, alternating between frightened boy and malicious demon nicely. There are some moments that have your typical horror movie trope of people doing dumb, and the ending is fairly predictable, but director Brad Peyton (San Andreas) keeps things moving along at a brisk pace and delivers a reasonably entertaining movie. Now available on DVD/Blu-ray, and it’s worth at least a rental. 6.5/10 stars
