If hell has a bargain bin, Incubus is probably still sitting there, collecting digital dust between House of the Dead and a bootleg copy of Troll 2. Billed as the first “Download To Own” video back in 2006, it feels less like a milestone for the future of film distribution and more like a crime against broadband users everywhere. Directed by Anya Camilleri, and starring Tara Reid (yes, that Tara Reid), this British horror-thriller attempts to be moody, terrifying, and cerebral, but instead ends up feeling like a late-night fan film shot in a Romanian recycling plant with an abandoned copy of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 as its only source material.
Let’s get one thing straight: Incubus is not the worst film ever made. That honor belongs to projects so deliriously bad they almost become art. Incubus, by contrast, is worse than terrible—it’s forgettable. It’s horror Valium. The cinematic equivalent of dozing off on the couch and waking up with drool on your shirt. And for a movie about a demon that literally kills people through their dreams, that kind of sleep-inducing irony is almost poetic.
The Plot: Orin “Sleepytime” Kiefer
The film opens with Tara Reid, playing Jay, and her group of friends who apparently have never heard of Airbnbs or common sense. Seeking shelter from a storm, they break into what looks like a recycling plant but turns out to be the cinematic dumping ground for horror clichés. Inside, they discover two conveniently dead people and a glass-walled room containing a “Sleeper”—a man in a coma, strapped to machines, locked away like some kind of discount Hannibal Lecter.
The Sleeper, of course, is Orin Kiefer, a murderer supposedly executed by lethal injection six years earlier. Which raises a few questions: if he was executed, why is he here? Who decided to stash his corpse in a Romanian factory like he’s a secondhand sofa? And how did his life-support system stay on all these years—did Dracula himself pay the electric bill? These are mysteries the film doesn’t even pretend to answer, because logic is the first victim of this movie.
Soon enough, the group learns that Orin isn’t just a Sleeper—he’s an Incubus demon, capable of invading and controlling minds through dreams. Think Freddy Krueger, but if Freddy was trapped in a nap pod and could only vaguely convince Tara Reid’s friends to swing knives around. Spooky, right? Well, no. It’s about as scary as being told your nap might give you a paper cut.
The Cast: Tara Reid Fights for Her Life (Again)
Tara Reid is the headliner here, and you can tell the entire film hinges on her presence. Unfortunately, Reid delivers her lines like she’s reading them off the back of a cocktail napkin. She spends much of the movie with the expression of someone trying to remember if they left the oven on.
Her friends are no better. Bug, Holly, Josh, and Peter might as well be named “Dead Meat 1-4.” Their purpose is to scream, argue, and wander around dark corridors until they inevitably get picked off, either by each other or the nap demon. One of the supposed highlights involves Peter being “possessed” in his dreams and turning into a psychotic killer. Except instead of “terrifying,” it plays like a high school drama student attempting method acting after chugging too many Red Bulls.
And then there’s Karen, the smartest character in the movie. Why? Because she takes one look at the creepy factory, says “nah,” and leaves. She reappears only at the very end to watch everyone else’s trainwreck of a night collapse into blood and bad writing. Karen is the real Final Girl of Incubus. Too bad she’s barely in it.
The Horror: Dreams of Mediocrity
On paper, an Incubus demon who controls people in their sleep sounds promising. In execution, it’s about as exciting as watching your screensaver bounce around the monitor. Instead of surreal dreamscapes or disturbing imagery, most of the “dream attacks” consist of the actors twitching a bit, getting glassy-eyed, and then trying to strangle their friends. Imagine if Freddy Krueger had been replaced by a drowsy HR manager—this is what you’d get.
The kills are unimaginative, the scares nonexistent. Even the factory setting—which could have been eerie—is shot so flatly that it feels like a safety training video. The sound design tries to compensate with random shrieks and industrial clangs, but it only makes the experience more tedious, like someone banging pots in the next room while you’re trying to nap.
The Ending: Possession Fatigue
Eventually, after enough friends have died, Bug decides to unplug the Incubus from his machines. Naturally, this frees the demon, who snaps Bug’s neck like a breadstick and goes after Jay. Cue the final showdown, which involves Jay tricking the Incubus with a rooftop fake-out, stabbing him, and assuming she’s won.
But because this is horror by the numbers, Jay falls asleep, allowing the Incubus to possess her. The film ends with Jay being carted away by police, her eyes suddenly gleaming with madness. It’s supposed to be a shocking twist, but instead it feels like the writers gave up and just scribbled “evil possession ending” in the margins of their script.
The “Innovation”: First Download To Own
One of the film’s big selling points was that it billed itself as the first “Download To Own” movie. In 2006, that sounded futuristic—now it just sounds sad. Watching Incubus feels less like the dawn of digital cinema and more like AOL’s final revenge. Imagine clogging your dial-up connection for hours just to download a Tara Reid horror flop. Truly, the stuff of nightmares.
The Verdict: Nap Time Cinema
Incubus is the horror movie equivalent of Ambien. Its premise is weak, its scares nonexistent, and its cast lethargic. Tara Reid tries to carry the movie but looks like she’d rather be anywhere else—possibly asleep, which would be fitting.
What could have been a creepy psychological thriller about dream invasions instead turns into a plodding mess with the pacing of a NyQuil overdose. The only scary thing about Incubus is realizing you wasted 92 minutes of your life on it.
So yes, technically Incubus was a pioneer in internet distribution. But just because you’re first doesn’t mean you’re good. The Wright Brothers invented the airplane; Incubus invented buffering-induced regret.
If you’re looking for a horror film that will keep you awake, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for something to fall asleep to, well… maybe Incubus finally found its true calling.
