OK, so, films in Esperanto starring William Shatner… Anybody? The answer is Incubus, a true oddity from 1966 made just before Shatner started work on Star Trek. It’s one of only two films made in the world’s most widely spoken “constructed auxiliary language” (made up, in other words) in the 1960s. The other being 1964’s Angoroj. Wikipedia says there are two more from the noughties – 2006’s Gerda malaperis! and 2007’s La Patro, which is only 40 minutes long and about which not much is known.
Incubus is undoubtedly the most famous of all of them, partly because of Shatner, partly because it’s directed by Lesley Stevens, the producer of The Outer Limits, who bring plenty of that show’s spookery to this brisk (74 minutes) horror excursion. But also because the great cinematographer Conrad Hall is the DP, which is quite a coup when something is this low-budget.
The story revolves around blond alien women who lurk in the vicinity of a supposedly healing well and lure innocent men to their watery dooms with the promise of sex. There are two of them: Kia (Allyson Ames), the alluring one who does the destroying, and Amael (Eloise Hardt), who is forever warning Kia to be wary of “good” men, because they possess a force which makes them impossible to subdue.
Enter Marc (Shatner), a hapless human, for a sci-fi-ish take on the Garden of Eden story. Brave, peace-loving Marc lives a prelapsarian life with his sweet sister Arndis (Ann Atmar). Arndis is almost written out of the story early on, when she goes blind after looking at the sun during an eclipse (bizarre) but remains a vulnerable presence and is pressed into plot action a bit later on.
For Kia and Amael Marc is the latest target, but when he fails to come across with the goods as quickly as they require they decide to bring in the big guns. They summon the ungodly monster the Incubus. And in a clear case of getting a man in to do a job a woman has failed at, the creature (Milos Milos) heads off to sort out Arndis – disguised as a handsome man – before turning his attention to Marc.
Like a lot of cheap horror films the acting is cheap and horrible. The actors learned their lines phonetically and they read them as if they have no idea what they mean. Only Shatner really makes an effort, filling his performance with all the familiar Shatner pauses, speed changes, cadence shifts and declamatory poses that has made him the enduring icon he is.
Shatner saves the film, in fact, though Conrad Hall lends it its luxurious looks and adds light and shade to scene after scene of Marc and Kia fannying about in the woods. Let’s also not forget Dominic Frontiere, whose work on The Outer Limits has been repurposed for this film. His “score” (an assemblage of offcuts from the TV show), is nicely evocative – the avant-garde-woo-woo-plus-orchestra that was Frontiere’s signature style.
The film only really hits operating speed towards the end. After the acres of set-up are out of the way, Stevens and Hall combine forces to deliver a pacy finale.
It’s a strange but interesting film, which should have had a decent release and was all lined up for one when two of its stars, Milos and Atmar, committed suicide before the premiere. The film got pulled and was never seen, except in France, where the only surviving print of this “lost” film was found. Since then, a better, 35mm print has turned up. Arrow Video is the name to look out for if you would like to see this film at its best.
All in all it’s a lot better than you might expect, full of spookiness rather than outright horror, and the use of Esperanto really helps to make everything extra unworldly. What little budget there is has probably been spent on Hall’s lighting, and his work here is good – high contrast, well framed, nicely lit images, which he doubles down on as the film hits its home straight.
I recommend it, as an oddity but also as a genuine attempt to do something different, on no budget to speak of. Not bad at all.
“Inkubo”, in case you were wondering, is how you say Incubus in Esperanto.
Incubus – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
