The concept of a mad plastic surgeon who gets his jollies off by torturing people in his basement isn’t a bad one, but where Incision fails is in its execution. The film excites us with its premise but doesn’t know how to insert it into reality.

Getting the premise of a horror story to fit into the real world is one of the most difficult obstacles the genre has to overcome. Often, it uses a character with a plight, fault, or circumstance that makes it easy for the audience to empathize. This inserts us into the story and builds our suspension of disbelief.

Incision suffers from a lethal cocktail of poor dialogue, stunted performances, and bad pacing. The film’s narrative is in such a rush to get all six protagonists into the clutches of Dr. Cunningham (James Allan Brewer), and stumbles over itself several times to do so.

What begins as a search for a missing laptop quickly becomes an unintentionally comedic series of decisions. Characters frequently establish and then undermine their motivations. It’s not uncommon to ask “Why would you do that?” of a character in a horror film. However, Incision prompts us to question the actions of the protagonists so often that any suspension of disbelief is hastily done away with.

We are never given any reason to care about the characters who we know are going to find themselves in dire straits. When the film attempts to garner sympathy, it uses cheap and tone-deaf depictions of mental health, which it later exploits for very tasteless pathos. Other characters are just straight-up unlikable, vapid, or dripping with toxic masculinity.

The suspense and in-your-face horror the film promises in its cold opening comes to the fore at the halfway point. Fans of medical horror will enjoy the gore and torture depicted in the film, though with neither sympathy for the victims, or any sense of understanding for the villains, it feels hollow.

The antagonists draw on a number of horror tropes. This makes it impossible for any of them to feel unique. We have no understanding of their motivations, which makes it difficult to properly fear them. They exhibit supernatural traits for no other reason than to fulfill cheap and obvious jump scares.

The effects are a mixture of gut-churningly realistic, and obviously computer-generated. Horror buffs may appreciate the brave way in which Incision tries to show us things we may not have seen before, but the CGI makes the violence too far removed from reality to properly appreciate.

Where Incision shines is in its sense of place. Dr. Cunningham’s home is creepy without feeling out of place in the suburban setting. His surgery is claustrophobic, and filthy in a way that you can feel through the screen.

Incision is reminiscent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hostel, and The Human Centipede. When it works, it delivers face-twistingly good gore. Unfortunately, stunted dialogue and a confused narrative hold the film back from standing on its own.

MOVIE RATING

3 out of 10