Told that he only has a few weeks left to live, a terminally ill lawyer searches for a host to receive his memories upon passing away - as per his belief in reincarnation - in this unusual Canadian drama. Although credited on IMDb as a horror film, 'The Reincarnate' is mostly a series of filmed conversations as the lawyer discusses his beliefs and tries to convince a young sculptor to take part in the ritual. The plus side of this is that Jack Creley is intriguing to listen to with his utter calmness about dying and philosophical quips; "there is another life if you remember this one". The minus of this is that the film's take on reincarnation is rather complicated and therefore there is far more talk than action as everything is explained to us. It is not a particularly moody or atmospheric film either and while there is one awesome sequence involving a stray cat crashing through a sky light, more moments like these could have really given the film an edge that it feels like it is missing. Overly complicated though the film's mythology may be, it is still undeniably fascinating and it is interesting throughout as it is hard to predict where exactly the film is going to go with all the reincarnation discussion. The film is topped off with a memorable final scene too, though it is a mystery why anyone thought it was a good idea to tack that cheesy song on as the end credits scroll.
8 Reviews
Reicarnation talk.
chrischr-8502227 April 2020
Unique minor-league supernatural drama.
EyeAskance28 August 2008
Mr. Julian, a wealthy "laudator temporis acti", aesthete, and patron of the arts, is diagnosed terminal. He quickly puts into motion the complex ritual which has kept him alive for many centuries...alive, at least, in a manner of speaking. His memory, you see, is a continuum which has been passed down through generations of recipients. This transfiguration occurs during an ages-old rite which requires two things...a suitable successor, and a virgin sacrifice.
THE REINCARNATE is a film of interest chiefly to those with a fondness for the more cerebral elements of horror. Spare of action and bloodletting, emphasis is instead placed on the eeriness of harbingers in the storyline, and the creeping buildup to an unforeseeable conclusion.
The cast does a marvelous job here, especially Jack Creley as the mysterious Mr. Julian, and Jay Reynolds as David, the headstrong young sculptor who has been selected as a worthy link in the chain which has kept an ancient memory "living".
All things considered, THE REINCARNATE is a minor, yet thoughtful and oddly compelling item. If you can overlook some forgivable deficiencies(an undeveloped substory involving a cat, in particular, seems to possibly be an impulsive post-addition), you may well find that this film has been rather unfairly dismissed. 6/10.
THE REINCARNATE is a film of interest chiefly to those with a fondness for the more cerebral elements of horror. Spare of action and bloodletting, emphasis is instead placed on the eeriness of harbingers in the storyline, and the creeping buildup to an unforeseeable conclusion.
The cast does a marvelous job here, especially Jack Creley as the mysterious Mr. Julian, and Jay Reynolds as David, the headstrong young sculptor who has been selected as a worthy link in the chain which has kept an ancient memory "living".
All things considered, THE REINCARNATE is a minor, yet thoughtful and oddly compelling item. If you can overlook some forgivable deficiencies(an undeveloped substory involving a cat, in particular, seems to possibly be an impulsive post-addition), you may well find that this film has been rather unfairly dismissed. 6/10.
It's Not What It's Wanting To Be
Rainey-Dawn5 December 2016
As one reviewer has said it's full of pretentious people. The film is just overly long and boring. It's trying to be a mysterious occult horror-thriller but it fails miserably to be what it wants to be . Such a shame, I was looking forward to watching a really good film on the occult and the topic of reincarnation. "The Reincarnation of Peter Proud" seems to be the only really good movie on the subject of reincarnation.
Jack Creley really got on my nerves in this film for some reason. I was okay with the film and then he would show up an really irritate me. I can't place my finger on why though - mainly his voice kept bothering me and it should not have but it did. Why I'll never know.
2/10
Jack Creley really got on my nerves in this film for some reason. I was okay with the film and then he would show up an really irritate me. I can't place my finger on why though - mainly his voice kept bothering me and it should not have but it did. Why I'll never know.
2/10
Reincarnated rehash of old theme
zeppo-216 July 2005
As one character says, "This sounds pretty hokey to me," which is a good description of this overlong, overwrought, pretentious diatribe on reincarnation.
This might, I say, might, have made a middling episode of a TV series like 'Tales from the Darkside' or 'Tales from the Crypt' but as a film it's far too slow and dull. Nothing really happens until the final part of the film and before that it's just talk and more talk. Nothing wrong with that but it's static and too much time is taken with endless shots of the leads looking at each other and explaining the plot.
More a drama than an actual horror film but lacking any tension or suspense. You can see the end coming from the start and it's just a matter of waiting till it happens....eventually.
The style of acting reminds me of amateur dramatics at the local Church hall, very intense and earnest but quite boring for the audience.
This type of stuff has been done far better in other films with a reincarnation theme. This is one that I don't want to come back again to watch!
Plus it also has one of the worst closing credits song I have ever heard!
This might, I say, might, have made a middling episode of a TV series like 'Tales from the Darkside' or 'Tales from the Crypt' but as a film it's far too slow and dull. Nothing really happens until the final part of the film and before that it's just talk and more talk. Nothing wrong with that but it's static and too much time is taken with endless shots of the leads looking at each other and explaining the plot.
More a drama than an actual horror film but lacking any tension or suspense. You can see the end coming from the start and it's just a matter of waiting till it happens....eventually.
The style of acting reminds me of amateur dramatics at the local Church hall, very intense and earnest but quite boring for the audience.
This type of stuff has been done far better in other films with a reincarnation theme. This is one that I don't want to come back again to watch!
Plus it also has one of the worst closing credits song I have ever heard!
Don't Watch This!!
anxietyresister25 July 2006
Yep, here it is.. the worst movie I've ever reviewed on this site. I will give an opinion on Practical Magic one day, but not in the near future. Anyhoo, what is this film about? That my friend is a complete mystery, and not one I care to unravel. Looking at the front cover, it obviously fancies itself as a horror flick. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unless the prospect of 90 minutes of boring, meaningless talk fills you with dread, in which case it is absolutely terrifying.
The plot, something about a bloke with a month to live, a promising young sculptor and his virgin girlfriend he is being forced to sacrifice is utter piffle and does not make one jot of sense. At least in most bad 'scary' movies like this, there are some cheesy special effects to laugh at or extremely fake blood and guts spilt. Not a bit of that here though.. just tedious characters flitting from one droning conversation to another, with no break for scares, killings or anything else that even resembles fun. Wait a sec.. occasionally we do get a sight of a rather loud moggy (SPOOKY!), but his role in the final production is quite arbitrarily. In fact, he looks like he has been edited in from another film.
What is the director's game here? Did he start out with a ton of gory scenes, but then cut them out because he was aiming for a PG? Could the inexplicable 18 rating this has in the UK be for that never-been-seen-before version? Who cares, the missing footage isn't really going to go down with the ones from 'The Magnificent Ambersons' in national importance. Either way, the fact remains that someone actually financed this tripe after reading the script, actors thought it was worth reciting this awful dialogue and somebody had the brains to release it on video when the negative should have been quietly thrown in a nearby dumpster. The mind boggles.
Anyway, I repeat: this is by some distance the most snoozeworthy, waste of space of a film I have seen in many a moon.. so take advantage of it's rarity by steering clear of it like a landmine on the motorway. Thank you, and good night.. 0/10 (DUH)
The plot, something about a bloke with a month to live, a promising young sculptor and his virgin girlfriend he is being forced to sacrifice is utter piffle and does not make one jot of sense. At least in most bad 'scary' movies like this, there are some cheesy special effects to laugh at or extremely fake blood and guts spilt. Not a bit of that here though.. just tedious characters flitting from one droning conversation to another, with no break for scares, killings or anything else that even resembles fun. Wait a sec.. occasionally we do get a sight of a rather loud moggy (SPOOKY!), but his role in the final production is quite arbitrarily. In fact, he looks like he has been edited in from another film.
What is the director's game here? Did he start out with a ton of gory scenes, but then cut them out because he was aiming for a PG? Could the inexplicable 18 rating this has in the UK be for that never-been-seen-before version? Who cares, the missing footage isn't really going to go down with the ones from 'The Magnificent Ambersons' in national importance. Either way, the fact remains that someone actually financed this tripe after reading the script, actors thought it was worth reciting this awful dialogue and somebody had the brains to release it on video when the negative should have been quietly thrown in a nearby dumpster. The mind boggles.
Anyway, I repeat: this is by some distance the most snoozeworthy, waste of space of a film I have seen in many a moon.. so take advantage of it's rarity by steering clear of it like a landmine on the motorway. Thank you, and good night.. 0/10 (DUH)
I Am A Reincarnate. . My Memory Is Eternal
sol12181 September 2005
(There are Spoilers) Strange movie about reincarnation and the transfer of one's memory to another at the moment of death. All of this coming from the philosophy of the ancient Sakana religious cult that corporate lawyer Everet Julian, Jack Creley,belongs to.
Being told by no less then three different doctors that he doesn't have long to live Julian looks up a person that he dealt with in a court case a while ago artist David Payne, Jay Reynolds, who greatly impressed him. Payne a stubborn and bull headed individual is just the free spirit that Julian wan't to transfer his memory to after he dies. Seeing Payne at his studio Julian at first is not direct about his reasons for being there, having Payne accept his proposition of brain-transportation, but tries to impress him by lauding over his works.
Going so far as to later rent the prestigious Ormsby Gallery to have an exposition of his art has the some-what befuddled Payne start to listen to Julian's theories about reincarnation and mind transfers which he starting telling him about as soon as he felt that Payne was ready to except them. Payne who at first thought that Julian was some kind of rich and eccentric nut slowly starts to feel that there's something to all the BS he's been telling him. Thats when his lover Ann's, Terry Tweed, husband gets killed in a car crash making it possible or him to marry her. His suspicions are even more confirmed about Julian's theories when he suddenly comes into a large inheritance of over $200,000,00 in stocks and a 170 acre piece of real-estate outside of the city with only a church on it! A Sakana church.
What Payne doesn't know is that all this, the stocks the land the church, belonged to a professor John Louella, who got Julian involved with Sakana, who's memory was transfered to Julian years ago just after he passed away. Meanwhile Payne who had trouble producing great works of art starts knocking them out as if he were the reincarnation of Leonaro Da Vinci. As the day of his art exhibit arrived October 31,Halloween,all of Payne's works are sold out at huge prices as he became the newest and possibly greatest genius, in the world of art, of the 20th century. That day was also the day that Julia expected to die.
As the time came for Julian demise there had to be a price to be paid by Payne for everything that Julian gave him beside him receiving Julian's memory; a young virgin Ruthie Monese, Trudy Young, was to be sacrificed at the altar of the Sakana Church with Payne being the master of ceremonies.
Jay Reynolds as David Payne was by far the best and most interesting person in the movie going from a skeptic to a believer in all the stories that Juian told him about the occult. In the end Payne did everything that was expected of him even offering up as a burnt offering Ruthie to the God of Sakana. Jack Creley as Everet Julian was so clam during the entire movie that he seemed to know exactly what the outcome would be as if he saw it hundreds of times before, like he must have in all his past lives. Trudy Young as Ruthie was just a typical 1970's hippie-type teenage girl looking for a Guru to tell her what's the meaning of life and for what reason was she put on earth for, Ruthie found out soon enough. And the high priest of the Church of Sakana Stedley, Gene Tybrun, was so immersed in his practice of Sakana that if a bomb landed and exploded on top of his head he never would have noticed it. Since even though his body was here on earth his mind was in another different realm of existence.
P.S Ruthie's end was not as tragic and gruesome as you, and I,would have expected it to be it actually gave her a new start in life as you see when the movie is ending.
Being told by no less then three different doctors that he doesn't have long to live Julian looks up a person that he dealt with in a court case a while ago artist David Payne, Jay Reynolds, who greatly impressed him. Payne a stubborn and bull headed individual is just the free spirit that Julian wan't to transfer his memory to after he dies. Seeing Payne at his studio Julian at first is not direct about his reasons for being there, having Payne accept his proposition of brain-transportation, but tries to impress him by lauding over his works.
Going so far as to later rent the prestigious Ormsby Gallery to have an exposition of his art has the some-what befuddled Payne start to listen to Julian's theories about reincarnation and mind transfers which he starting telling him about as soon as he felt that Payne was ready to except them. Payne who at first thought that Julian was some kind of rich and eccentric nut slowly starts to feel that there's something to all the BS he's been telling him. Thats when his lover Ann's, Terry Tweed, husband gets killed in a car crash making it possible or him to marry her. His suspicions are even more confirmed about Julian's theories when he suddenly comes into a large inheritance of over $200,000,00 in stocks and a 170 acre piece of real-estate outside of the city with only a church on it! A Sakana church.
What Payne doesn't know is that all this, the stocks the land the church, belonged to a professor John Louella, who got Julian involved with Sakana, who's memory was transfered to Julian years ago just after he passed away. Meanwhile Payne who had trouble producing great works of art starts knocking them out as if he were the reincarnation of Leonaro Da Vinci. As the day of his art exhibit arrived October 31,Halloween,all of Payne's works are sold out at huge prices as he became the newest and possibly greatest genius, in the world of art, of the 20th century. That day was also the day that Julia expected to die.
As the time came for Julian demise there had to be a price to be paid by Payne for everything that Julian gave him beside him receiving Julian's memory; a young virgin Ruthie Monese, Trudy Young, was to be sacrificed at the altar of the Sakana Church with Payne being the master of ceremonies.
Jay Reynolds as David Payne was by far the best and most interesting person in the movie going from a skeptic to a believer in all the stories that Juian told him about the occult. In the end Payne did everything that was expected of him even offering up as a burnt offering Ruthie to the God of Sakana. Jack Creley as Everet Julian was so clam during the entire movie that he seemed to know exactly what the outcome would be as if he saw it hundreds of times before, like he must have in all his past lives. Trudy Young as Ruthie was just a typical 1970's hippie-type teenage girl looking for a Guru to tell her what's the meaning of life and for what reason was she put on earth for, Ruthie found out soon enough. And the high priest of the Church of Sakana Stedley, Gene Tybrun, was so immersed in his practice of Sakana that if a bomb landed and exploded on top of his head he never would have noticed it. Since even though his body was here on earth his mind was in another different realm of existence.
P.S Ruthie's end was not as tragic and gruesome as you, and I,would have expected it to be it actually gave her a new start in life as you see when the movie is ending.
Surprisingly engaging...
Voxel-Ux22 May 2004
Yes, a surprisingly engaging low budget film. What is of interest is the film's ability to convey a very thick atmosphere for the arts and of reincarnation. It is chock full of the usual kitsch associated with minimal budget films (filmed in Toronto, by the way) but this is of no consequence. Both Jack Creley and Jay Reynolds work well together and are excellent actors in their own right.
Pretty much a forgotten film now I would recommend at least a single viewing and for those frightened by horror films your desire to be "creeped out" will be satisfied. Like The Shining the horror is more in the story than in shocking images. It will envelop you and you will want to see it again.
7 out of 10.
Pretty much a forgotten film now I would recommend at least a single viewing and for those frightened by horror films your desire to be "creeped out" will be satisfied. Like The Shining the horror is more in the story than in shocking images. It will envelop you and you will want to see it again.
7 out of 10.
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