The Incurables

Bassoff (The Disassembled Man) mars this Southern gothic nightmare with unsympathetic characters and relentlessly grim tableaux, failing to deliver any meaningful impact. The tour of depraved set pieces is set in the 1950s and loosely built around Walter Freeman, a real-life doctor who thought transorbital lobotomies were the cure for every mental illness. Scent is a psychotic young prostitute who thinks her mentally ill mother has hidden a stash of cash, and who will do anything to find it; a man believes his teen son, Durango, is the second coming of the Messiah and hits the carnival circuit to spread the word (which includes forcing Durango to wear a crown of thorns); and Freeman takes a lobotomized patient and his trusty ice pick on the road, planning to offer his procedure to the masses. These deeply damaged people find their fates entwined in Burnwood, Okla., with deranged and murderous results. By that time, the unrelenting and senseless violence has rendered numb what was surely meant to be an explosive final scene. A colleague says to Freeman about his methods, “It’s like you removed their very souls”; unfortunately, this effort is just as soulless. (Jan.)