Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #116598 in DVD
• Released on: 1998-10-27
• Rating: X (Mature Audiences Only)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 91 minutes

Amazon.com
Va-va-voomish Janine Reynaud (Kiss Me Monster) plays Lorna, the star of an underground nightclub's Grand Guignol theater who harbors a dark, haunting secret. She performs elaborate S/M fantasies nightly with a bound naked couple before she pretends to kill them, but she's losing her grip on reality. Dreams, flashbacks, and erotic fantasies blur with her waking world and pretty soon she's murdering her sexual partners for real... or is she? The answer may have something to do with a furtive stranger on the fringes of her consciousness and a plot to drive her insane, but it's hard to tell for sure. Sexploitation master Jess Franco creates an alienated but gorgeous vision of the decadent grotesque-chic world of European high society with oblique camera angles, distorted images, and disorienting editing, turning a kinky erotic thriller into a heady (if abstract) psychological fantasy. If it's ultimately too obscure to make sense, it's nonetheless an ambitious, intoxicatingly dreamy piece of Eurotrash cinema. German leading men Howard Vernon and Adrian Hoven lend their aristocratic bearings in costarring roles. --Sean Axmaker

Vincent Canby, The New York Times
"PERVERSELY NAUGHTY!"

Cinema Nocturna
"A Truly Visionary And Beautiful Film!"

Customer Reviews

Incoherent but Inviting
"Succubus" invites repeat viewings, if only because your first thought upon reaching the final scene will be: What the hell? But that just makes it a perfect '60s Eurotrash time capsule. The beautiful Janine Reynaud (in the book "Sleazoid Express," she's aptly described as a "Gallic Dyanne Thorne") stars as a nightclub performer who has a successful S&M stage show and a hot romance with her manager. She also has dreams that take her to a castle where she wears fabulous Karl Lagerfeld gowns and indulges in pretentious verbal sparring matches that lead to nudity and suggested sex, then murder. But maybe they're not dreams at all. Maybe she does know that mysterious stranger that keeps popping up periodically throught the film. And maybe she is indeed possessed by the devil. And maybe someone wants to kill her. Or, possibly, she's just attended one LSD orgy (complete with a drag queen, a dwarf and a dog puppet) too many. Nevermind. Once you accept the fact that the movie has no plans on becoming coherent, "Succubus" is a lot of fun to watch, the celluloid equivalent of hallucinogenic drugs. Director Jess Franco keeps us entertained by heaping on plenty of atmosphere and artsy camera work while star Reynaud helps out with her screen presence. Though the movie was rated X when first released, it would barely get an R today with its nudity, mostly of the T&A variety, and sex scenes that show the seduction or afterglow but bypass the act itself. The only true sex scene is filmed through a fish tank. Groovy.

a psychedelic time capsule into another world (man)
Succubus (aka Necronomicon) is actually one of Jess Franco's better films, which means it's still pretty problematic. On the negative side, it's indifferently paced, unevenly photographed, and laughably pretentious. On the postitive side, it's imaginative, short, surreal, often beautifully photograped, and laughably pretentious. Hey, Fritz Lang loved it, so it can't be all bad. Plot, what there is of one, concerns a stripper whose act ends with her "killing" her fellow, tied down, performers. Increasingly she begins to lose grip on reality, and to its credit, so does the film. You're never quite sure if what you see is part of the plot or one of her elaborate fantasies. This is nicely done, although it often leads to absurd interior monologues and sub-Godard "arty" dialogue, often with gratuitous name dropping (Stockhausen, Kafka, Camus, DeSade, you get the picture). It's not often clear if Franco is lampooning this sort of self-consciously highbrow talk, or actively indulging in it, although I'm inclined towards the former. Somewhat predictably for the period, the film features drugs, a drag queen, people barking like dogs, and a dwarf. Oh, she might be an agent of Satan, but that's not quite clear. Like a great many Euro Trash titles, Succubus improves upon repeat viewings, so give this one time. There's a great scene involving mannequins which may, or may not, be attacking a woman. That alone is worth the price of admission. This (along with Diabolical Dr. Z, Kiss Me, Monster, and Awful Dr. Orloff) definitely shows that Franco had a great deal of potential in the Sixties, most of which seemed to evaporate in the Seventies. Still, his "resources be damned, it's my God given right to make movies" attitude has to be admired. I'm glad he exists, but I'd still rather watch Baba Yaga any day.

Strange and beautiful
Succubus is back, thanks to Blue Underground. Though this is the cut U.S. version it is at least in widescreen this time around and with a much improved picture. As for the film, what can one say about it except the old cliché--you'll literally either love it or hate it. It's not an out-and-out horror film, though it contains many horror elements; it's actually more of an art film, the result of Jess Franco finally having been given complete control over the production. Because of this, the man's odd and unique vision really comes through here, possibly more so than in any of his other films. Succubus is one odd, beautiful, and ambiguous ride. Viewers who demand a coherent storyline with a clear resolution of all plot elements achieved by the end of the film will likely be greatly disappointed, if not aggravated, as what is going on throughout the film is really never made clear. What is clear, however, is that the characters are living in a hazy, blurred reality, both because of their own psychological quirks, and because of their lifestyles. Franco pays homage to some of his inspirations here, such as La Dolce Vita, and does so in a way that both recreates some of the mood of his inspiration as well as pokes fun at it at the same time. The viewer will watch a woman in an abyss of psychological confusion, and whether she is in some way possessed and truly evil or merely insane is never resolved. The goal is not cohesion here, but merely to draw the viewer into the characters' insane realities. We witness bizarre murders, LSD parties, and tormented couple that dwells in Franco's twisted universe, part horror, part exploitation, part art-house pretension, and pure Franco. What is going on we'll never really know, whether supernatural or purely natural, but viewers who are able to appreciate the film for what it is, a visual smorgasbord and a tour of a splintered mind, may come away loving it, as I did. The film is anomalous and strange, and also achieves scenes of great beauty, especially towards the end. One scene in particular, of the male supporting lead driving around and listening to his own internal mental narrative, has stuck with me since I originally watched the film years ago. Hooray for Blue Underground for releasing obscure films on DVD that would otherwise perhaps end up lost to time.