Product Details

• Actors: Eva Brauner, Pier A. Caminnecci, Américo Coimbra, Lina De Wolf, Adrian Hoven
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0)
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: X (Mature Audiences Only)
• Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
• DVD Release Date: October 27, 1998
• Run Time: 79 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6305183376
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #103,599 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Succubus" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

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!"

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Incoherent but Inviting, April 13, 2004

By 

John Ashley Nail (Decatur, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Succubus [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"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.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a psychedelic time capsule into another world (man), March 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Succubus [VHS] (VHS Tape)

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.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wrong., January 24, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Succubus (DVD)

The DVD is not faded out as suggested. Dream sequences were filmed using a filter in order to create a soft lighting effect.