Marquis de Cinema One of the best introductions to a movie ever! Classical music accompanies the first couple of minutes with images of erotic renaissance artwork then the music swiftly changes to this early 60's jazz.Then things turn weird with experimental Stockhausen type music with the classic shot of Janine Reynaud looking like a dominatrix. S&M style night club act. Jess was the master at directing these strange sexual night club scenes he continually went back to this throughout his career. This film represents the beauty of any great Euro cult horror movie. Dreamlike, psychedelic, beautifully shot cinematography with plenty of babes and eroticism and not to mention it's cool jazz score. It's a lost art form that is being preserved by many great DVD labels today. Many people don't know that this was (for an erotic-horror b-movie) pretty successful in the UK and the States in the late sixties and it wouldn't have been completed had it not been for a millionaire film producer who had the hots for Reynaud. If you're into Franco this is one of his masterpieces, but the slow pace that always makes Franco films seem like they drag on and on (I guess that is what turns a lot of people off) from Franco. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but the film is really grainy looking. This was probably to make the film look like a dream and give this psychedelic atmosphere. Lots of shots of beautiful European architecture, a weird hedonistic LSD party, a strange demon women and walking mannequins. In the 60's Jess was on the verge of becoming one of the great European directors, but then he started making films like Eugenie de Sade and Vampyros Lesbos and his reputation was ruined by critics who like to say he made crappy boring porn movies that made no sense. Oh well, more for us heathens to enjoy! A forgotten gem of European sex-horror from the 60's. 7/10

Claudio Carvalho The performer Lorna Green (Janine Reynaud) is a dominatrix in a S&M show in a nightclub and lover of the producer, William Francis Mulligan (Jack Taylor). Lorna attracts the attention of a stranger that believes she is the essence of evil and controls her mind. Lorna has sex with Mulligan and has a weird dream where she stabs a man with a needle in the eye. On the next morning, she is walking with Mulligan and sees a hearse on the road. When she glances at the corpse, she sees the man of her dream and cries. Soon Lorna has other daydreams followed by murders and she starts to blend reality with dreams. Soon she is confused with her nightmares and her memories from a past life when she was a countess. Meanwhile the stranger plots a scheme against Lorna with Mulligan."Necronomicon - Geträumte Sünden", a.k.a., "Succubus", is the first movie of Jess Franco outside Spain because of the censorship in his country. This movie is financed by Germany and produced in West Germany. Considered a cult movie for many viewers, I had a great expectation but I found it boring and with a messy screenplay. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): "Succubus"

Infofreak I must immediately make clear that the version of 'Succubus' I watched was the American one with the shorter running time. I have absolutely no idea what has been cut and how different this is from what Jess Franco originally intended. Even so, this is a remarkable movie, and one of the most interesting Franco movies I have seen.The beautiful Janine Reynaud plays Lorna Green, an enigmatic erotic dancer cum performance artist who stages odd, sadomasochistic events at a nightclub. She is plagued by hallucinations (?) and begins to confuse fantasy and reality, a common Franco scenario. I have to admit by the half way point I didn't have a clue what was going on, or who was who, but I didn't mind. Plot in 'Succubus' is secondary. Atmosphere, aesthetics, babes and surreal dialogue which name-dropped everyone from Stockhausen to Spillane to Mingus to De Sade, make this movie essential viewing. Reynaud is stunning to look at, there's some tasty jazz on the soundtrack, and there's the added kick of seeing the legendary Howard Vernon, a Franco regular who also appeared in everything from Godard's 'Alphaville' to Polanski's 'The Ninth Gate'.Beginners should check out 'Vampyros Lesbos' first, still the most satisfying Franco I've seen, but make 'Succubus' a close second. You'll see nothing like it anywhere!

manacoa-1 Franco proves, once again, that he is the prince of surreal & erotic cinema. True, much of his work can be viewed as entertaining sleaze but with Succubus (Necronomicon) he shows what he is truly capable of when he lets his warped creativity run riot and gives us a film that is both hypnotic and enigmatic whilst still maintaining the delirious eroticism intrinsic in his work. Jerry Van Rooyen's splendid score pulsates as the viewer is thrown from one bizarre scenario to another as we follow the trials of a striptease artist (Reynaud) who may be schizophrenic, or may indeed (as one mysterious character states) be a devil, attempt to come to terms with the world she inhabits. A beautiful and enigmatic piece of cinema highly recommended to anybody with even a passing interest in alternative cinema.