Succubus (1968 film)
Necronomicon - Geträumte Sünden (1968 film); AKA Succubus and The Green Eyes of the Devil
Summary
A 1968 avant-garde art-house erotic film with almost nothing to do with Lovecraft or his infamous fictional tome, The Necronomicon, beyond the title. The film involves an S&M performer's acid-fueled hallucinations of being brainwashed by the devil and a psychologist into committing murder, and dancing with a dwarf. Lovecraft film fans will likely find this bizarre art porn film to be little more than an inexplicable curiosity.
Details
- Release Date: 1968
- Country/Language: German, dubbed in English
- Genres/Technical: Adult, Avant-Garde, Psychedelica, Horror
- Runtime: 108 min
- Starring: Janine Reynaud
- Director: Jess Franco
- Producer: Jess Franco
- Writer: Pierre Cammoneci
- Production Co: Trans-American Films, Aquila Film Enterprises
- View at: (link)
Ratings
MPAA Ratings
- Rated: (none?)
Supposedly among the first films to be given the X rating in 1968; today, the film might rate an "R" or "PG-13", for artful nudity, virtually bloodless violence, tame torture scenes, and mostly-clothed LSD-fueled drug and sex orgies involving dog costumes, poetry recitals, and dancing midgets.
Tentacle Ratings
A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:
- s____ (One-Half Tentacles: Not Lovecraftian; has virtually no direct connection to Lovecraft's work)
This film has nothing to do with Lovecraft or the Necronomicon, except a reference in the title, and an apocryphal tale in which the director, in need of a title, had supposedly discovered a 16th-century copy of Lovecraft's imaginary tome, and, noting alleged similarities to the film's plot, named the film Necronomicon - Geträumte Sünden (Necronomicon: Sinful Dreams).
Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.
Reviews
Review Links:
- Giovanni Susina "At the Mansions of Madness", (link) - "As confounding as it can be sometimes, everything about Succubus is still ingenious. Ostensibly it might come off as cheap sexploitation, but it turns out to be a surprisingly rich experience."
Synopsis
Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)
Janine Reynaud stars as a nightclub stripper who free-floats through a spectral 60's landscape littered with dream-figures, dancing midgets in dog masks, dream-like castles staffed by mannequins, weird jazz soundtracks, and bizarre S&M games.
Comments, Trivia, Dedication
- The film was originally titled Succubus, and film-goers were given telephone numbers to call for more information about what the word "succubus" means.
- Other titles for the film have included Necronomicon - Geträumte Sünden and The Green Eyes of the Devil; different versions of the film include additional nudity, extra song-and-dance routines, and alternate beginnings and endings depicting the main character's birth and death followed by disintegration into a skeleton.
- Jess Franco claims that the film's German title was inspired by a sixteenth century book he had come across on a bookshelf entitled Necronomicon that had belonged to a wealthy actor and film producer Pier A. Caminnecci, who had invited Jess over to his house to indulge in his extensive jazz collection, as the two were mutual jazz fans. Jess supposedly read a short story from this particular book that was so extraordinary he had to make it into a movie....
Background and Legacy
Associated Mythos Elements
- Necronomicon - allegedly one inspiration for the film
Keeper Notes
- The backstories about this film's unlikely and probably imaginary origin, it's absurd description, and it's hallucinatory plot, etc. sound more like the made-up background of a semi-comedic The King in Yellow (tome) style imaginary Mythos "tome" in film form than something out of reality....
