With the bank holiday coming up,I decided to search for DVDs to watch that I could try to sell afterwards. Already lining up some of his other titles to view for a Cinema of Spain,I was pleased to find in another DVD pile a film by Uncle Jess,leading me to unleash the Succubus.
View on the film:
Crossing the audience with a startling play within a film opening for his 15th feature, directing auteur "Uncle" Jess Franco reunites with occasional cinematographer Jorge Herrero for a major turning point in his career. Becoming the first of his films not to be shot in Spain, due to as Stephen Thrower notes in the magnificent book Murderous Passions:The Delirious Cinema Of Jess Franco,the film board banning a script presented to them, (which was much simpler than the final creation) from being filmed.
Uncle Jess takes full advantage of the freedoms offered in West Germany with a sensually charged dreamy Horror atmosphere, swooning over Lorna with his trademark button-bashing trombone zoom-ins.
Having made films before this which whilst excellent, did tend to have a narrative focus, here Uncle Jess plays the Horror genre as a bare outline to playing his unique full Jazz styling. From the opening staged set-piece, Jess hits the notes of a major theme across his works, with the blending of dreams and reality in a ultra-stylised tapestry formed from distorted wide-shots weaved with shards of bright colour, seeping into the saturated crisply lit coloured world Lorna acts in, all wrapped in Jerry van Rooyen refine classical diced with Friedrich Gulda- inspired Jazz score.
Disputed later by Jess as Pier A. Caminnecci only getting the script credit so it could meet the legal limit of being a German co-production, whoever was the actual writer, magic's up a superb dream-logic horror nightmare, dropping references to De Sade and Freud, (major recurring themes of Jess) like sweet gumball's , that satirize psycho-analyses and Art-House cinema,with the word association games Lorna plays blurring her murderous dreams into reality.
The first of nine times they teamed up,Jack Taylor gives a terrific turn as Lorna's lover Mulligan, thanks to Taylor threading Mulligan's digs into Lorna's mind with a wry curiosity, whilst Howard Vernon reunites with Jess to add a fitting mysterious air as Kapp. Shining with glamour in her dream state,gorgeous Janine Reynaud gives a hypnotic performance as Lorna,thanks to Reynaud bringing out a depth in Lorna's erotic dreamy lust bending to terror from a murderous loss on reality,as Uncle Jess sets the succubus free.
View on the film:
Crossing the audience with a startling play within a film opening for his 15th feature, directing auteur "Uncle" Jess Franco reunites with occasional cinematographer Jorge Herrero for a major turning point in his career. Becoming the first of his films not to be shot in Spain, due to as Stephen Thrower notes in the magnificent book Murderous Passions:The Delirious Cinema Of Jess Franco,the film board banning a script presented to them, (which was much simpler than the final creation) from being filmed.
Uncle Jess takes full advantage of the freedoms offered in West Germany with a sensually charged dreamy Horror atmosphere, swooning over Lorna with his trademark button-bashing trombone zoom-ins.
Having made films before this which whilst excellent, did tend to have a narrative focus, here Uncle Jess plays the Horror genre as a bare outline to playing his unique full Jazz styling. From the opening staged set-piece, Jess hits the notes of a major theme across his works, with the blending of dreams and reality in a ultra-stylised tapestry formed from distorted wide-shots weaved with shards of bright colour, seeping into the saturated crisply lit coloured world Lorna acts in, all wrapped in Jerry van Rooyen refine classical diced with Friedrich Gulda- inspired Jazz score.
Disputed later by Jess as Pier A. Caminnecci only getting the script credit so it could meet the legal limit of being a German co-production, whoever was the actual writer, magic's up a superb dream-logic horror nightmare, dropping references to De Sade and Freud, (major recurring themes of Jess) like sweet gumball's , that satirize psycho-analyses and Art-House cinema,with the word association games Lorna plays blurring her murderous dreams into reality.
The first of nine times they teamed up,Jack Taylor gives a terrific turn as Lorna's lover Mulligan, thanks to Taylor threading Mulligan's digs into Lorna's mind with a wry curiosity, whilst Howard Vernon reunites with Jess to add a fitting mysterious air as Kapp. Shining with glamour in her dream state,gorgeous Janine Reynaud gives a hypnotic performance as Lorna,thanks to Reynaud bringing out a depth in Lorna's erotic dreamy lust bending to terror from a murderous loss on reality,as Uncle Jess sets the succubus free.