Main cast: Brendan Bradley (Chris Johnson), Rachel Cook (Adra), Olivia Applegate (Sharon), Derek Smith (Eddie), Rosanna Arquette (Denise), and Ron Perlman (Dr Orion Zephyr)
Director: RJ Daniel Hanna
Well, the title of the movie spoils the whole plot, so this makes my job of reviewing Succubus so much easier. I don’t have to beat around the bush to avoid mentioning that the villain is a succubus, yay.
This movie extrapolates those sneaky, scantily clad women on hookup apps to be demonic seductresses that want to use hapless men as supplies of human batter to make demonic babies or something. After all, going through all that Rosemary’s Baby effort of gathering cult members and stalking pregnant women is such a hassle. Why not let technology do the tedious groundwork, eh?
Oh, and before I go on, I have to give lots of love to Brendan Bradley, who no doubt has put on a lot of hard work to get that hot body that he shows off quite a bit here. Unfortunately, he looks too much like that whiny idiot David Pakman for me to really appreciate his hard work, so sadly there is that.
Folks that want to see naked women would be disappointed, though, as the women in this movie clearly have a non-nudity clause. It’s only David Pakman, er, Mr Bradley, his body, his arse, and that hilariously fake prosthetic pee-pee here, I’m afraid.
The movie opens with Dr Orion Zephyr making a recording to “Jeanie”, which I assume is his wife or partner, to publish his papers because he doesn’t expect to survive what he is doing next. Then he takes an ax and heads over to a house. Ooh.
Then, I assume it’s flashback time, and as after the opening credits, the movie homes in on David Pakman. He’s a failing tech bro in the middle of a trial separation from his wife, taking care of his baby, and his best friend Eddie is urging him to start dating again. Seriously, Mr Bradley even sounds like David Pakman, and it’s really distracting.
Soon, he makes a connection with the mysterious Adra, which is totally not a succubus, and that’s when things get super surreal and spooky.
Okay, I know I said it, but Chris even acts like David Pakman—whiny and annoying. At one point, he is supposed to be taking care of Baby Mikey only to get too, er, pent up and start touching himself before his mom and wife start calling to demand to know why he is rubbing one off in the nanny cam, and while it’s funny, I can’t help thinking David Pakman is about to touch himself in front of me and that is really not something I would ever imagine seeing in 2025.
Anyway, this movie is about 95 minutes, give and take a few minutes, and here is the problem: almost one hour of it is about David Pakman having to deal with an insufferable wife that is even whinier than he is and a suffocating mother than still thinks he’s 12 years old. I can certainly see why the poor man can barely function, but the dysfunctional soap opera of sad sack Pakman is not what I signed up for when I sat down to watch a movie called Succubus.
When things do get weird, which include a reddish smoky Windows screensaver-style scene representing ejaculation, however, the whole things end before anything interesting can really take place.
This movie, therefore, is an odd one that spends too much time on building poor Pakman up as this henpecked fellow that at the same time isn’t very smart, only to then wrap things up before any good payoff can happen. The idea is there, but the execution feels oddly underwhelming. This is one movie that needs to push the envelope a bit more due to the very sexual nature of its premise, but instead, it tries too hard to be safe and inoffensive.
Hence, the only memorable scene here is one of Pakman running around naked in a nightmare-like scenario. Even then… well, it’s David Pakman. One really has to find him cute to watch this one for his booty, as there isn’t much else to appreciate in this movie!
