Three herdsmen, two grown men and a teenage boy, are up in the mountains tending to their cows and making cheese. Despite all of their superstitious and religious beliefs protecting them and guiding their day-to-day lives, these stupid ass morons conjure up a freakin’ succubus (played by Pamela Prati). She swoops in and causes all kinds of mischief. What kind of mischief? Well, I don’t want to spoil anything for you, but let’s just say if you’re on a blind date and she shows up wearing a single red stocking on their leg, get the hell out of there!

My greatest hope is that Sukkubus (1989) wasn’t veteran director Georg Tressler’s dream project or anything because yowza, this film is -pardon my use of highfalutin film critic terminology- wildly fucked up. Speaking of Germans you shouldn’t trust, Franz Seitz, who wrote this thing, must’ve been a complete lunatic as well. Hey, he wrote The Tin Drum (1979), and that’s been released by The Criterion Collection. So, I guess I should watch that and see if I get artfully repelled again.

I love the dichotomy of the majesty of nature paired with the drudgery of the lives of the herdsman; those three lonely and psychotically horny herdsmen! At first, it seems like only one of this trio is a terrible monster, what with him trying to sexually abuse their young companion. But then the older and (we thought) wiser guy gets uncontrollably humpy too. Finally, we even find out that even the kid is a terrible pervert when he proves to the audience that cows will lick just about anything under the right conditions. And bonus, there are some other moments of brutality and ickiness that will stay stained on your mind long after this one is over.

Now that Mondo Macabro has plucked Sukkubus seemingly out of thin air and has made it available to a wider audience, I have to wonder if it’s going to make those “Most Extreme” horror lists. I suspect Tressler and Seitz had more on their minds than just shock value given this film’s slow burn pacing, moments of quiet beauty, and folk horror aesthetic. I could’ve done without the dead cow mutilation (not of the UFO variety). I know where pork chops come from, okay? So, the old saying is true after all: once the loins of an old cowman are engorged, you can’t lead a heifer to the edge of a cliff. I might be misquoting that, but whatever, you have Google. You look it up! So yeah, Sukkubus is quite a film. It made me wish that I was dead, but isn’t that what entertainment is supposed to be all about!?

Sukkubus looks gorgeous on Mondo Macabro’s release. The mountains and surrounding landscape are a character in and of themselves and this 4K scan of the print looks fabulous. The only extra (other than Mondo Macabro trailers) is an interview with Peter Simonischek. Who did he play? One of the perverted herdsmen! Which one? Does it matter?