Les cauchemars naissent la nuit (Nightmares Come at Night) (1970)

Jess Franco’s 1970 dreamlike thriller/horror film finds him at the peak of his form. The plot is one he reused a number of times, as in Night Has a Thousand Sexes and Voodoo Passion. A woman is driven to kill whilst under hypnosis. But the narrative takes second place to the mood. Sexy visuals, Bruno Nicolai’s haunting score and the sensuous voice of Josiane Gibert on the French soundtrack make this a masterpiece.

Diana Lorys, who had starred in Franco’s first hit The Awful Dr Orloff, plays Anna, a strip-tease dancer, taken from a seedy nightclub in Zagreb to stay in a large house with the conniving Cynthia (Collette Jacobine). Paul Muller is excellent as always, as a doctor treating Anna for her “nerves”. Franco regulars  Jack Taylor, Soledad Miranda and André Montchall also appear, the last two in scenes which were originally shot for another project but incorporated into this one.