Film

Fascination

Name: Fascination
Genre: Horror
Released: 1979
Cast: Franca Maï, Jean-Marie Lemaire, Brigitte Lahaie, Fanny Magier, Muriel Montossé

Horror

A 1979 French horror film where a fugitive criminal stumbles into a chateau only to find himself trapped with aristocratic women harboring an unspeakable secret. It's hypnotic and perverse, drenched in '70s decadence and erotic dread. For viewers who want their horror strange, gorgeous, and deeply uncomfortable.

TMDb rating

3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love slow-burn European horror where atmosphere, decaying rooms and unhurried dread matter more than jump scares or gore, and a dreamlike logic that never bothers to explain itself.

Skip it if the pacing is deliberately languid and the plot often drifts, so if you need momentum and a tight narrative, its hour-and-a-bit will feel longer than it is.

What it asks of you: Eighty minutes that linger on silence, empty corridors and long stares rather than dialogue, and rewards stillness over restlessness.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Suspiria1977

Dario Argento's masterpiece of pure visual terror—garish colours, opera score, and a conspiracy of witches. If you loved Fascination's atmosphere, this is where Euro-horror reaches for the sublime.

But The dubbing is theatrical and the plot is paper-thin. Some find it exhausting rather than elegant.

The Wailing2016

Na Hong-jin's devastatingly ambiguous mystery about belief and paranoia. Like Fascination, it trusts the audience to sit in dread without neat explanations, and it's far more rewarding for it.

But It's 2 hours 36 minutes and the ending will frustrate anyone who needs their horror to resolve cleanly.

Possession1981

Andrzej Żuławski's fever dream of a marriage dissolving into occult nightmare. Visceral, transgressive, and genuinely bizarre—the film Fascination's sensibility points toward when turned up to eleven.

But It's nearly unwatchable in places. The squid monster is ridiculous. Mark Kermode famously walked out of the cinema.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Fascination

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Vampyr1932

Both are films where the horror lives in atmosphere and sexual transgression rather than events. Both move like nightmares, with logic that feels right in the moment but dissolves on reflection.

Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1932 silent film is the ancestor of everything Fascination inherits—a haunted atmosphere where dread comes from mood and shadow, not plot. A student arrives in a village where something ancient and wrong awaits. It moves like a dream.

But It's silent, nearly a century old, and the story barely registers as such. Modern viewers often find it impenetrably slow.

Inferno1980

Argento's follow-up to Suspiria, equally baroque and visually intoxicating. A student discovers a coven of witches hidden in her apartment building. Pure style over substance, but the substance is atmosphere.

But The narrative barely holds together and the logic is dreamlike to the point of incoherence.

Deep Red1975

Argento's giallo masterwork—a pianist witnesses a murder and becomes entangled with conspirators and occultists. It's operatic, violent, and gorgeously photographed. Essential viewing for anyone drawn to elegant European horror.

But The misogyny is pronounced and unexamined. It's also 105 minutes of deliberately paced mystery, not a thriller.

The Night Porter1974

Liliana Cavani's transgressive masterpiece about a doomed reunion between a former concentration camp officer and a woman he once held captive. Unflinching and erotic in ways that still shock. Pure cinematic perversity.

But It's about the erotics of captivity and degradation. The subject matter is extremely dark and the film doesn't flinch from it.

Daughters of Darkness1971

Harry Kümel's gorgeous, slow-burn vampire film set in a decadent hotel. Delphine Seyrig is mesmerizing as an ageless seductress. It has Fascination's interest in predatory aristocracy and sensual dread.

But Nothing really happens until quite late. The pacing is glacial and the violence, when it comes, is more suggestion than spectacle.

Three on a Meathook1972

William Girdler's sleazy, deeply uncomfortable rural horror about a drifter who falls in with a sick family. Nasty, grimy, and genuinely disturbing in ways mainstream horror won't touch.

But It's aggressively ugly, poorly made, and structured like a snuff film. The production values are almost non-existent.

Mulholland Drive2001

Both films refuse to distinguish between the real and the dreamed, the literal and the symbolic. Both make you complicit in witnessing something obscene without quite understanding what you've seen.

David Lynch's fractured Los Angeles nightmare where two women's fates intertwine in ways that unravel reality itself. Like Fascination, it's about identity and desire becoming horrifying, and it rewards surrender over understanding.

But It's nearly 3 hours and deliberately confusing. Some scenes are unwatchable in their intensity. The ending has no catharsis.

The Long Good Friday1980

Both trap their protagonist in a space where they gradually realize the rules have changed and they are not in control. Both are about powerlessness dressed up as entrapment.

John Mackenzie's brutal British crime thriller with a career-best Bob Hoskins—24 hours in the life of a gangster watching his empire crumble as unknown enemies close in. It has Fascination's paranoia and claustrophobia, but rooted in grit rather than elegance.

But It's aggressively masculine and violent in register. The Cockney dialect is dense and occasionally hard to parse. It's about power and corruption, not mystery.