Orgasmo (aka Paranoia)
Featuring an in-person introduction from Cinematic Void programmer Jim Branscome!
Writer/director Umberto Lenzi helmed popular peplums, created extreme poliziotteschi, and invented the Italian cannibal phenomenon. Hollywood actress Carroll Baker was the Oscar-nominated star of Baby Doll, Giant and The Carpetbaggers. Together, at the dawn of the giallo, they made four landmark films that would forever alter the Italian genre landscape.
In their first startling collaboration (originally released stateside as Paranoia), Baker is an American widow who arrives at her late husband’s luxurious Italian estate and surrenders to an orgy of ménages-à-trois, madness, and murder. Lenzi boldly fills the screen with bourgeois depravity, daring sexuality and unnerving twists so odd, disturbing and well-made that this delirious giallo feels like a drug.
ABOUT JANUARY GIALLO:
"Every January, we like to pour ourselves a glass of J&B whiskey, sharpen our straight razor and slip on those black gloves to celebrate our favorite horror sub-genre, the Giallo. For those of you who don’t know, a Giallo is Italy’s answer to murder mysteries and thrillers that was kicked off by Mario Bava with The Girl Who Knew Too Much (aka Evil Eye) in the early sixties. While filmmakers like Umberto Lenzi made some excellent Giallos in the late sixties/early seventies such as Orgasmo and Knife of Ice, the sub-genre became popularized by Dario Argento with The Girl with Crystal Plumage . Throughout the seventies, Argento along with Sergio Martino, Lucio Fulci, Luciano Ercoli, Aldo Lado and many more made several visually stunning and viscerally violent cinematic excursions. The word Gialllo means ‘yellow’ in Italian, which was the color of the pulp and crime books that some Giallo took inspiration from. Although stylistically, the Giallo shares DNA with the German Krimi Films, the sub-genre took some wild turns mingling with occult, Gothic horror, Poliziotteschi, and psychedelia elements that created many unique variations." - Cinematic Void
