Orgasmo esotico

Italy, 1982

Directed by Mario Siciliano

Cast:
Sonia Bennett, Marina Lotar [Marina Frajese], Mimì Losy [Fernando Arcangeli], Guia Lauri Filzi, Joe Mignano [Paolo Gramignano], Sabrina Mastrolorenzi, Michel Curiè [Giuseppe Curia], Luigi Tripodi, Sandy Samuel, Peter Brown [Bruno Romagnoli], Alfonso Gaita


We all have a lot to be thankful to Lucio Fulci’s landmark horror movie Zombie (1979) for. It was such a huge international hit that it immediately led to a real boom for gory Italian horror movies. Many of these were zombie movies of course but even the ones that weren’t still owe a lot to Zombie because it was the huge success of Fulci’s film that made Italian producers cough up the cash that made it possible for all these great films to be made. But if there’s ever an undeniable sign of a film’s big commercial success then it is no doubt the appearance of a porn movie that references the film’s title. You know, titles like Edward Penishands, Good Will Humping, Saving Ryan’s Privates etc. Mario Siciliano’s Orgasmo esotico obviously isn’t a pun on the title of Zombie, nor is it really any sort of parody of Fulci’s film. But I am nevertheless confident that without the enormous success of Zombie, this bizarre zombie-porn oddity would never have been made.

Through the years I have seen a lot of strange films but I must say that I don’t think I have ever seen anything as crazy as Orgasmo esotico. This film is demented to the point where I don’t even know how to properly review it, so rather than writing a regular review, this will be more of a long plot summary accompanied by some reactions and comments along the way. I think that is the best way to do it as a summation of the deranged plotline is going to say a lot more than what any sort of traditional critique can ever hope to.

It's a dark, stormy night. A horny housewife named Marina (Marina Frajese) is at home in her big villa and getting it on with her husband (Paolo Gramignano) by the fireplace. They go about doing their naughty business to the strains of some C.A.M. library music but they’ve barely finished up before Marina discovers that a sinister-looking black woman (Sonia Bennett) is standing outside the window looking in.



Love by the fireplace


Scary lady in the window


Now, a voyeur usually isn’t seen as something bad in a porn movie but the filmmakers make sure we know this is dangerous stuff by firing up the frenetic main theme from Joe D’Amato’s gory horror film Absurd (1981) – as well as having Marina act all hysterical. Paolo hurries out to investigate but just as he opens the door, Sonia plunges at him and stabs him to death with a knife. She quickly enters the villa and attacks a hysterical Marina, who tries to escape but faints from the horror of it all when she discovers Paolo's corpse in the doorway.



Sonia goes after Marina


Sonia drags the unconscious Marina into the bedroom and puts her on the bed. Out of the blue, Sonia's very feminine and obviously homosexual assistant (Fernando Arcangeli) appears and they inject Marina with a syringe to wake her up again. Apparently, the injection has also removed Marina's fright and made her horny, and she quickly gets into some lesbian action with Sonia, as the recycled suspense score from Absurd finally disappears to give way to some dreadful porn muzak.


Marina gets a syringe...

...and suddenly she's very... hmm... playful


For whatever strange reason, Fernando wants in on the fun so he strips and tries to jerk off but seriously struggles to get an erection from watching the two women. Well, duh! He finally succeeds (more or less anyway) and joins in – getting a blowjob from Marina while Sonia fingers his ass. Yikes! This scene was seriously awkward and nasty. No doubt Fernando’s erection problem will have rubbed off on anyone unfortunate enough to be watching.



Fernando decides to join in. Just be grateful I didn't include any more graphic screenshots


Cut to the next day, when Sonia and Marina dispose of Paolo's body by dumping it into an old well on the estate. Both women cackle and laugh when the body plunges to the bottom.



Sonia and Marina dispose of Paolo's body and cackle like a pair of crazy hens


Sonia then takes Marina with her to the home of a doctor-friend (Alfonso Gaita), and the two women engage in some threesome action with him. As soon as the women’s needs have been satisfied, though, they murder the doc by shooting him. They then wrap his corpse in a hideous-looking blanket, drag it outside and cover it (very half-heartedly) with some hey.



Some fun at the doc's place


Your services are no longer needed, doctor


Later back at the villa, Marina has fun watching Fernando dance around to awful disco music but then all of a sudden her dead husband Paolo reappears as a zombie! The so-called zombie make-up on Paolo is beyond amateurish and basically consists of some green and purple face paint but Marina nevertheless flips out with fright.


The night Paolo came out of the grave (or, actually, the well)


Apparently, Marina’s reaction angers Sonia and Fernando, who decide to punish her. They tie up Marina on the kitchen table and Sonia tortures her by burning her with a lit cigarette. Fernando then whips out a dildo and rams into Marina’s nether regions, while Sonia forces another dildo down Marina's throat. Okay, what the hell kinda movie is this!? It just keeps getting more and more psycho!




Dildo torture!


Anyway, the insane and totally unpredictable plot continues as we suddenly jump ahead to the evening. A couple (Bruno Romagnoli and Guia Lauri Filzi) who are friends of Marina arrive to visit her and are surprised to find that no one is at home. However, they are not about to let the opportunity of having some naughty fun in an empty house pass them by, so they quickly rip off their clothes and treat us to yet another coarsely executed sex scene. When Bruno and Guia have finally finished, they are scared shitless by the sight of a ghoulish Marina in freaky punk make-up standing outside the window.


Marina in punk... erm, sorry... zombie make-up


Guia freaks out


I guess this means that Marina too is a zombie now, although we never actually got to see what Sonia and Fernando did to her. In any case, Sonia suddenly appears and apparently uses magic powers to gain control over Guia and Bruno’s minds. At least I think that’s what she does – it’s not as if anything is actually explained in this flick.

Anyway, the plot makes a big jump to the next day, where we see that Guia and Bruno are now completely mind-controlled by Sonia. They willingly participate in a threesome with her, which Fernando takes delight in spying on.


Sonia gets a new pair of best friends


Afterwards, Sonia and Guia play around cheerfully in the garden while Bruno sits on top of the well and watches them. Suddenly, Guia lunges at him and pushes him down into the well while Sonia grins in approval.

Up next, a woman named Sabrina (Sabrina Mastrolorenzi) shows up at Marina's villa for some sort of errand, along with her boyfriend Pino (Giuseppe "Pino" Curia). Pino waits at the outside gate while Sabrina enters the villa, where she is overpowered by Guia and Fernando. They hold Sabrina down and Sonia injects her with another one of her mysterious syringes to make her more cooperative. Soon, Sabrina willingly engages in a rather icky lesbian session with Sonia in the bedroom while some tedious music stolen from D’Amato’s Porno Holocaust (1981) plays. Sonia even dons a strap-on at one point. Meanwhile, Pino senses that something is wrong and comes looking for Sabrina but he is met by Guia, who brings him into the living room and distracts him by giving him a blowjob.



Sabrina and Sonia have fun...

...while the trusty Guia distracts Pino


Having finished with their lesbian lovemaking, Sonia and Sabrina then enter the living room, and Sabrina gets furious when she sees Pino getting blown by Guia. She furiously chases after him but after a few seconds of bickering, they have made up and cheerfully stroll away together. You gotta love how all problems have such simple solutions in porn movies!

Back at the villa, however, Guia isn’t feeling well. It looks as if Sonia's magical spell over her is wearing off and she begins to cry and bitch. As we’ve already seen, Sonia doesn’t take too kindly to this kind of behavior, so it’s a pretty safe bet that Guia isn’t going to stick around for much longer. And true enough – in another one of those big jumps between scenes we cut to Guia lying dead on the ground while Sonia is firing up the oven. A little later, what used to be Guia is served to Fernando as a big roast for him to eat!! Again I have to ask: what the hell kinda movie is this? Were they seriously attempting to turn people on with this stuff!?



A touch of cannibalism!


Later, at a different place, a sleeping blonde woman named Sandy (Sandy Samuel) is woken up by a phone call telling her to come to Marina's villa. Sandy does as instructed but upon her arrival she is shocked to discover Marina's corpse. She doesn't take it too hard, though, because a little later she and Fernando are seen dancing cheerfully to some cheesy disco music. I have absolutely no idea of why that happens but at this point I’ve long given up on trying to make any sort of sense from this mess.


Sandy discovers Marina's corpse...

...but you can't let such trivialities stop you from enjoying some bad disco music!


I should perhaps mention that Sandy Samuel was no stranger to disco at this point. In between doing porn she actually found the time to release a really bizarre S&M/disco vinyl called “I Like Sado-Music” in 1980! And thanks to the wonders of YouTube you can all enjoy this wonderful track here:





But back to the plot! The next thing to happen is that we are introduced to Sandy’s boyfriend (Luigi Tripodi). He’s clearly older than Sandy and not very fit-looking either but he does, however, have a really cool and massive moustache, so that earns him some points in my book.


Luigi's awesome porn moustache


Anyway, Luigi shows up at the villa to look for Sandy but instead he is met by a zombiefied Marina and by Sonia, who uses her magic powers to get Luigi to undress and let Zombie-Marina give him a blowjob. Sandy is watching the action from the sofa and gets excited so she whips out a dildo and starts pleasuring herself. Zombie-Marina continues to blow Luigi until he shoots his load all over her breasts, which greatly disappointed me. I mean, come on! What on earth is the point of throwing in a zombie blow job if it’s not going to end with the guy’s dick being gorily chomped off and eaten? Seriously lame!


Zombie blow job!!


Apparently, this is what women do when they become witnesses to zombie-sex


Sandy, Sonia and Luigi then retreat to the bedroom and participate in a threesome. After they've finished, Sandy leaves and Sonia takes out an axe and attempts to kill Luigi. However, Luigi is able to overpower her and pins her to the bed. Then we hear a knock on the door and suddenly Luigi has vanished. It turns out that the one knocking on the door is the no longer zombiefied Marina. Yup, that’s right! Just when you thought that the film couldn’t possibly get any lamer than it already is, a bewildered Sonia sits up and tells Marina that she’s just had the most terrible nightmare. Everything has just been a bad dream!! Uuughhh!


It was all just a dream!


The film still isn’t over, though. We now learn that in real life, Sonia is actually Marina and Paolo's maid. After getting into her maid's uniform, Sonia serves a drink to Paolo but he is very mean to her and calls her names. Oooh... Poor Sonia! No wonder she has to resort to dreaming about turning her employers into zombies. She runs sobbing into the kitchen, where she comforted by Fernando, who is also a servant to Marina and Paolo in real life it seems.

In the evening, Marina and Paolo are getting it on in the living room next to the fireplace – just like they did at the start of the film. You can probably guess where this is going, can’t you? And sure enough, after the lovemaking is done, Marina discovers a sinister-looking Sonia outside their window and freaks out. The End! The only thing missing here is an onscreen text reading “The nightmare becomes reality...?” à la Umberto Lenzi’s amazing Nightmare City (1980).




The nightmare becomes reality


Although Orgasmo esotico is frequently said to be a Joe D’Amato film, it was in fact directed by Mario Siciliano under his frequent porno pseudonym Lee Castle. One might be forgiven for mistaking this for a D'Amato film, though, since mixing zombie/horror elements together with hardcore porn is a practice more closely identified with D'Amato and his Caribbean-lensed pornos than with Mario Siciliano, whose previous pornos (such as My Swedish Aunt, 1980) fall into the category of more traditional smut. The D'Amato connection is further strengthened by the constant recycling of Carlo Maria Cordio’s frenetic score from D'Amato's gory horror hit Absurd as well as the brief inclusion of a track from Porno Holocaust - itself somewhat of a horror/porn hybrid.

Regardless of director, though, Orgasmo esotico is a terrible mess, and it’s hard to believe it was actually released in theaters. I can’t stop wondering what kind of audience Siciliano had in mind when he made this. Surely, the weird zombie stuff will put off most of the raincoat crowd, while the ugly bumping and grinding on display is unlikely to find much appreciation among horror movie fans. That only leaves fans of genuinely bizarre WTF-movies, and in this regard I suppose the film can be considered a success. Aside from the unforgivably lame cop-out ending, the film’s plotline is completely unpredictable and full of crazy ideas, so I will give it some due credit for its warped creativeness. I also got somewhat of a kick out of watching such hardcore favorites as Marina Frajese, Guia Lauri Filzi and Ferdinando Arcangeli acting completely crazy. Nevertheless, the film is still fairly repetitious, poorly put together and full of tedious and ugly hardcore activity.

All in all, Orgasmo esotico is an absolutely insane and woefully trashy film. It’s thoroughly incompetent and laughable but I must admit that it is truly one of the weirdest films I have ever seen, and that sort of makes it worth seeing. It’s definitely not easy on the eyes, though, so seek out this demented piece of celluloid at your own risk!


© 2011 Johan Melle



The cast:


Sonia Bennett as Sonia


Marina Frajese as Marina


Fernando Arcangeli as Sonia's assistant


Guia Lauri Filzi as Marina's friend


Paolo Gramignano as Marina's husband


Sabrina Mastrolorenzi as Sabrina


Giuseppe Curia as Pino


Sandy Samuel as Sandy


Luigi Tripodi as Sandy's boyfriend


Bruno Romagnoli as Marina's friend


Alfonso Gaita as The doctor

Death Steps in the Dark/Passi di morte perduti nel buio

Italy/Greece, 1976

Directed by Maurizio Pradeaux

Cast:
Leonard Mann, Robert Webber, Vera Krouska, Marie Elise Eugene, Nikos Verlekis, Antonio Maimone, Anestis Vlahos, Barbara Seidel, Nikos Vandoros, Lefteris Giftopoulos, Andreas Ioannou, Evagelia Samiotaki, Anthi Andreopoulou


Maurizio Pradeaux is a fairly obscure Italian director who only made a handful of films. He took two stabs at the popular giallo genre. The first one was Death Carries a Cane (1973), which was released just at the tail-end of the giallo craze of the early 1970s. This could very well have ended up as Pradeaux’s first and only foray into giallo territory, but the tremendous success of Dario Argento’s giallo masterpiece Deep Red (1975) led to Pradeaux trying his hand at the genre one more time with Death Steps in the Dark.

The film begins with Italian photographer Luciano Morelli (Leonard Mann) and his airheaded Swedish fashion model girlfriend Ingrid (Vera Krouska) are travelling with the Istanbul-Athens express. They share a compartment with four fellow passengers – one of whom is a distracted-looking young woman (Anthi Andreopoulou) who keeps fumbling nervously with her pearl necklace.


Strangers on a train

The nervous woman


After a lot of fiddling with the necklace, the cord finally breaks and the pearls fall all over the floor. While the other passengers are helping the girl pick up the pearls, the train goes into a tunnel and the lights go out. When the train emerges from the tunnel shortly afterwards, they are all shocked to discover that the nervous young woman has been stabbed to death with a letter-opener.



Murder!


A local Greek police inspector (Robert Webber) questions Luciano, Ingrid and the other three passengers, which consist of Omar Effendi (Antonio Maimone), a shady-looking Orthodox priest; Ben Amuchin, a suspiciously-acting man of few words; and Ida Tuclidis (Barbara Seidel - the film’s assistant director), a somewhat arrogant divorcee. But unfortunately for Luciano, the letter opener used to commit the murder belongs to him so he quickly becomes the prime suspect in the case. Fearing arrest, Luciano goes into hiding with the help of his buddy Salvatore (Anestis Vlahos), a petty criminal, and shacks up in an old fishing hut. Eager to prove his innocence, Luciano – with help from Ingrid – begins his own investigation to catch the killer.


Dangerous sleuthing


In the meantime, Raul Komakis (Nikos Verlekis), a handsome playboy who was also aboard the Istanbul-Athens express, reads about the murder and sees pictures of the five suspects in a newspaper. Upon reading that the killer cut the electric circuits in the wash room to make the train go dark when it entered the tunnel, Raul realizes that he has actually seen the killer entering and exiting the wash room. Together with his lover Ulla (Marie Elise Eugene), a saucy black nightclub singer, Raul starts blackmailing the killer – leading to a chain of brutal and gory murders...


Even blackmailers like J&B


Death Steps in the Dark opens very promisingly with an excellent train sequence that plays like something straight out of Agatha Christie and establishes the intriguing central puzzle right away. Unfortunately, the film fails to fully deliver on its initial promise as it eventually gets bogged down by some seriously misguided attempts at humor. While a running gag involving the inspector’s digestion problems is fairly amusing (largely because it is underplayed and doesn’t interfere with the flow of the film), the more broad attempts at comedy fall terribly flat and seriously test the viewer’s patience. Luciano dressing up like a woman to hide from the police is one of the more awkward lowlights but the absolute worst offence is the grossly exaggerated stupidity of the Swedish girlfriend, Ingrid, whose imbecile behavior begins to seriously grate on the nerves after a while. The tonal shifts between the moronic monkey business and the rest of film (which is played completely straight) are really jarring, and Pradeaux achieves particularly catastrophic results when he attempts to fuse suspense and comedy in the same scene. Such is the case with a potentially suspenseful sequence involving a break-in at an old villa, which is completely bungled by a series of truly insufferable gags involving Ingrid’s lack of intelligence (a bit with an umbrella is particularly cringe-worthy). This sequence is by far the low point of the film and it’s made all the worse by the fact that goes on forever.



A lame attempt at comedy


The piecing together of the murder mystery is not fully satisfactory either. It is blatantly obvious that the killer has to be one of the five people who were present in the train compartment, and since Luciano and Ingrid are clearly established as innocent, that leaves us with only three possible suspects. This number is much too low for a giallo and it is not made any better by the fact that all of the three suspects are given rather limited screen time. Instead, the plots puts a lot of focus on the blackmailing playboy Raul and his racy black girlfriend Ulla, and various characters connected to them, such as Ulla’s unnamed lesbian lover, and a rather mysterious gallery owner, who also happens to be Ulla’s lover. With that said, the Ulla character is actually one of the film’s most entertaining figures and her nightclub act – in which she performs the catchy song “Making Love to You” (by the film’s composer, Riz Ortolani) and then switches to a blonde wig for a scantly-dressed dance routine – is a definite highlight.


Ulla’s nightclub act


I have to say that in spite of the misguided attempts at humor and a bit too much focus on irrelevant characters, Death Steps in the Dark is still curiously difficult to dislike. For the most part it plays out quite enjoyably and it has plenty of points to recommend it by. For starters it is a very slick-looking and well-shot film. Aldo Ricci’s cinematography makes great use of the picturesque and sunny Greek locations during the daytime, while the night exteriors are brilliantly lit and atmospherically framed. Ricci also employs some extreme close-ups in several scenes – most notably a lesbian lovemaking scene where tongues, nipples and genitalia are shown in ultra-close-up. Really sleazy stuff but it is rather original too. I, at least, cannot remember having seen anything like this before.


A good example of the film’s lovely compositions and lighting



Lesbian love in ultra-close-up


Ricci’s cinematography is also an instrumental part of the impressive staging of the film’s stalk-and-slash sequences, which are captured from stylish camera angles and tightly edited together. This helps to create an effective tension, and we are given a satisfactory pay-off, too, as Pradeaux does not skimp on the red stuff. Most of the killings are indeed very graphic and brutal, and – just like the lesbian lovemaking – the merciless razor slashings are captured in loving close-ups.



Stylish slashings


It should be mentioned that the Scooby Doo style method used for unmasking the killer is one of the least credible I can remember seeing in a giallo (and that says a lot), and the explanation for the killer's motive is delivered rather clumsily in a great hurry during the last minute of the film! But, ultimately, I don’t think this detracts too much from the film, which on the whole is agreeable and pretty nicely paced.

The cast is quite good here even if none of them are allowed to stretch their acting muscles to any great degree. Leonard Mann is a likeable leading man, while Robert Webber is charming as the police inspector who struggles with indigestion. Since this was a co-production with Greek company D. Dimitriadis Film and filmed almost solely in Greece, the majority of the supporting cast are Greek actors but, strangely, the only one of these to receive any on-screen credit is leading lady Vera Krouska. All the other Greek actors are uncredited even though several of them play substantial roles, and instead fake credits are given to various Italian actors who do not actually appear in the film. It’s almost as if the makers didn’t wish to acknowledge that this was a Greek co-production. In any case, Vera Krouska does as well as can be expected in the role of the annoying Ingrid, while the handsome Nikos Verlekis (known from The Devil’s Men, 1976) is convincing as the blackmailing playboy. Enigmatic black actress Marie Elise Eugene, who can also be seen in Nico Mastorakis’ bizarre thriller Death Has Blue Eyes (1975), really digs into the role of the sassy bisexual nightclub singer, and has no qualms about appearing nude at the tip of a hat.

The English-dubbed version of the film is very good, and benefits a lot from having both Mann and Webber dubbing their own voices, while versatile dubbing actress Silvia Faver does a commendable job of voicing Vera Krouska in a suitably clueless and ditzy-sounding fashion. Other notable dubbing favorites who can be heard include Frank von Kuegelgen (as the voice of Nikos Verlekis) and Nick Alexander (doing the voice of the inspector’s assistant played by Lefteris Gifropoulos), while Edward Mannix, Susan Spafford and Ted Rusoff dub various smaller roles.

In summation, Death Steps in the Dark is a pretty nice little giallo. While I didn’t appreciate the broad attempts at humor, the film thankfully stays on track for most of its running time and is ultimately very likeable in spite of its flaws.


© 2011 Johan Melle



Leonard Mann as Luciano Morelli


Robert Webber as The Inspector


Vera Krouska as Ingrid Stelmosson


Marie Elise Eugene as Ulla


Nikos Verlekis as Raul Komakis


Antonio Maimone as Omar Effendi


Anestis Vlahos as Salvatore


Barbara Seidel as Ida Tuclidis


Nikos Vandoros as Theodoro Theodopolis


??? as Little Baffo


Lefteris Giftopoulos as The Inspector's assistant


??? as Ben Amuchin


??? as Omar's mistress


??? as Ulla's lesbian lover


Andreas Ioannou as Ida's husband


Evagelia Samiotaki as Baffo


Anthi Andreopoulou as The first victim


??? as The train conductor