Carroll Baker stars as a recently widowed socialite who moves into her dead husband’s Italian villa and starts boozing it up. Before long, she’s banging the local stud (Lou Castel) who helps make her feel young again. Trouble brews when he brings along his “sister” (Colette Descombes), who supplies Baker with a lot of pills, which don’t mix too well with all the alcohol. Eventually, Baker catches onto their depraved blackmail scheme, but soon finds herself trapped in her own home with the two horny psychosexual maniacs.
Orgasmo (which shouldn’t be confused with the similarly titled Trey Parker porn comedy, Orgazmo) is a decent little thriller that, while predictable, moves along at a steady clip. Only near the end does the film begin to lose its way. Although the twist ending is kind of neat, the final scenes are way too pat. It almost feels like a throwback to the old Production Code movies in which the villains MUST get their comeuppance, no matter how lame. (I guess that makes sense as the plot is another one of those “Let’s Drive the Rich Lady Crazy to Get Her Inheritance” deals.)
Directed by Umberto Lenzi, the film probably suggests a bit more than it delivers, but it remains thoroughly watchable throughout. The reason for that has a lot to do with Baker’s hysterics. She sometimes resembles Ann-Margret in Tommy, and some of her freak-outs and meltdowns are rather amusing. Too bad Castel and Descombes, who play the brother and sister pair of tormentors are kind of forgettable. They don’t really feel all that menacing, and the fact that Baker’s character is such a pushover doesn’t help matters either.
Luckily, the sex scenes, although relatively tame, offer some sizzle. The sequence where Baker gets it on in the shower is particularly steamy in both senses of the word. If there were a couple more scenes of this caliber, Orgasmo might’ve been a top-notch thriller. As it is, it’s a solid, if unspectacular effort.
AKA: Paranoia.
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