Left in the Dark

You know you’re in the swinging sixties circa 1969 when the powers that be override the director and change the title of the film in its native Italy from Paranoia to Orgasmo. Keeping the original title for the American release, this Umberto Lenzi directed and Carroll Baker starring giallo becomes all the more confounding when considering that the film maker’s next feature also stars the same leading lady... and it is decided that it will be called Paranoia – leading to much confusion to this very day. The first of four movies the pair would make together in just a short four year period (all of which are reviewed on Filmizon.com), Orgasmo (aka Paranoia) follows seven week widowed alcoholic American socialite Kathryn West (Baker) as she flees the media attention in her native country, settling in picturesque Italy – where her lawyer (who also manages all of her assets), Brian Sanders (Tino Carraro), has found her a relaxing villa to stay in.

Don’t get the wrong idea... the 1973 giallo Death Carries a Cane, co-written and directed by Maurizio Pradeaux, may make it sound like the grim reaper-like killer at the centre of all the carnage is simply some feeble hop-a-long struggling to meander the streets of Italy, but that may not be the case when you hear some of the other titles that this film has been gifted for different markets or releases: Dance Steps on the Edge of a Razor, The Tormentor, Maniac at Large, The Night of the Rolling Heads, and Devil Blade... perhaps it’s a bit more ominous sounding now. Poor Kitty (Nieves Navarro; aka Susan Scott) is at the right place at the wrong time... showing her visiting parents some of the tourist sites in Rome, she just so happens to be looking through some pay-for-use binoculars on a hilltop when she witnesses the murder of a young woman (through a house window) by a silhouetted assailant wearing a black hat, overcoat and stylish sunglasses who has a bit of a hobble.

The very Italian giallo meets burgeoning blaxsploitation in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in the 1972 crime mystery Tropic of Cancer (sometimes also referred to as Death in Haiti or Peacock’s Palace), directed by Giampaolo Lomi and Edoardo Mulargia (both also co-write along with star Anthony Steffen). A couple on the rocks, Fred and Grace Wright (Gabriele Tinti and Anita Strindberg), make their way to the island paradise to seemingly rekindle their relationship... yet the husband also plans on meeting up with long unseen friend Doctor Williams (Anthony Steffen). Unbeknownst to them (or is it), the M.D. and veterinarian by day and scientist by night (this guy can do everything) has discovered a rather desirable aphrodisiacal hallucinogenic drug formula that everyone is out to get – some legitimately, others not so much.

There is no denying that our childhoods play a very large part in who we become as adults. The proof is in the quasi-giallo pudding when looking at the titular character in A White Dress for Marialé (1972) – it has also been known as Spirits of Death and Tragic Exorcism. Directed by Romano Scavolini, the aforementioned Marialé (Ida Galli, aka Evelyn Stewart) had a traumatic childhood – witnessing the murder of her mother and lover by her father, only for the patriarch to turn the gun on himself after offing the secretive couple. Finding herself in an equally as toxic relationship with Paolo (Luigi Pistilli), the wealthy man hides her away in a half impressive, half dilapidated castle in the middle of nowhere with his trusty banged butler Osvaldo (Gengher Gatti) – looking like an oddball combination of an eccentric Vincent Price and inhuman Lurch.

2023's Sisu, written and directed by Jalmari Helander, is a Finnish word that does not translate easily to the English language, perhaps best explained as a sort of persistent rational determination in the face of much adversity... the perfect explanation for this Finnish/American co-production. Thriving in a very old reverse-hybrid form of Nazisploitation combined with classic western motifs and more than a splash of modern John Wick flair, Sisu follows Aatami (Jorma Tommila), a grizzled gold miner in the decimated Finnish Lapland nearing the end of World War II. Finally striking it rich, he transports it back to civilization with his loyal dog at his side.

Reveling in the motifs of Edgar Allan Poe, think madness/insanity, a haunting location, the double, the uncanny, and maybe even death, Guillem Morales (Julia’s Eyes) explores the recesses of the mind in his directorial debut (he also writes the screenplay), The Uninvited Guest (2004). Who knew a four-thousand square foot home could be so claustrophobic. Félix (Andoni Gracia) finds himself alone in the weeks following the break-up from his longtime wife, Vera (Mónica López). With her having moved into a tiny three-hundred and fifty square foot apartment, it baffles Félix’s mind... unable to comprehend how anyone could downsize so drastically.