Orgazmo (1997) - Has you writhing with laughter

♥♥♥♥♥

 

A German Shepherd humps the title character's leg and thereby effectively sets the tone on this poster for Trey Parker's Orgazmo

A good young Mormon male gets astray and involved in a porno in Los Angeles, which puts his value system to the test.

 

Orgazmo is written, directed and co-edited by Trey Parker (Cannibal! The Musical (1993)), who also stars as Joe Young, the Mormon in question, who becomes Orgazmo. Matt Stone (South Park (1997-)) co-produced, contributed uncredited writing and also co-stars as 'Dave the photographer'.

The film is surprisingly well-crafted and far from the trash one might suspect given the title and obviously low budget. The film takes the piss out of Mormons, the porn industry and superhero movies (Batman & Robin in particular.) It is crude and liberal-minded but never mean, and there's a great amount of energy in front of and behind the camera all the way through. Everyone acts with a passionate drive: Especially worth pointing out are Parker and Robyn Lynne Raab (Hey Dude (1990, TV-series)) as his fiancée Lisa, Michael Dean Jacobs (The King of Queens (2003, TV-series)) as porn producer villain Maxxx Orbison as well as Stone. Even real-life porn star Ron Jeremy (Northern Sights (2000)) is good.

The effects and fights are awful, - but they're also supposed to be. Parker and Co. get so much, - and so many laughs, most importantly, - out of precious little here. Hooray for Orgazmo!

 

Parker and others from the cast give an interview about the film here

Cost: 1-1.3 mil. $ (different reports)

Box office: 647k $

= Huge flop (returned approximately 0.56 times its cost)

[Orgazmo premiered 6 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 94 minutes. Shooting took place from February - March 1997 in Los Angeles, California. The film opened #18 to a 210k $ first weekend in 94 theaters in North America, where it grossed 602k $ (93 % of the total gross). It was released in a handful of other markets. The-numbers.com alleges that it made only 45k $ internationally, but that it has also made 334k $ on its domestic Blu-ray release (many years later). Roger Ebert gave it a 0.5/4 star review, translating to 4 notches under this one. Parker returned with Master P: Kenny's Dead (1998, music video) and theatrically with South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999). As an actor he returned in BASEketball (1998). Orgazmo is rotten at 48 % with a 4.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Orgazmo?