Themes: Dangerous Friends, Nightmare Vacations, Woman In Jeopardy
Main Cast: Jessica Alba, James Bannon, Mischa Barton, Gina Bellman, Ewen Bremner, Iain Glen, Jeanne Tripplehorn
Release Year: 2000
Country: UK
Run Time: 93 minutes
Plot
A woman looking for a relaxing weekend instead finds her safety at stake in this psychological thriller. Chloe (Jessica Alba) is a famous model who is feeling stressed after a working trip to the U.S. -- where she'd been dogged by a persistent telephone stalker. While Chloe has a beau, she decides spontaneously to join Ned (Gary Love), a rock musician she's met, as he heads out to the British countryside for the weekend. Upon arrival, Chloe discovers that Ned already has guests -- washed-up rock star Stan (Iain Glen), his bickering wife Rachel (Jeanne Tripplehorn), their deaf-mute daughter Theresa (Mischa Barton), and nerdy hanger-on Gordon (Ewen Bremner). As the emotional chemistry of the visitors becomes volatile, Ned's wife arrives and most of the other guests take off, leaving Chloe alone with her host and his spouse. Chloe soon discovers that Ned and his friends have a disturbing hobby -- they like to bring women back to the house, drug them, and violate them while unconscious, leaving her to wonder if she's next for this treatment. Paranoid was written and directed by noted Australian filmmaker John Duigan. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Peter-Hugo Daly; David Fahm; Gary Love; Oliver Milburn; Kevin Whately - Clive
Credit
Mark Tanner - Art Director, Danielle Roffe - Casting, Jo Human - Co-producer, Barbara Kidd - Costume Designer, Max Keene - First Assistant Director, John Duigan - Director, Humphrey Dixon - Editor, Miles Donnelly - Executive Producer, Charlie Mole - Composer (Music Score), Charles Garrad - Production Designer, Slawomir Idziak - Cinematographer, Paul Trijbits - Producer, Jim Greenhorn - Sound/Sound Designer, John Duigan - Screenwriter
Paranoid is a 2000indie film, directed by John Duigan, which was made for theatrical release but sequently received a limited international theatrical release. It was released directly to video in most countries. It stars Jessica Alba and Iain Glen.
Set in London, top model Chloe Keane (Alba) is asked to a dinner party in a house outside London by the man with whom she is having an affair (Ned). It turns out they are joined by rock star Stan and his family. After the dinner party, Ned leaves without Chloe, she has no ride home, so she decides to spend the night at the house. During the night, she wakes up and finds a tape of the residents of the house taking advantage of various drunken women. After being discovered, she is handcuffed to a bed and constantly threatened and toyed with, while at the same time her stalker (unknown until this part, Clive) finds out she is kidnapped and decides to find out where she is.
Chloe finds out that Ned actually delivers women to Stan because of Toby's closet full of skeletons that Stan knows about. They discuss what to do with Chloe, and decide to kill her. Clive finds where the house is due to a phone call he has with her, he follows Gordon and Stan as they leave with Chloe. While away, the police arrive at the house because of an anonymous call that Clive made; Rachel and Ned tell them where to find Chloe (who they plan on tossing off a cliff in the back of a car). Before they can apply that, however, Clive interrupts them and attempts to run them over. The police arrive, let Chloe out of the trunk and arrest Stan and Gordon. Clive drives off without anyone knowing what he did or who he was, it can only be assumed that Chloe has no idea the man stalking her saved her life.
In the final scene, Chloe calls her boyfriend (whom she cheated on in the first place) and says she wants to be with him, he agrees and after hanging up, it is revealed he is another one of her stalkers.
The film was released theatrically in Hong Kong, Belgium and Spain. Almost everywhere else it was released on video or premiered on TV. It had generally bad reviews.[citation needed]
