Ænigma

Judging by the amount of other user-comments and their content around here, this "Aenigma" (love the alternate spelling!) is a lesser known and thoroughly hated Lucio Fulci film. Well sure, it's not a patch on his earlier work but still it remains a remotely enjoyable bloodbath with some inventive killings (the snails!!) and an appealing cast of young & sexy schoolgirls. The story, although highly unoriginal, is easy to follow, unpretentious and fast-paced. Black sheep of Catholic girl's dorm Kathy is involved in a near-fatal car accident after a prank with the school's gym teacher. Shortly after, a new and extrovert girl makes her entry in the dorm but her mind seems controlled by the comatose Kathy. Through Eva Gordon, Kathy and her spiritual mother see a chance for revenge, starting with the death of the insufferable macho gym teacher. Fulci keeps the gore under control this time and focuses more on the brooding atmosphere. "Aenigma" features some beautiful camera-work, although admittedly, the same camera angles are often re-used several times. The girls' acting is extremely hammy and it's a good thing they all all look so cute, otherwise it would have been a lot more difficult to struggle yourself through the movie. Nothing spectacular or special, but it certainly isn't terrible, neither.

I really enjoyed Lucio Fulci's film Aenigma it is set inside a College,just outside Boston, Massachusettes which is a boarding school for girls. A lonely student, called Kathy (Mijlijana Zirojevic), has a cruel practical joke played on her, by a gang of students. Kathy is tricked into going on a date with Mr. Vernon her gym teacher, Fred Vernon (Riccardo Acerbi). when she tries to make a move on him in his car which is in the woods as a joke, the students appear in their cars to taunt her. while she runs away from the other students, Kathy runs onto a busy street where she gets hit by a car and is admitted to the hospital in a coma. A bit later on a new girl called Eva Gordon (Laura Naszinski) arrives at the school where she is shown around by the headmistress Miss Jones, and she is given Kathy's old room. Eva ends up getting processed by the spirit of the Kathy who is in a coma whom begins using supernatural powers of to get revenge against all of the students who were involved in the prank that put her in a coma. The next night, Virginia Williams (Kathi Wise), one of the students involved in the prank against Kathy, is attacked in her bed and suffocated to death by tons of snails that appear and then disappear. This is quite a gory film. which most viewers will enjoy. Reccommeded!!

The spirit of a comatose teenage girl possesses the body of a newcomer to her girls boarding school to enact bloody revenge against the elitist, lingerie-clad coeds responsible for her condition.

Donald C. Willis described the film as a "episodic horror-fantasy variation on 'Carrie' by way of 'Patrick' and 'The Medusa Touch'" and that the "heavy-handed intro" makes the film get "off to a bad start". He forgot "Slugs", though this film is nastier than "Slugs" and may be worth watching for that very reason.

The interesting thing is how this is a Yugoslavian film. What? I feel like that deserves more of an explanation. I know that Romania was popular for a while to film on the cheap, but you rarely hear about Yugoslavia. What was Fulci doing there?

AENIGMA opens with Kathy (Mijilijana Zirojevic) getting ready to go out on a big date, while the wretched theme song, "Head Over Heels" warbles along.

Oh no!

It's a set up! Instead of a date, Kathy's wicked -aren't they always?- school mates humiliate her, ending in tragedy for Kathy. Now, comatose Kathy's disembodied consciousness floats away in order to take her terrible vengeance.

Enter Eva Gordon (Lara Lamberti), a new student at St. Mary's College.

Dear lord!

Jazzercise breaks out!

For her part, Eva begins dating a faculty member right away. A maid at the college has a mystical link to Kathy, and bizarre deaths ensue. Meanwhile, Eva starts acting strangely, causes mayhem, and begins dating her doctor. This, while Kathy cackles with eeevil glee! Is Eva being slowly possessed by Kathy? How will this affect her love life?

Director Lucio Fulci was an interesting guy with a varied film canon. The same man who brought us LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN, DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING, and ZOMBIE, managed to also give us this crackpot movie. What can possibly be said about a film containing "death-by-snails"? Definitely a different, novel take on what could have been just another CARRIE clone. While certainly not a classic, at least this movie is fun to watch, and still superior to much of Fulci's later output.

WARNING: "Head Over Heels" plays again at the end!...

One of Fulci's lesser efforts, Aenigma is a blatant copy of so many other films, it's hard to count them all. Set in a school, it involves a misunderstood loner called Kathy who is cruelly taunted by her classmates, but takes revenge by means of psychic powers. So far, so "Carrie". But here, the cruel prank puts the victim into a coma, and it's from here that she wreaks havoc, which echoes "Patrick". She somehow manages to possess another student, who goes through the school leaving a trail of destruction and death on Kathy's behalf.

Sounds great for Fulci fans, but don't hold your breath. The various revenge murders are all very unimpressive and often ridiculous, including death by being scared of a museum and death by being confronted with a boyfriend's corpse! What's wrong with these people!? The film has no highlights of gore whatsoever, which is a major shortcoming in a Fulci film. Even it's set piece murder, a "death by snails" sequence will probably leave you laughing (how exactly do snails manage to overpower someone??). This, along with the film's title, makes me think that Fulci is actually trying to emulate Argento's far superior "Phenomeona".

The film is generally pretty confusing, as Kathy's power, and her hold over the possessed girl are never properly explained. The acting is awful, the lead character (the possessed student) wanders around looking totally bored, so you won't really care about any of the characters. It's also ugly and dull to look at, even though Fulci tries to ape Argento yet again by bathing many shots in lurid coloured lighting, mostly a tiresome bright blue, but it just doesn't add up to anything coherent. The dubbing is poor as usual ans there's a really REALLY, bad ballad being crooned over the prologue when Kathy is looking forward to her big night out! Even Fulci completists could rest easy without ever watching this one. A real stinker.