Phenomena

In Switzerland, the teenager Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connelly), daughter of a famous actor, arrives in an expensive board school and shares her room with the French schoolmate Sophie (Federica Mastroianni). Jennifer is a sleepwalker, is capable of telepathically communicate with insects and has adaptation problem in the new school. While sleepwalking, she meets and becomes friend of a Scottish entomologist, Prof. John McGregor (Donald Pleasence), and his chimpanzee Tonga. Jennifer decides to help the investigation of Dr. McGregor about a serial killer that is killing young girls in that area.

It may sound ridiculous, but "Phenomena" has never been released on video in Brazil; only two days ago, "Phenomena" was released on DVD in Brazil and now I am glad to have this movie in my collection. The weird story of Dario Argento, one of my favorite directors, is a total cult, showing bizarre characters and situations, maggots, flies, deformed people, serial killer and lots of bodies and body parts. A fifteen years old Jennifer Connelly in her third work, extremely beautiful, shines in the very original role of a sleepwalker that is very connected to insects and develop the skill of communicate with them. Daria Nicolodi, the mother of Asia Argento and former mate of Dario Argento, has a minor, but very important role. And the versatile Donald Pleasence, in the role of a paraplegic researcher, is efficient as usual. The music score, with Goblin, Iron Maiden and Motorhead, is another great attraction of this movie. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Phenomena"

Dario Argento is a genius... this is a fact. The film starts off with a beautifully gory scene, then somewhat mellows out for a while. Some great scenes of night walking/dreaming/etc stand out, but it's not until about 2/3 of the way through the movie that it becomes a classic.

Beheadings, stabbings, and a pool of body parts ensue. But by far the creepiest thing of the movie is when the son who is left alone "with his crazy thoughts" turns around from his corner, revealing his face. This is possibly the scariest thing I have EVER seen on film... even scarier than the robot-butler-doll from Deep Red. And that's saying something.

An amazingly spooky and incredibly gory battle follows, leading up to the gorgeous, bloody end.

Dario Argento can do no wrong.

(****1/2 out of *****) My personal favorite Argento picture, this stars a young Jennifer Connelly (who would later go on to win a best supporting actress oscar for "A Beautiful Mind") as an American student in a snobby Swiss boarding school that is being terrorized by a brutal serial killer. Helping Connelly find the murderer are crippled Donald Pleasance, his intelligent primate assistant, and the entire insect world, with which Connelly has an unexplainable psychic connection. This movie may be short on sense and logic, but it more than makes up for it with outrageous style and bizarre uniqueness. It's like a twisted fairy tale, with heroic flies, disfigured killer midgets, and vengeful chimpanzees with straight razors. As in Argento's "Opera," some of the use of annoying late ‘80s metal bands (like Iron Maiden and Motorhead) doesn't work half as well as the ominously beautiful score composed by Claudio Simonetti. Argento's never been a great writer of dialogue, so some of the lines seem pretty stilted, and you also have to put up with some so-so acting from a good majority of the cast (also, unfortunately, typical of a lot of Argento's movies), but these things are easy to overlook in the midst of the nightmarish beauty and creepy atmosphere on display here. Also stars Daria Nicolodi in a more wicked role than usual and Patrick Bauchau as a police detective.

HIGHLIGHT: The plot becomes more and more freakishly surreal until Connelly finds herself, first, in an underground tunnel, following the extension cord of a telephone (a scene reminiscent of Alice in a seriously frightening Wonderland), and, later, in a filthy pool full of human bones and maggots.

No pun intended - also way too young to make any jokes about her. But maybe also the reason she was fearless in some aspects - especially considering the animals she had to deal with. Apparently she did have some issues with a scene or two (and her character motivation), but you can either say she was totally committed or way too young to understand certain things. I actually would go with the former - she is amazing in every respect.

All that being said, she is not alone in this movie. Though she is being left alone when it comes to story and logic points (like falling while sleepwalking and still going on - pretty strong sleepwalking power I assume). But you usually do not watch Argento movies for the logic ... and this is no different.

There are two versions of this, the longer italian cut and the shorter international cut (also released as "Creepers" in America apparently). While I understand that some might want a something shorter (no pun intended), it is better to go with the longer ... version. Even if it has a couple of fillers. It also has all the deaths in all their gruesome glory ... just saying.

Acting is quite decent - which also is not something that happens always in an Argento movie. Maybe it had to do with the fact that this had a mostly englsih speaking cast - so not much dubbing that had to be done - or speaking phonetically.

Watch this if you want to know why people think so highly of Argento - while you may have only seen his newer work and don't get it at all (not blaming or shaming you - those movies are horrible - but can be entertaining for all the wrong reasons)! Music and editing again is helping - though I wonder if anyone has called a psychiatrist - considering what Argento is doing to his own daughters ... well one of them here. But Asia will be getting a lot more "pain" and "suffering" later on too (later works/movies that is) ... but it is a movie and I am half kidding ... if you see a crime thriller in this or even a slight Hitchcock vibe (I don't see that particularly - but you may feel different)

Memorable and different to modern horror An eerie film with a good cast, some fun practical effects and a nice premise. The soundtrack was also very memorable and different.

The film is basically an 80s slasher, however with teenagers who are actually played by actors the right age which makes a nice change.

Of course there's not much character development but the film does have some scary bits. There's some rather bad ADR and dubbing too.

Jennifer C is really good in this film I thought, there's one really memorable scene involving a lot of insects. Another scene too is utterly horrifying and gave me a terrible shock. I do recommend this film actually but you will need to bare with it a bit.