Phenomena

Starring: Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasance, Daria Nicolodi, Patrick Bauchau

Synopsis:

The daughter of a famous actor, Jennifer Corvino (played by Jennifer Connelly) goes to stay at a boarding school where her sleepwalking becomes a problem for her and her guardians. What’s worse is the killer stalking the area, picking on young girls. One of Corvino’s sleep walks ends up at the house of Professor John Macgregor (played by Donald Pleasance). Macgregor is studying the effect of insects on cadavers and discovers that Corvino has a mastery over insect life. The pair get mixed up in the hunt for the serial killer before the story reaches it’s bloody and creepy conclusion.

After having directed a string of movies of the quality of Deep Red, Suspiria, Tenebrae, Dario Argento’s quality control took a little dip with Phenomena. It has some of the elements of giallo cinema that we had seen before in Deep Red and Tenebrae mixed with some of the supernatural aspects of Suspiria and Inferno. Despite the movie’s shortcoming it is still an effective horror movie with some stunning imagery and effective atmosphere.Like Lucio Fulci’s most remembered works (The Beyond, City of the Living Dead) the movie works best if you don’t dissect it and analyse it, instead watching it and experiencing it. There are issues with a convoluted plot, inappropriate use of heavy metal in the soundtrack effectively ruining the atmosphere in a couple of scenes, but ultimately it works.

Connelly shows acting abilities which would lead to her award winning performances later on. Argento carefully draws upon the young girl’s sexuality without making it too lewd or exploitative. Connelly was 15 when she made this and much has already been written about this in genre circles. Donald Pleasance makes the mistake of trying to maintain a Scottish accent. This clearly distracts him on a few occasions, enough to make me think that this is one of his lesser performances. His role as that of the Professor is suitably eccentric enough that this doesn’t spoil the movie. Daria Nicolodi plays another important role in an Argento movie and is as menacing as ever.

There’s a bit of déjà-vu when watching Phenomena, and that familiarity is born from Suspiria. Once again, the heroine is lodged within a restrictive organisation within a large building, also maggots play an important part once again. So you can be forgiven if you feel like you’ve seen it before. The directing is competent but not quite as stylistic as Suspiria and Inferno.

Unfortunately, I was sent a DVD review disc not the Blu-Ray but the upscaled print of the standard DVD is excellent. Once again, Arrow has done us proud and remains at the top for consistently superb genre releases.

Summary:

A forgotten classic (by myself anyway) that comes to life in another fine release by Arrow Films. If you’re an Argento fan, this is a must have. The colours are vibrant, and the picture is clear.

Score: 7/10 (Wayfarer)

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