Phenomena

 Year:  1985

Director:  Dario Argento

Screenplay:  Franco Ferrini and Dario Argento

Starring:  Jennifer Connelly, Daria Nicolodi, Dalila Di Lazzaro, Donald Pleasence, Patrick Bauchau

Running Time:  116 minutes

Genre:  Horror

American teenager Jennifer Corvino (Connelly) arrives at an exclusive Swiss boarding school and soon discovers that the nearby area is being plagued by a vicious serial killer.  Jennifer, it turns out, has the ability to psychically communicate with any kind of insect, and teams up with elderly, wheelchair-bound Scottish entomologist John McGregor (Pleasance), and his intelligent chimpanzee, to track down the killer.

Dario Argento is generally regarded as one of the greatest Italian horror filmmakers.  Despite featuring a lot of Argento hallmarks, Phenomena is far from his best work.  It feels like a mix of the giallo films that Argento made his name with (black-gloved killer stalking young women, point of view shots, the main character witnessing an important detail early one which she is afterwards unable to remember, inept police investigation, and an  overly convoluted final reveal), with dark adult fairy tale (Jennifer's mystical powers, surreal nightmare imagery) and gothic romance (Jennifer Connelly spends a lot of her time running through a dark forest at night in a billowing white nightgown, as might be seen on the covers of numerous '70s paperback originals).  While it doesn't seem to be intentionally funny, the film is so ridiculous it's hard not to laugh at Jennifer's psychic bond with bugs (including teaming up with a fly to find evidence), Donald Pleasence's Scottish accent and the heroic chimp.  The performances are pretty bad, even from normally very good actors such as Jennifer Connelly and Donald Pleasence, who seems to be playing the whole thing for comedy.  Argento's skill at creating arresting images generates some interest, but there are very few of the trademark elaborate set-pieces that Argento can be so skilled at.  While the film is gruesome, gore fans may be disappointed at the comparative lack of bloodshed on display.  The score, from regular Argento collaborators Goblin, mixes lilting fairy-tale style music with sudden bursts of loud heavy metal, along with music from Bill Wyman, Iron Maiden and Motörhead among others.  The plot makes absolutely no sense at all.  It's fun if your in the right frame of mind for it, and the climax is so over the top it's quite entertaining.  On it's original release in the US and the UK the film was retitled Creepers with 20 minutes of footage cut.

Jennifer Connelly in Phenomena