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

Demons 2

Year:  1987
Director:  Lamberto Bava
Screenplay:  Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava and Franco Ferrini, from a story by Dardano Sacchetti
Starring:  David Edwin Knight, Nancy Brilli, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, Asia Argento
Running Time:  91 minutes
Genre:  Horror, supernatural, zombies

In the original Demons film, the audience at a preview screening of a horror movie are attacked by toothy monsters.  This time round, the events are set largely within the confines of a luxury high-rise apartment complex in an unnamed German city over the course of a single night.  As the residents prepare for their various evening activities, a horror movie plays on TV, apparently set in the aftermath of the original film, about a group of dim-witted teenagers investigating a walled off section of the city for remnants of "demons" (kind of zombie-like creatures), and accidentally reanimate one.  The reanimated creature then literally emerges from the TV set of spolit rich birthday girl Sally (Cataldi-Tassoni), and attacks her.  Of course anyone who is injured by a demon in any way, sooner or later becomes one themselves.  Sally turns all of her party guests into blood-crazed zombies, and they soon turn their attention to killing or infecting the rest of the building's population.

The film was co-written and produced by horror legend Dario Argento and features his then ten year old daughter, Asia Argento (who has since gone on to become an acclaimed actress and director), in her film debut.  The movie starts off well, but falls apart once the demons are really on the rampage, when it basically becomes a typical zombie monster mash full of increasingly shoddy special effects.  The film within a film provides an interesting dimension but it's not really explored, and becomes one of  a number of sub-plots which are raised only to be completely forgotten.  The acting is pretty dire (although this is an Italian film, and it is fairly obvious at least in the version that I saw, that most of the dialogue was dubbed - badly - into English) throughout and the film lacks any real conclusion, it is also full of plot holes large enough for you to throw a flesh eating zombie demon through.  Also the zombies with their green faces, bad teeth, long fingernails and wildly bulging, glowing eyes (who can not only run but turn somersaults) are more funny than anything, and when a more conventional demonic creature bursts out of someone's chest, it looks more like the puppet monster sidekick from a kid's TV show. 

However the film does have it's plus points.  There are plenty of creepy moments, when the characters are picking their way through the deserted, ruined apartments, and the opening, with it's slow character development is strong.  The soundtrack, which features mainly British New Wave bands such as The Smiths and The Cult, is good (although sometimes the pounding music coupled with the frequent billowing smoke and backlighting makes the film look like a music video).  Also the sequence where the demon initially emerges from the television set, which seems to be a homage to the David Cronenberg film Videodrome (1983), is very effective with some good special effects.  Speaking of David Cronenberg, the film with it's high-rise setting is reminiscent of Cronenberg's Shivers (1976).   

Full of unintentional humour and buckets of gloopy gore there is some fun to be had with this film, but there is plenty of better stuff out there.  It's probably best viewed late at night, when you've got your friends around, and you're all drunk and fancy a bad, gruesome movie to laugh at.



        

Revealed:  What TV show hosts look like without their make-up in Demons 2