(Who would have thought the "Lady of the Flies" would be so damn gorgeous?)
CAST: Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasence, Daria Nicolodi, Dalila Di Lazzaro, Patrick Bauchau, Fiore Argento, Federica Mastroianni.
DIRECTOR: Dario Argento
WARNING: Minimal SPOILERS and some rather intelligent insects controlled by gorgeous brunettes lurking right ahead...
When asked what their favorite Dario Argento film is, most fans will either cite SUSPIRIA or DEEP RED. While those films were certainly two of the strongest in "The Italian Hitchcock's" oeuvre, they are not the ones that I favor the most. More like # 3 and # 2, respectively. Nope, # 1 belongs to... PHENOMENA. It is a beautiful, bizarre, and beautifully-bizarre horror-thriller about an American girl (Jennifer Connelly, in one of her earliest roles) who travels to Switzerland to attend an isolated boarding school - only to be drawn into a sinister web of serial murder. Further aggravating the situation is her growing awareness of her powers over.... insects - which she uses to track down and combat the killer. That's where the "bizarre" part comes in. The "beautiful" part is comprised of the eerie atmosphere, surreal tone, and evocative score that the film invokes. The "beautifully-bizarre" part is that it all somehow... works.
Be aware that a lot of people don't agree with me. PHENOMENA often divides Argento fans. The detractors call it messy and nonsensical. My response? Fuck. You. Wake. The. Hell. Up. Okay, sorry. Perhaps that's not the most diplomatic rebuttal, but certainly the most honest one. Nevertheless, those of us that love PHENOMENA trumpet it's atmosphere, gorgeous visuals, eerie score, and - yes - it's elegant structure. With an elegant structure, how can it be messy and nonsensical? Trust me - the structure is there. You just have to be open to it. PHENOMENA is the kind of horror film that you let envelop you - rather than try to actively understand. If you allow yourself to just go with the flow, it is quite a rewarding film. In fact, I'm so passionate about this film that I'm going to forego my usual sardonic breakdown of the plot so I don't risk making anyone think it sucks. I will try to do a relatively serious synopsis.
PHENOMENA opens to what has to be the eeriest and most atmospheric opening of any Argento film - or any horror film, period. While SUSPIRIA and SLEEPLESS boasted gripping openings, they were also over-the-top and borderline-bombastic. PHENOMENA's opener, on the other hand, establishes a quite sense of dread and menace, as we find a young Danish tourist inadvertently left behind by her tour bus while traveling around the Swiss Alps. Rattled and even more frightened by the coming darkness, the tourist, Vera Brandt (Fiore Argento - Dario's oldest daughter), desperately looks around for help. She spots a cabin in a nearby valley and heads there for help. Bad move.
Reaching the cabin, she knocks on the door. Of course, there's no answer and so she walks right in. Unfortunately for her, the house isn't exactly empty. Before she can leave, Vera is attacked from behind by an unseen figure wielding chains. She manages to break free and rush for the front door. Unfortunately, the killer stabs her hand with a pair of shears before she even gets the door open. But get it open, she does - and just like that, she's running for her life. She makes it to a nearby waterfall overlook, where the killer corners her and, well, it ain't pretty...
At any rate, we cut to a scene at world-famous entomologist John McGregor's (Donald Pleasence) house where he is being consulted by Inspector Geiger (Patrick Bauchau) and flunky. The object that they are needing expertise on? A rotting skull covered with maggots. Evidently, McGregor is a forensic entomologist specializing in "cadaveric" insects, and tells them that they can trace the time of death by the rate of decomposition and presence of the maggots. Using what he knows of the case, Geiger deduces that the head is that of, ahem, one Vera Brandt - the first girl to disappear approximately ten months earlier. Evidently, there have been other disappearances since that day in the Swiss Alps. Hmmmmm....
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Zurich, our heroine Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connely) is arriving at her new school, the elite Richard Wagner School For Girls. As she and one of her teachers, the frumpy Frau Bruckner (Daria Nicolodi), drive to the school, a bee manages to get into the car. Bruckner promptly freaks out, but Jennifer defuses the situation by letting the bee land on her hand and telling her teacher that she loves insects - and that they never hurt her. Bruckner, for her part, looks at Jennifer like she thinks they may have made a mistake in accepting her into the school.
At the school, Jennifer meets the headmistress (Dalila Di Lazarro) who - while being statuesquely gorgeous - is also very much an ice princess (and not the kind who is a fireball underneath). She basically confiscates Jennifer's poster of her father - a famous actor - and chastises Jennifer's French roommate Sophie (Federica Mastroianni) for smoking. Later, when the girls have been left alone, they bond like sisters. Jennifer tells Sophie the story of how her mother walked out on the family one Christmas morning - never to return. Sophie responds by saying that she's glad Jennifer is there to keep her company - because of the killer who has been going around abducting girls in Zurich and the surrounding areas.
Unfortunately, it turns out that Jennifer suffers from sleepwalking, and that very first night at the school, she goes for a stroll while dozing. Even more unfortunately, she runs into the killer just as he's dispatching his latest victim. Jennifer manages to get away and, after being accosted by a couple of teenage boys, she ends up in the yard of..... famous entomologist John McGregor. The good doctor quickly develops an affinity for the young American, who he says reminds him of a girl named Rita who used to visit him. When he refers to Rita in the past tense, Jennifer - rapidly shaping up to be a quick study - correctly deduces that the killer got her.
The rest of the film chronicles the growing friendship between the man who studies insects - and the girl who has power over them. Meanwhile, the killer systematically adds more victims to his list, including Sophie. This leads to Jennifer being ostracized at the school, as if Sophie's death was somehow her fault. It also appears that the other girls have been reading Jennifer's private letters to her father - and now they know all about her special powers. As you can imagine, this doesn't really help Jennifer's stock at the establishment. Things worsen when the Ice Princess Headmistress tries to get Jennifer committed to a mental hospital for her "behavior." Jennifer escapes and teams up with McGregor to use his knowledge of insects and her power over them to ferret out the killer.
And the rest is up to you to discover....
Bottom line, PHENOMENA is a one-of-a-kind horror/thriller that isn't afraid to march to its own drummer. However, it does so within some very beautiful and poetic parameters. From the eerily hypnotic and quietly terrifying opening in the Swiss mountains, to Jennifer's surreal night ventures while sleepwalking at the school, to her and McGregor's detective work using "cadaver" flies, and finally to Jennifer's confrontation with the killer at an ominous lakeside house - PHENOMENA is chock-thick with atmosphere and dread. Far less flashy than SUSPIRIA or DEEP RED, it is a more mature piece of work that juggles themes of alienation and isolation in addition to developing a unique and compelling murder-mystery. It's not hard to see why Tim Burton (BEETLEJUICE, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, SLEEPY HOLLOW)cites PHENOMENA as one of his favorite films - it has the same odd and oddly-ravishing qualities as his own creations.
Jennifer Connelly as Jennifer Corvino is one of Argento's strongest female leads ever. Turning her character into a riveting blend of cool beauty, fiery intelligence, and unexpected vulnerability, Connelly knocks this role out of the park, hinting at the the stellar talent and rich acting career waiting for her ahead. She meshes well with co-star Donald Pleasence. He is a warm and solid presence, and imbues his role with depth and nuance that may not have been written into the part. Jennifer and McGregor have a great mentor-protege relationship that emotionally anchors PHENOMENA in a way that SUSPIRIA and DEEP RED - excellent films both - didn't completely manage to do. The rest of the cast is fine: Daria Nicolodi shows all the different colors to her mousy characters, while Patrick Bauchau as Geiger is handsome and authoritative in his cop role. And as the cooler-than-frost headmistress, Dalila DiLazarro is the perfect ice princess - never thawing one bit, but still remaining an engaging and hypnotic presence when she's onscreen: you just can't take you eyes off her. And when the other girl in the scene is Jennifer Connelly, that is saying something. Ms. DiLazarro is one gorgeous woman. Then again, she's Italian...
Finally, as with the reviews of SUSPIRIA and DEEP RED, no laudatory analysis of PHENOMENA would be complete without singing the praises of Claudio Simonetti and Bill Wyman's eerie and haunting score. Lending much atmosphere to the proceedings with their moody and bleak sounds, the composers set an effectively unsettling stage upon which the twisted and twistedly-memorable events of PHENOMENA unfold... like someone's dark, dark dream.
With plans to helm American remakes of SUSPIRIA and DEEP RED already in the offing, I wouldn't be surprised if PHENOMENA were to be the next one for Hollywood to snap up. If they do, it better be Tim Burton directing it. No one else.
Or better yet, leave it the hell alone.
