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This film doesn’t sit still for more than a few seconds at a time. It goes from one wild dreamscape to the next.
The opening sequence is filmed gorgeously. The cinematography of the Alps is breathtaking as we follow a young girl who got left behind on a field trip. She wanders through the woods to an old house, where she meets a grizzly demise. I mean, if you are going to have scissors shoved through your hands, you might as well smash your face through a glass plate window and be decapitated, right?
Welcome to the opening sequence of Phenomena, a film idea Argento came up with after finding out bugs were commonly used to figure out the times of death, most often in murders.
Our lead is played by Jennifer Connelly, who plays Jennifer. Original, I know. Anyway, Jennifer is the daughter of a famous actor whom she rarely sees. She is sent to an all-girls school in the Alps, where she starts to have visions and nightmares about a serial killer. One night, while she is sleepwalking, an entomologist in a wheelchair rescues her. This is incredibly convenient, considering Jennifer herself has an affinity for bugs.
Our entomologist is played by Donald Pleasance. He is a professor at a large facility that studies bugs to find out how to use them to determine times of death. He is usually involved in murders. He has a chimpanzee named Inga, who serves as his nurse and helper. We will come back to Inga later.
Jennifer continues to experience strange things around her. She sees young girls chased and killed, and the killer has some kind of strange silver spear. All the while, her conversations with the professor reveal that she might have psychic connections with bugs, which may account for why she never gets bit or stung by any insect.
As the film rolls on, all the girls in the school decide to go full Carrie on her and torture her. Jennifer uses this opportunity to show her prowess in insect control. The weird subplot about all the girls in the school wanting to have sex with her famous actor father goes out the window quickly. Oh, Italy, you never fail to entertain me.
The school officials decide that Jennifer is insane, and they try to medicate her and keep her sedated. Jennifer’s only refuge is to get out and hide at the professor’s facility. The professor and Jennifer are now on the case to find out who is abducting and killing young girls.
Eventually, Jennifer listens to her psychic connection to the flies and finds a path in the Alps that leads to the house we first saw in the beginning. Inside is a rundown and neglected structure. There are chains with manacles on the walls and a pile of dolls covered in plastic. The single tracking shot from the door to the fly to the severed hand is expertly done. It adds to the strangeness of the film. Think of something you would most likely see in Evil Dead.
Unfortunately, the professor meets his demise at the hands of the killer. Inga, the monkey, becomes enraged and goes after the killer. This is all put together with Motorhead’s Locomotive playing in the background. This is pure chaos, and for years, fans have argued about the music and how jarring it is to the tone of the film. It doesn’t bother me. We still get the fantastic Goblin and Claudio Simonetti pieces, Motorhead, and some Iron Maiden. What’s not to love?
As we approach the gruesome climax of the film, Daria Nicolodi, who had a small part in the beginning, comes back to be a more prominent figure. A foreboding endeavor, I am sure you can gather by the re-emergence of a character that was only in the opening. Queue Iron Maiden’s Flash of The Blade again; we have tension to build.
The sequence with the inspector and the pool of dead bodies full of maggots is incredibly disgusting. It makes that similar scene in Poltergeist look like a waterpark kiddie ride. You won’t be mentally prepared for the face reveal of the little boy at the end, either. You just won’t be.
The ending is the original Friday the 13th, meets Carrie, meets Giallo… with a monkey. Argento not only throws the kitchen sink at you, but he goes and grabs the hall bathroom toilet to slam you in the face with, just for good measure.
Synapse Films has released this on Blu-ray and 4K, and Arrow released it on DVD years ago. It’s great that this film is so readily available now because it is one of the most bizarre of the Italian bunch. But, for all of its jarring, wild, and chaotic execution, the film still flows, and the story holds together. Somehow.
When first released in the United States, it was known as Creepers, but it was a different cut. Also, Jennifer Connelly had the monkey bite her finger off during filming. That’s a nice little factoid for you.
