Phenomena (1985)

1985
Directed by Dario Argento
Starring Jennifer Connelly, Daria Nicolodi, Dalila Di Lazzaro, Patrick Bauchau and Donald Pleasence

Out of all the Dario Argento flicks, Phenomena easily ranks as the weirdest.  Coming from the guy who made movies about faceless, vaguely-kinda-ghosty beings trying to take over the world in no less than three separate films, that is some statement.  This flick is a murder-mystery crossed with a telepathy epic crossed with an out-and-out gorefest in its finale with one of the most Jesse Pomeroy-esque disturbing villains I've seen.  Given all of those parameters, it's still a thousand times weirder than you'd expect.

This was also the feature film debut of one Jennifer Connelly.  Without my usual nine minutes of research, I'm a little at a loss as to how she was plucked to be the star of this exclusively Italian production.  But then again, we've also got Donald Pleasence wandering around in the cast, so who knows.  I've never found her to be a particularly charismatic or interesting actress, and the prospect of her playing a relatable teenager was admittedly terrifying to me when I first popped in this DVD many years ago, but by and large she does a decent job. For more bonus material, we've also got yet another awesome Argento score from Claudio Simonetti creeping us into submission throughout the duration of the film's running time.

Well, let's get this show on the road.  The movie starts off with what is admittedly a very creepy introductory sequence, as a young tourist misses a bus and finds her way to a house in the middle of nowhere.  She is summarily killed by some unseen force that lives in the house before we are introduced to Miss Connelly.

A great many of Argento's films take place in artsy academies, and this one is no different, as Jennifer Corvino (and I'm always amused when an actor plays a character with the same first name for some reason; I like to think that John Cena played a character named John in The Marine because that was the only name he would answer to at the time) is being welcomed to the Richard Wagner Academy for Girls, lorded over by Frau Bruckner.  Bruckner is played by Daria Nicolodi, Argento's real-life long-time girlfriend who somehow creeps up in every movie that he does.  Sometimes, she can be quite good (Deep Red).  In this...not so much, for reasons that I can't get into for spoiler purposes.  Gotta keep my loyal audience of six readers in suspense.

Jennifer is the daughter of a prominent actor, and promptly makes friends with her roommate while incurring the catty wrath of all of her new classmates.  The source of that cattiness?  Jennifer's love of insects.  Phenomena was actually called Creepers for its American release for good reason, as a large portion of the film concerns Jennifer's telepathic ability to communicate with insects.  Now, I'm not an insect person.  I recoil in horror from anything with a stinger, and have a diagnosed phobia of grasshoppers (no joke).  As such, this is a difficult movie for me to watch at times, what with all of the close-up shots of various crawly things.  Somehow, it's all pulled off relatively well, especially when this movie's cleanup hitter is introduced.

It isn't long before two murders occur on school grounds, and Jennifer does her best to solve them after the authorities turn up nothing.  Her ally in this mission is entomologist John McGregor, played by Donald Pleasence.  I don't think I've ever seen this guy in anything that I didn't enjoy, and he's no different here, investing every ounce of his ungodly voice and trademark scenery-chewing into the character.  McGregor is an invalid who has a superintelligent chimp helper, but it's Jennifer who serves as his greatest helper of all.  And there's your setup, kids.  This is as close to a police procedural film as Argento has ever done, and it's done WITHOUT the police for the most part, as Jennifer utilizes her gift and McGregor's knowledge to track down various clues leading up to one of the more baffling revelations in the Argento "mystery killer" universe that has somehow managed to fool me in all of his films.  This dude has a gift for pulling the wool over people's eyes.

Judgment time.  First off, this movie has a finale that has to be seen to be believed.  A good, solid 20 minutes of nonstop tension and revelations that doesn't fail in any of your expectations about what the mystery holds.  No matter what your expectation, they top it with this finale, so ten cool points to the movie in this regard.  On the downside, Connelly's scenes without Pleasence are an unfortunate drag, particularly her interactions with the chick playing Sophie.  As such, there are portions of Phenomena that drag, peppered in between what I'll fully admit is a pretty impressive run of money scenes.  How's that for bipolar judgment?

As for another plus, this movie has a chimp that saves the day.  So + an additional half-star.

*** out of ****.  It doesn't have the same rewatchability as some of Argento's other films, but it's still a worthy addition to any horror library.  Check it out.