Horror Extreme Movie Catalog

PHENOMENA is also known as CREEPERS, except CREEPERS is the cut version of the film. PHENOMENA is the original, uncut version of the film directed by Horror legend Dario Argento (SUSPIRIA, MOTHER OF TEARS, etc.). It's basically about a girl named Jennifer (played by a young Jennifer Connelly) who is sent to a boarding school in Germany while her father is filming a movie in the Phillipines. While there, a bunch of murders take place involving young girls, some of whom are her schoolmates. Turns out she has the ability to communicate with insects and she utilizes her weird talent to help track down the killer, thus leading her to something truly evil and disturbing.

There were two things that made me love this movie: the beautiful cinematography and the music. The cinematography in this film is gorgeous, especially for a Horror movie. Dario Argento is known for using color schemes in his films (SUSPIRIA and INFERNO are two that come to mind) and PHENOMENA is no different. A lot of whites and blues and greens are used early on in the film to create a calm, dream-like atmosphere, and then as the film draws to a conclusion, a lot of reds are used to create a nightmarish setting. The visuals in this film are just awesome. The music is also great. It's total synth-heavy 80's style music with even some Heavy Metal thrown in (Iron Maiden's "Flash of the Blade" is used prominently in the film as the killer's unofficial theme song). I also liked this movie for a lot of other reasons. Jennifer Connelly being one of them. I've always been a big fan of hers and it's cool to see her early on in her career in a film like this. When most people think of young Jennifer, ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA and especially LABYRINTH come to mind and this Horror film is often overlooked. Donald Pleasance stars in the film as a wheelchair-bound man who studies insects who is sort of a mentor to Jennifer.

As far as the story, it's just crazy. It's a Giallo style killer movie with supernatural elements thrown in. Without spoiling anything, let me just describe the ending. Basically, it's one of the craziest endings I've ever seen in a movie. There's a homicidal deformed little boy, a straight-razor wielding chimpanzee, a giant swarm of bees, a disgusting pit of corpses and maggots, a scene similar to the ending of the first FRIDAY THE 13TH movie (remember young Jason jumping out of the lake?), a decapitation, and numerous false endings. And that's only in the last ten or fifteen minutes!

I highly recommend PHENOMENA. It's just a good, old school Horror film with a lot of good, cheesy 80's music, a lot of cool visuals, and some pretty gruesome scenes. It even has some unintentionally funny dialogue and overdubs (it's an Italian movie... they filmed it in English but they still overdubbed the voices for some reason). I'm still exploring Dario Argento's filmography, but I have yet to come across a bad one and PHENOMENA is definitely my favorite so far.

4.5 stars

I just simply cannot believe that a serious genious/meister of horror, shock, and mystery such as Dario Argento would even have the slightest gumption to stamp his name on this Air-Borne Disease! I mean what could he have been possibly thinking!! As a established big-time fan of his work and vision this movie was without a doubt the "BIGGEST MISTAKE OF DARIO ARGENTO'S CAREER"! When I had heard about it being the one of the few chances I would get to see his lesser-known daughter Fiore Argento, Also when I heard that Stunningly Beautiful, Ageless, and JUST PLAIN HOT!! To say noyhing of very talented Jennifer Connelly was going to be in it as well as "Halloween" star Donald Pleasance all starring in it plus an original concept like someone who can communicate with bugs telepathically I thought how could Dario possibly go wrong here?! Well guess what He did everything horribly wrong! First of all we only see his other daughter Fiore for like maybe the first 4 minutes of the movie,when her character misses some tour bus or something and comes by some waterfall outlook point,has no real lines, and to make matters worse gets to be the murderers first victim!(some part she had!) Well anyway I tried to shrug it off and go on. So from there we meet Jennifer Connelly's character who's name is also Jennifer(GEEZ! how creative, LOL!)And is some rich attorney's princess whom he sends to some Swiss boarding school. And to make an long story short she meets her roommate who secretly has a boyfriend and is not the nice excepting friend she believes her to be 'cause behind her back her roommate and her roommates boyfriend laugh at her! And for what it's worth I feel that this "outcast who has a special secret be it a supernatural power or whatever is something that's becoming quite tiresome! Not to mention that the part of the other girls being snobs against her(in particular when they and the "B***h on Wheels teacher snoop around and find out her secret via a letter intended for her father)didn't even come up until considerably later! Anyway for some reason she has this ability and isn't quite sure how to use it or control it right. Eventually she meets and befriends Donald Pleasance's character who's a wheelchair bound scientist who studies bugs. As they get to know eachother more he somehow(of course)understands her bug telepathy better than Jennifer does! WHAT?!! And he allows her not only the knowledge of how the bugs can help her find the murderer but also a fly to help her(of which for some reason he refers to as "The Great Sarcophagus!) Again What?! A Sarcophagus is an Egyptian Mummy's coffin.What the HELL has that got to do with a fly! If it was a beetle that would make sense but not a fly! So the wicked boarding school teacher tries to commit her because she I guess doubts her ability to commune with bugs. Which presented the only cool scene as far as I'm concerned where she has a lot flies come to the windows and doors of the boarding house and with an angelic glimmer and the keen theme tune playing utters the words" I Love You All" to the flies and then faints! Needless to say after she has a completely corny easy time escaping she attempts to get a plain ticket out of Switzerland and upon failing to do so the only person at the school who was nice to her played by Argento's now ex-wife Daria Nicolodi giving Jennifer somewhere to stay at her house! I won't bore you all with too many details only that to my chagrin it wasn't bad enough Donald Pleasance's untimely death at the hands of the killer but to make matters worse get this DARIA NICOLODI's CHARACTER WAS THE KILLER THE WHOLE TIME! Not to mention Daria's character ending up being dull, bland and ONE-DIMENSIOAL! On top of that you already know she's the killer 90 minutes into the movie when there's still 15 minutes to go! Not to mention her deformed son(who quite frankly looked like a pig on acid)had some part in it!Gosh what an ugly FREAK! One bigger problem here is that that guy she left chained to the wall was neither explained nor developed as a character!I mean who was he? I also hate that Jennifer Connely's character has this control over bugs yet when Daria attempts to poison her and also when she chases after her she stupidly does not use her powers until the deformed son corners her on the motor boat! And a bigger shocker is Donald's lab monkey saving her by insanely slashing at Daria with an old fashioned razor blade which was quite disturbing! Anyway other than that I got sick and tired of looking at maggots all the time!I hate them! So in closing this movie lacked miserably in nudity,pretty colors like Dario has used in his other movies and it had a couple of annoying aforementioned plot holes! So in closing if you enjoyed Dario Argento's other movies such as the Three Mothers Trilogy(Suspiria,Inferno, and Mother of Tears)Do You Like Hitchcock? or Tenebre as much as I did then definitely skip this morbid Half-A***ed diarrhea on celluloid like the plague!