phenomena

Dario Argento's mid 80s thriller marked an interesting turning point in his career. In the early thrillers he perfected his classic giallo with such masterworks as The Bird With the Crystal Plumage and Deep Red. From there he went on to dabble in supernatural themes with Suspiria and Inferno, proving that his visual prowess wasn't limited to one style of storytelling. He then made an interesting progression with Tenebre and Phenomena. In many ways Tenebre was a step closer to his origins than his most recent work. Never content with sitting idle or simply reliving the past, Argento injects fresh life and style into this thriller not seen in his earlier works. If he cut loose a little with Tenebre, he went hog wild with Phenomena! I still believe that Phenomena is his wildest and most imaginative work to date.

Here Argento directs a 14 year old Jennifer Connelly as Jennifer Corvino, the daughter of a famous international actor, who is sent to an all-girls Swiss boarding school. Jennifer is no ordinary girl though, she frequently sleepwalks and can also communicate with insects. Unfortunately for her, she arrives at school in the midst of a serial killer's reign of terror (the opening setpiece involving Argento's lesser known daughter Fiore is a show stopper). Her somnambulistic activities soon involve her closely in the investigation of these murders. On the way she meets a wheelchair bound entomologist and his helper monkey who she soon befriends closely. He is fascinated by her empathy with insects and soon they embark on their own investigation, forcing the killer to act hastily and more violently. From here it only gets wilder, but I'm afraid that telling any more would possible ruin the experience for a first time viewer. Suffice it to say that the climax is one of the wildest and most disgusting rides I've ever seen, not one to be soon forgotten.

From reading the above description I can see how this film sounds very far fetched. There's no denying that, but Argento handles the material with the deft skill of a seasoned artist. Somehow this fantastical world seems entirely possible. It's also interesting to note that this is the first film where Argento showed a heavy reliance on contemporary heavy metal music. Along with the lively an energetic score that is featured in all of Argento's work, our brains are pounded here with the likes of Motorhead and Iron Maiden. Although this seems slightly out of place at times (is Motorhead really appropriate mourning music?) it serves the film well in being one of the major distinctive features setting this apart from Argento's previous work. Not that the heavy metal is the only new ground he explores here; the entire film is refreshingly different without severing his ties from his artistic roots. As far as style and tone are concerned this film lands right between its chronological neighbors, Tenebre and Opera. The visual approach is different enough for each film though, that they all stand on their own as highly effective thrillers.

Like most of Argento's work from the period, this one has suffered a terrible domestic release. The original international cut ran 111 minutes. Media entertainment picked up the US distribution rights and somewhere along the line someone came up with the bright idea of changing the title (to the impossibly retarded Creepers) and cutting it down to 82 minutes! Most of the gore suffers only minor cuts, the real travesty here is the nearly 1/2 hour of dialogue that is excised because apparently someone thinks that Americans have the attention span of 8 year olds. While Creepers has an admittedly cool box cover, do yourself a favor and avoid any copies that might still be lurking on video store shelves. Instead, the easiest option is to find the widely available release from Anchor Bay Entertainment with the original title reinstated. Originally released on its own it features a commentary (unfortunately Argento seems to be either really quiet or absent during a good portion of this), some behind the scenes shorts, a couple of trailers, two music videos, and an interview with Argento from 1985 conducted by Joe Franklin (who doesn't seem to know his ass from his elbow with such doosies as 'I haven't seen it but I heard it's creepy!'). The film was later reissued as part of The Dario Argento Collection Vol.1 from Anchor Bay which also features Inferno. The double release is limited to 5,000 pieces and both discs feature all the original extras, the only downfall being the two cover arts had to be combined into one.

While the Anchor Bay release is indeed a top notch version of the film, completionists might be interested in checking out the PAL DVD release overseas by Dragon Film Entertainment. They put out a beautiful but pricey release llimited to 3,000 pieces. The disc features one extra minute of footage missing from the AB edition. These scenes include Jennifer arguing with a woman on the bus over and open window and Frau Bruckner telling Jennifer that she can't use the phone. These scenes are pretty much irrelevant to the movie and I've heard that Argento prefers them removed (like I said, this release is strictly for completionists). This release comes in a dust cover with a trifold packaging. Included is a nicely illustrated booklet, of which very little is in English (only a small quote from Argento). There are two discs included, the first contains the widescreen film, two trailers, and short bios. The second disc contains a picture gallery, the two music videos found on the AB release, behind the scenes footage, and a bunch of foriegn language interviews (Argento, Claudio Simonetti, and visual effects supervisor Luigi Cozzi). Unfortunately, this disc isn't easy to come by, and even then is quite expensive. They have it over at Luminous for $55 but I picked it up from their table at a convention for only $40 (and I was lucky enough to snag # 47 out of 3,000 too!).