Phenomena

Alternate titles : Creepers.

Tagline : "Jennifer has a few million close friends, she's going to need them."

One of Dario Argento's more bizarre films, this rather odd murder/mystery, takes place at a Swiss boarding school in the Alps. Where young Jennifer Corvino (played by a young Jennifer Connelly in an early role) has just been enrolled by her wealthy American father.

Unfortunately, something is amiss at the school and students are starting to disappear. With the police on the case, her schoolteacher Mrs Bruckner (Daria Nicoladi) tells the girls not to worry. But Jennifer however has a rather bizarre gift, she is able to communicate with insects and seeing as the police are drawing blanks, she hopes her gift will enable her to locate the killer herself.

Befriending a wheelchair bound professor (played by Donald Pleasance, with a rather dodgy Scottish accent) who specialises in entomology (bug specialist in other words), he agrees to help guide her in her quest to find the killer, but when he himself becomes one of the victims, Jennifer discovers the killer is someone a lot closer to her than she first realised.

Not Argento's greatest work (that achievement would have to be Tenebrae in my book), it is indisputably his most outrageous. Mutant babies, surreal sleepwalking scenes, girls who can talk to insects, body pits, some choice dialogue ("That fly is your magic wand"), a bizarre school complex that's more like a labyrinth, and to top it all off a razor wielding chimpanzee are all part of the norm here. If you put all forms of logic on hold you'll undoubtedly enjoy it, definitely one I'd recommend to fans of Argento's other films.

Overall Marks : 5/10.

Terrifying Trivia

• Alternate tag lines... "It Will Make Your Skin Crawl.", "From Dario Argento the Master of Terror", "Evil is alive and killing", "A new breed of terror.", "A nightmare ALIVE!".
• This was only the second feature film that Jennifer Connoly had starred in, she went on to appear in "Labyrinth" the following year, which launched her career.
• This film had the distinction of actually being filmed in English and then dubbed into Italian, as opposed to Argento's other films, which were usually made the other way round.
• Assistant director Michael Soavi makes a cameo appearance as one of the Detectives at Proffessor McGregor's house.
• Jennifer Connelly had her finger partially bitten off by the chimpanzee whilst filming the final scene of the film. She was rushed to the hospital and her finger was successfully sewn up.
• The scenes of flies swarming around the outside of the school was acheived by filming coffee grounds dumped in swirling water.
• The original UK and US releases entitled "Creepers", were missing about 28 mins of footage. The cuts were mostly to the dialogue in order to speed up the plot, and missed out most of Jennifer's conversation with her room mate when she first arrives, shortens the conversation between her and Prof MacGregor and misses out the scene with her at the hospital, as well as trimming several close up gore shots. The UK censors also cut a further 6s from the initial Cinema release and 17s from the original UK video release (the UK Creepers video clocked in at around 80 mins). There were also a few other minor differences between this version and current releases with the length and duration of background rock music in some scenes.
• The uncut English language version entitled "Phenomena", previously released on DVD by Anchor Bay, re-instated all the previously cut dialogue and gore scenes. But shortens 3 scenes that are shown in full on the uncut Italian print. These included a woman asking Jennifer to close the window on the bus, a longer argument between Daria Nicoladi and Jennifer Connoly's character's about her taking the pills and a longer fight scene between them when Jennifer tries to use the phone. These were shortened by the Director prior to release, although remain intact in the Italian prints. These scenes are included in full in most current Special Edition Blu-Rays, but as these scene were never dubbed into English, they appear in Italian language with English subs.
• Argento was planning a sequel in 2001, but this fell through due to contractual obligations to Medusa films.

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