She takes this to Donald Pleasance because it has maggots on it. Jennifer sleep walks into the windy forest, where a firefly leads her way to a mysterious clue: a glove in a bush. She brags about wearing Paul Corvino’s daughter’s shirt and then quickly send him on his way. Instead, she sneaks out into the windy forest where a killer is stalking to meet her boyfriend. Again, we cut abruptly to Jennifer asking Sophie to watch her while she sleeps to make sure she doesn’t sleep walk. Next thing we know Jennifer is strapped to a hospital bed and her teachers are trying to give her an EKG. One moment we are in Donald Pleasance’s home with the monkey talking about bugs. The Wind? Is it the Wind that’s making the killer kill?ĭid I hear this right? Is Jennifer is making bugs horny? Why is there a monkey wandering the forest in the Swiss Alps at night? Why do they keep talking about her father being Paul Corvino? Inga, the fucking chimpanzee, comes to her aid and leads her back to Donald Pleasance for some exposition about “Foehn Wind” - which apparently makes people crazy and causes avalanches. She is almost hit by a car full of Swede Bros, who get too handsy and throw her out of the car into the forest. Jennifer sleep walks into the middle of the road. We know it’s a knife attached to a giant metal pole because, although we do not see the killer, we see the knife being assembled (which you think the killer would do beforehand). She wanders around long enough to see this random girl murdered by a knife attached to the end of a metal pole and then her head smashed through the glass window. The girl is chased into an abandoned part of the school, while Jennifer begins sleep walking. Suddenly, we cut to a scene with a random girl running through the woods set to Iron Maiden’s Flash of the Blade. Jennifer and her roommate Sophie, who we can tell is a bad girl because she smokes, have a weird conversation about baby food and Jennifer’s father, Paul Corvino. We then are provided a bit of insight into the goings on in the boarding school. Was it necessary to have that tiny bit of dialogue about Swiss Transylvania? Why is it so windy in every scene? It’s worth noting that some of this part of the movie has a male narrator, but he is never heard from again. Jennifer asks why, but the teacher doesn’t know. While on the bus, one of her teachers mentions that this area is known as the Swiss Transylvania. “ Bugs never hurt me,” she says, letting the bee crawl on her. Everyone freaks out about it, but she remains calm. As she rides the bus to the school, a bee lands on her. She was sent to Switzerland to attend the Richard Wagner Academy for girls. Moving on, we are introduced to our heroine, Jennifer Corvino played by Jennifer Connelly. Was it necessary that a large chimp be this man’s assistant? Why does he have a severed head in a glass box? And since he is wheelchair bound, he is assisted in his work by Inga, a chimpanzee. He reveals a severed head in a glass box covered in maggots to make his point. We then cut to a couple of detectives who are meeting with a local etymologist (bug scientist) played by Donald Pleasance, who discusses with them the patterns of decay of human flesh. Uh-oh! Wrong house! She ends up brutally murder with a pair of scissors and falls to her death via slow motion crashing through a window. Phenomena starts off unassuming enough in the Swiss alps as a young girl, played by Dario’s daughter (Fiore Argento), misses her tour bus and needs to seek shelter in a nearby house. (Note, there will be spoilers below, as we’ll be diving deep into the film’s plot.) Let me try to sum it up with some questions I was asking along the way. This movie is frantic, insanely paced, and at time confusing with the number of revolving doors of plot devices that exist throughout the movie. But his lesser known work, the 1985 cult classic Phenomena, is the perfect example of his insanity. His most notable work is Suspiria, which has been labeled as a technicolor nightmare. And in the genre of horror, there is no one more visionary, eccentric or insane as Dario Argento. But once in a while, the view you get is one of insanity - a clash of both unbelievable beauty and unfathomable brutality.Ī peak into the mind of madness will leave you with more questions than answers. Other times, it can be a nightmare of a tormented soul. No translation needed - a raw, unfiltered examination of the mind of a great director. Sometimes this vision can be sublime and beautiful. They peel back the curtain for 90 minutes plus and allow you to see what is going on in their head. But a great director gives you insight into who they are. He may also be legitimately insane. We examine the 1985 cult classic “Phenomena” - a trip into the mind of madness.Ī good director can translate his vision to the screen.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |