Review of Phenomena (1985) by R.john X — 04 Nov 2009

One of the things I love about Agento movies is this idea of disaffected human relationships. For instance, horrible things happen to the young girl in the movie and she maintains a blank just-off-camera stare. It might be bad acting or a bad directorial conceit or maybe an inept combination of both.

Beside the disaffected heroine/final girl, there seems to be in all Argento flicks, a first act the establishes the otherworldliness of the action by having the heroine encounter a progressively awkward, confused, or downright mean-spirited set of social interactions/associations.

This one is a perfect example. Upon arriving at the Richard Wagner Finishing School for Girls, Jennifer meets her chain-smoking french harlot roommate who is rudely dismissive as she offers Jennifer left over baby food for dinner. What?

The next thing we know Jennifer is sleep walking to witness a murder, then falls from the crumbly ledge, only to get hit by a car driven by hair brush German D-bags, who instead of rushing her to the hospital, struggle with her in the car, until she flies from it down into a wooded ravine.

They check to see if she is okay again, but opt to retreat, thus, opening up one of those spinning off narratives that I love in horror movies - who were they, where were they going, what was going to happen to them? - Who cares. A monkey in the woods leads Jennifer to Donald Pleasence, creepy and wheel chair bound. He is in muted ham-fisted form here, not really pouring his all into the menace that was obviously implied by the non-help and slight hitting on the young girl he does, before sending her off into the dusk.

By the time the killer is revealed and the supernatural mumbo-jumbo swings into deus ex machina, the movie has sunk to stupid levels of wonder - meaning that the drooling monster kid (the only really effective element in the movie), the swarm of flies, the fire on the water, and the death by monkey all really are amazing to watch pushed around with a straight face. Also, note the more convincing body pool in this one, as opposed to the foam rubber slip and slide at the end of MOTHER OF TEARS. Bravo.