Phenomena

Hrm, how do I tackle this review. I saw this, wait, sunday, or monday, I'm not too sure anymore, and I have to say, I'm not too eager to get to this review, because, I'm going to put it quite plain and simple, this movie bored me, and I don't really care about it.

But, I'm true to my word, so this review is going to get written -at a really slow pace, because I'm doing so much stuff at the same time, but written it will be.

Well, well, well.

Phenomena - also know as Creepers in the United States.
Italia
1985

Directed by Dario Argento,

starring Jennifer Connelly, Daria Nicolodi and Donald Pleasance,

Now I realise that probably nothing could top how much fun was Tenebrae. But the fact that halfway through the movie, I was chatting with friends - yeah, I watched the movie on my computer - indicates pretty much how I felt about the thing

Ok, it wasn't that bad. It's the story of Jennifer - yeah, the girl's called Jennifer, guess they didn't find a name - which is the daughter of a big movie star. She has to stay at a school for girls while her dad is shooting or something, I don't quite remember, and it doesn't matter. She loves insect, she sleepwalks and most importantly she can communicate with insects. That's cool.

The film opening was quite cool too, with the theme, composed by "ohgodallmighty" Goblin. But it was a huge dissapointment to see that it was the only badass theme composed by Goblin and the rest of the time, Argento went for Iron Maiden and Motorhead. It's nice, but not as badass, for sure. You get to see the first murder, and a nice waterfall and flying scissors and its all quite eery, and kinda of nice to watch. Actually the first half was fun. With the entomologist and his absolutely fun and crazy chimpanzee assistant. No kidding.

The first half is fun but my excitement fell flat the moment that we didn't see the monkey and the professor anymore and that Jennifer went on her solo quest for the killer. I didn't even care about the killer, all I wanted to see was more insect communication and stuff like that. The scenes at the school were ok, especially this one, because of that Chinese girl and her t-shirt but really, nothing more.

Ok, seriously. THANK GOD FOR THE EIGHTIES. Having Barry Gibb - I wikipedied that, I'm not a Bee Gees fan - face, on your tshirt is, I got to admit, really cool. And the line that goes with that picture was absolutely ridiculous, making me whisper a "oh christ" of desperation.
And with no relation whatsoever, it made me want to watch a good old kaiju flick.

Ok, don't ask why.

The ending got me really bored as I said before, with a twist ending with zero impact and some long scenes, rather unscary. The movie had however a better backstory to offer than Tenebrae, but nothing extraordinay.

The movie offered cool scenes of decapitation, and gruesome insects/maggots related stuff. Great impact, gross and appropriate. Especially a scene towards the very end - the climax was nice, I've got to admit - which was very gross and graphic. What made me like the movie was little details here and there, like the monkey or the Bee Gees t-shirt, so all in all, this movie was nothing fantastic, not really, and I'll probably never watch it again. At least now, when people talk about the downfall of Argento's, I know what the're talking about.

I'm going to finish this right here, I have better things to do than write about a rather ordinary movie. And for my two and a half readers out there somewhere that wonder what I'm going to review next, well I have no idea. I've just watched three movies with friends, perpetuating the tradition of watching terribly bad movies - trust me. when I mean bad, its's bad - except for Evil Dead II which was totally awesome. But I won't review it either so...next review will probably be next week. Take care 'till them, and don't hesitate to leave a comment. Posters as always.

Here you have the french poster, which I thought was really great visually talking, but what the fuck with the red eye ? Anyway...the poster feels like a dream and I think its really great.

And at the right, the U.S. edition of the poster, which is cool too but what's with the tagline. She uses like ONE fly in the whole movie. And we don't see a single grasshopper, if that is what it looks like it is...but anyway.