Thursday, May 17, 2012

PHENOMENA

PHENOMENA (aka Creepers/1985). Director: Dario Argento.

At the Richard Wagner International School for Girls in Switzerland, Jennifer (Jennifer Connelly), a new student with a sleepwalking problem, develops a strange affinity for insects. This comes in handy in tracking down an unknown maniac who is murdering several of the students. Donald Pleasence plays the entomologist, McGregor, and Daria Nicolodi is Frau Bruckner, who is keeping a deadly secret. Heroine Connelly is too inexperienced to convincingly carry the film, but considering the things she's called upon to do one has to say that she earns her pay and then some. Pleasence, Nicolodi, and a lovable chimp are much better. This is a somewhat zany but likable picture with a few memorably gruesome sequences.

Verdict: A fascinating Gothic nightmare. ***.

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