 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. This is for the 1985 release Phenomena by Dario, Argento and It's a giallo, but it's also a bunch of extra mixed in to be honest and It's not it's not my favorite Argento film. It might actually at the moment. It might be my least favorite Argento film I haven't seen all of his but of what I've seen I've seen a bunch and It might be my least favorite to be honest And I think at the moment my most favorite might be deep red I know a lot of people out there hearing that and being like but Suspiria Suspiria is great, and it's definitely up there, but it might be by a bit deep red But anyway Just gonna let people know up front if you don't know this about it This is an older film, so I will be going into spoilers on this So if you have not seen the film yet Stop right here go watch it then come back and watch the rest of you because I would say that it's definitely worse seen once I know I said it's not my favorite, but it's definitely interesting, and I'm glad I saw it I probably won't rewatch it, but it's definitely worse seeing once especially if you're into Argento because You know you can see Argento in the film not physically, but his influence his directing his writing all that so Anyway, as we move on here Written and directed by Dario Argento, but also written by Franco Ferrini Who also was involved with demons demons to opera and a few other Argento films, so You know consistent collaborator with Argento This film actually came after Tenebrae, which I really liked that's up there for me as well as far as Argento films go And before opera I was good with opera, but that falls further down the list for me Jennifer Connelly is in this and this was very early in her career. Obviously. She's quite young in the film This was after once upon a time in America that she was in and before the movies seven minutes in heaven and Labyrinth the big one the big one that I think Excuse me the big one that I think set her career off Labyrinth, which I own it's back in my DVD collection slash blue like blue ray collection back here somewhere Love that movie Donald Pleasance is also in this one. I love Donald Pleasance the way he acts I love his acting style and he was very good in this one His Scottish accent kind of like came and went throughout the film So that was a little bit iffy, but I just like his acting He's it's always good to see him in a film and he did a good job in this I thought for the most part I wrote down just an interesting fact about him. He has 236 IMDB credits at the moment, which is A lot a lot a lot that man did work New Line Cinema had bought this particular movie for distribution in the United States. They cut 20 minutes out of the film That's a lot and then released it as creepers So now I would be interested to see I believe the the version I saw it was on shutter when I'm reviewing this and that's where I watch it So I assume that's the uncut version I wonder what it would be like with 20 minutes cut because to be honest it felt a little bit long to me There are a lot of shots a lot of scenes that kind of just like went way too long So I wonder if they cut some of that stuff or if it was a situation where they were cutting for more of an R Rating so they just cut like some of the gore things. I don't know So I would be interested to see both cuts and make that comparison the soundtrack for this is comprised of pieces of music by The goblin as it says in the intro not goblin, but the goblin iron maiden and motorhead So when it's goblin stuff like you're just at this point I'm just used to like goblins music in our Dario Argento films and it's heavy-handed Like Argento uses music in a very very heavy-handed way and sometimes it's just like fun Like the goblin stuff is just fun because it's it's fun interesting unique music And so when he throws it in you're just like, oh, it's goblin. Okay, here we go. And it's a good time But it's particularly in this film when he's using The metal of the 80s like the iron main stuff and motorhead. I like I even wrote down wrote down I love Dario's His enthusiasm for 80s metal, but his it's misused in this like when he puts it in With the scenes that it is it feels like it's very very mismatched It just does not work and it takes you out of it and you're just like Why why are we doing this right now? It really very much feels like he was just like I like this type of music I like these songs. I'm gonna shoehorn them in here whether they make sense or not and They don't make sense. It doesn't sound good This was actually one of Argento's favorite films that he ever made and he wanted to actually make a sequel to it in 2001 but he was held up from doing that because of contract issues with Medusa films And so they kept that from happening. I'm gonna be honest I'm fine with the fact that there was never a sequel to this because It's not my favorite. Like I don't Think it deserves a sequel like it's not good enough to Warrant a sequel and I think a lot of people probably would not have seen the sequel except for all your you know Diehard Argento fans although to be honest now that I kind of think of it if it had been made I would probably feel like well, it's our gentle I kind of have to see it just because but I just Based off phenomena. I don't think it would be that great It's weird and where I'm coming from on that and I'll talk a little bit more about this later Is I feel like phenomena was basically two movies It was two movie ideas that he was trying to do at the same time And he's just like I'll just mash them together and they don't really work together in my opinion. They really don't work together All right, so let's talk about the actual movie portion of things Amazing scenery in the very beginning of this the way it's set up. It's beautiful. It's in Switzerland. It looks amazing The scenery is unbelievable and that's something that Argento Usually does extremely well like pretty much all of his films. He has really interesting sets Really interesting locations that he finds whether it's inside or outside One of one of my favorite things about Argento and in general is that when he shoots inside of buildings He gets very interesting looking buildings And he also has a tendency to have a lot of like hidden areas in the film And you see that early on in the film too when there's like a chase scene through Like these caves at a waterfall and the waterfall looks beautiful and the caves look beautiful and interesting But he always has like these kind of like in addition to just cool locations and interesting locations Just hidden areas will be like, you know a secret passageway Or at towards the end of this film like a hole in the floor where you go through and you can get to this like hidden basement thing And I just like those types of things because those really especially like the hidden areas adds to what's strong with giallo films, which is kind of the the Sleuthing and exploration part of trying to solve the mystery of who the gloved masked or gloved or trench-coated killer Typically is and so I like that about it So he starts it off really well The chase through the waterfall and the caves like I said really cool very Aesthetically pleasing the head being rolled into the stream After that first person gets killed was pretty unexpected I did not see that coming and it was just like you see that like the bloody hand Like arm kind of like laying off one of the rocks and then all of a sudden the head just flies into the stream And you're just like oh, oh, okay, but the whole purpose of that is to kind of Drive home the savagery of what just happened. It's not just a murder. It's like overkill It's like extreme rage like taking it to that next level and either ripping or cutting someone's head off and Throwing it into a river. It's weird There's some strong foreshadowing in the in the beginning like after that kill happens The killer like stabbed the girl with scissors and I think her name was Rita and then And then it cuts over to Donald Pleasants with this monkey I forget the monkey's name and the monkeys like using scissors to like try and cut things and he's like Oh, no, no, no, and he takes it away and he's like that's too dangerous Don't ever play with you know sharp objects basically so that's the foreshadowing that the monkey shows up in the end obviously and with the straight razor kills frow brokner, I think is her name who's one of the killers basically and Yeah, it's just a foreshadowing there and I kind of like this is the first time I've seen the film and I picked up on that immediately I was like this monkey at that point I thought, you know, maybe the monkey is the killer, but there was definitely something with the monkey and sharp objects So that came into play later So there's a narration that comes into this like and it only happens once in the film like when Jennifer Which I think it's weird that Jennifer Connelly's character's name is Jennifer in the film So that was just weird But when Jennifer finally makes it to the school that she's going to in Switzerland There's this weird narration like voiceover that comes in and says something about like, you know, I forget exactly what it was but it was something just like oh You know, she was gonna have a traumatic time basically, but it was like a few like a sentence or two There was no narration prior to that There's no narration after it and it's just weird like it makes no sense It didn't add a single thing It was it was just weird. I was like why like why are we adding this one little bit of narration in here when It wasn't there before we didn't start with narration and you didn't do it at all afterwards It's just cut it out. Like we don't need that. This is a weird choice When Jennifer and Sophie are talking their conversation actually is very disjointed That's the scene where they first meet in their room in the school Which that room that for like a dormitory type room looks super nice, especially for the 80s So when but when they're talking like it feels like a very disjointed conversation Although I'm not sure that that's necessarily a big problem Because as younger kids like they're teenagers I feel like some conversations just kind of end up that way like they just jump topics, you know So it felt weird, but at the same time when I thought about it. I was just like well I mean it kind of makes sense the knife through the back of the head and out the mouth that scene where Jennifer is sleepwalking and that person gets killed and like her head flies through the window Yeah, and then the knife goes in the back of her head and like out the front. That was a cool scene I did not see that coming that was surprising and they pulled her off really well looked good That's some intense sleepwalking I wrote down like her sleepwalking was crazy intense. She could not be woken up I actually when I was much younger had sleepwalking issues from time to time And there was actually there were times where like I'd get up and then I'd go downstairs and turn the TV on and Be sitting there in front of the TV and my parents would find me like still sleep sitting in front of the TV Or one time when almost became a real big problem They caught me trying to unlock the door and leave the house So I almost had a Jennifer Situation from phenomena because it's crazy like she doesn't wake up and she's like falling She almost gets hit by a car and she's rolling down the hill It's nuts and then the monkey comes and saves her which is you know cool So the little bit of a concept that they throw in here that Argento throws in of the Swiss Transylvania thing is kind of interesting He kind of explains it in in more of like a mystical way It's more of like nobody really knows why you know the winds make people a little bit crazy or something like that It's it's weird, but it's kind of interesting at the same time But also I don't think it should have been in this film I felt like this is one of those portions I was talking about where it feels like it's its own film idea That doesn't mix with the giallo part of this like the giallo parts one and this whole Swiss Transylvania slash Jennifer's telepathy with insects. That's a whole other thing and those are the two films that they were just like Let's just put these together, and I don't think it works. It makes it weird. It makes it feel disjointed and just Weird just weird The classroom scene The earliest cut classroom scene where that girl's wearing like the BG shirt and they're all talking about like they're trying to talk about history But it makes a really interesting point about youth being so consumed by pop culture at that time that they have literally No interest in learning about the past or learning about history Which is actually something that kind of persists to today Like we we as a people and it's not just the youth of now We as people are so wrapped up in what's current and what's going on right now because the way media covers things They cover a lot so you get just like a dump plus the what's available on the internet like you just have so much current information that you're not even thinking about the past a lot of the time and It's a shame because you can learn from mistakes from the past So we don't make those in the future and it kind of just seems like it's a thing That's kind of dying out where people aren't that interested in knowing what happened in the past and are just in the present and looking ahead But Yeah, I think that's kind of one of the points they're trying to make in that scene You know, it's a quick scene, but you know, that's just what I thought I picked up from it Working with all the live insects and the monkey in this film must have been extremely challenging I cannot even imagine because there are many situations where I assume they were they obviously were trying to get the monkey to Do something specific which that wouldn't have been as hard because I know there was a handler for that monkey and They're intelligent. So like you you can train them you can get them to do things So it's a little easier to work with them But the insects like trying to get insects to do specific things. They're not intelligent So I cannot imagine how many takes they must have had to go through to get exactly what they were looking for That would try my patience. I would not want to do that that that seems rough I think it's stupid that Jennifer Jennifer at one point is following a fly to try and solve murders Literally like the whole thing where Donald Pleasance is like oh these might be the two unknown detectives you and the great sarcophagus Which is also just like a Weirdly grandiose name for a fly or a type of fly in this case And then it's just weird and then she's just he's just like take this fly And let it go and it will lead you to a dead body and then you will solve the mystery and you're just like Why are we going this direction? Why it's dumb. It is idiotic in my opinion just Doesn't work does not work Uh like I kind of said the sleuthing portions are the best portions of this film That's getting to the actual like giallo portion of it Like I said, you know, it's two movies smashed together if they would have just isolated The actual giallo portions of it and expanded upon that left out all this other stuff Um, I think it could have been a much better film in my opinion The monkey getting on the killer's car after they killed uh, Donald Pleasance's character was over the top and ridiculous I did like the portion where after Donald Pleasance got killed the monkey was you know on him and obviously extremely sad That was an impactful moment and it worked really well But then you follow it up with now the monkey's Raging out and jumped on the killer's car and is like trying to bash the window and stuff It was for no reason and it's just like I don't know. It was just it was dumb There's another one of those moments in the film is just dumb And it goes back to something that I see with Argento Like Argento loves to work with animals and insects in his films If you look if you watch most of his films have animals or insects used in some capacities Got this weird fascination with doing that, which I don't understand specifically for what I just talked about Which is it must be very challenging to work with those things But I don't know it's his thing Uh, the bathroom scene where Jennifer is Drinking a lot of water and trying to make herself throw up Is excessively long. That is one of those scenes that I was saying I think should be cut down Excessively long and there are a few scenes kind of like that where it's just like okay There's nothing else happening here. We get the point. Let's let's move on It was a different time though slower films were more accepted Uh, I like how he the term he is constantly used when everyone refers to the killer to kind of Make you get into that pathway of thinking of like, oh, it's obviously a male killer when it ends up being a woman But also kind of her son, you know, so it's kind of like both of them So I just kind of like that that like little Subconscious cue that they give the audience to be like, well, let's just think about it's a guy and it's a single guy Who's killing people? So it's kind of like a misdirection, which works Argento uses hidden areas already talked about that his hidden areas thing Love love love that stuff and there there were some in this The dead body pit man in at the end of this film is I wrote down. It's gnarly it is I didn't see that coming when she just gets like When she just falls into that dead body pit it is nasty and I was like, oh man And they do a really good job Argento does an awesome job of showing it up close a lot So you're seeing like maggots in it. It looks like really really gross You're seeing the bones in it and everything and the viscera and it just looks Just disgusting so that they're focusing enough like Close-up shots on it that you get an idea of how gross it really is So when you have the further away shots and you see, you know, Jennifer Struggling in it you you kind it has more impact because you're just like, yeah, that's really really gross And I would freak out too So what's the deal with the kid in this? He's a killer just because he has facial abnormalities Like I don't get it. Is it because he has facial abnormalities and he's an outcast So that just makes him angry and a killer or is it because his mom's kind of kept him Chained up because that's kind of the insinuation from the very beginning Like when you see the chains bolted in the wall and they get broken broken and then the first girl gets murdered I mean, it's the kid at that point I believe And it insinuates then that he was chained to a wall that his mom had done that So is that the reason why because she's like basically treating him like an animal animal because he looks like an animal Like he's caged up basically. So then he kind of becomes feral Which by the way, it makes me think of the film castle freak, which actually came out after I think that's from 1995 actually So it is well after Um phenomena. I don't know if there was any, you know inspiration drawn from phenomena for castle freak, but I see ties The swarm of flies killing On the kid Another one of those stupid moments of the film Like just seeing the swarm of flies start against the moon. I was just like, oh my gosh. Here we go It's dumb. It's idiotic this whole insect telepathy thing I know our gento obviously liked it because he wanted to make a sequel to this, but It's just you buddy Well, not just you but I'm sure there are people out there who really liked it and you can comment down there and let me know But I particularly hated it. It irked the hell out of me. I just thought it was dumb Uh, the head getting whipped off that I think his name was morris like her driver Or whoever that guy was or her father's ray hand man. I don't know he showed up and you're like, oh She saved and all of a sudden whoop. There goes his head Didn't see that coming. That was a fun surprise. I was like, oh, whoa Okay, and then the fact that then you turn around and she's like, oh frau brokner is all like, oh Have your insects Save you have your insects save you. Did she see that? I don't think she saw that when like the insects Came down and killed her son. I don't think she saw that so I don't know It doesn't it doesn't seem to jive with the actual story and what what was before it that she would actually know that plus In real life, that's a weird thing for someone to make an assumption about or think that it's actually a real thing That people can have telepathy with insects. So it's just weird but anyway the point is Then the monkey comes out and starts slashing her with a straight razor and uh, that's another surprise Right on the heels of the surprise of the dude having his head whipped off So it was like, okay. That's a crazy ending. So I mean, I appreciate the ending for that reason um All right, so some kind of wrapping up things the acting's kind of rough in this the line delivery seems like kind of labored there's a lot of It doesn't move at a normal conversational pace like people would actually deliver These lines of dialogue it moves a lot slower And so it feels kind of labored. So the acting's not not so hot in this Donald Pleasance is probably the best part of it acting wise Um The pacing is pretty slow in this like I talked about the you have a bunch of these scenes That kind of seem a little too drawn out should really have been cut down more You know, uh, Jennifer's insect connection is just too much for this movie I can't say it enough. It's too much for the movie It's this weird kind of left turn thing That you don't need for the film because what's at the heart of this? What are we really trying to get out of this film? We're trying to figure out who the killer is because that's the conflict murders There's someone out there murdering people. Okay. Let's solve that All this stuff with the insect Telepathy it's just a left turn into like nowhere'sville And it's dumb the way it's integrated is is not good. It's terrible to be honest. It's laughable And I don't like it But obviously the film looks really good because it's Argento and he always looks, you know, he always looks good his films always look good because he's got an eye and The people he uses for his cinematographers are always excellent cinematography is great looks great Like I said locations are amazing So I like this film just for the Argento-ness of it, but the story overall is very convoluted. Not so great So um now that leads me to my star rating for this film I feel kind of conflicted on it So part of me wants to give it a two overall because I'm not That into it because the story is kind of crappy, but it looks really awesome and I always like the location selections those are always really great and There are a lot of cool kind of surprises in it, especially at the end So I'm going to upgrade it to a two and a half. I think putting it strictly in the middle makes sense to me Yeah, I don't I don't feel super strongly about it being good obviously, but I feel somewhat That it wasn't a very good movie, but you know, there's there's enough to kind of redeem it a little bit So two and a half stars. No, excuse me two and a half stars on that But thanks everyone for checking out this review put some comments down there If you have seen phenomena, what are your thoughts on it? Do you love it? Do you hate it or in the middle? Whatever, also, what's your favorite Argento film in general? Like I said might be kind of deep red for me I really like that one Hit that subscribe for me do me that quick favor. I really appreciate it. I am not making money doing this I'm just spending my time taking notes while I'm watching horror movies and doing these videos So if you could repay me by just hitting that subscribe, I'd appreciate it You can do likes on this video, but if you're just going to do one of those things The subscribe is the bigger one. So thanks everyone for checking this out and until next time keep it brutal