Phenomena AKA Creepers (1985, Dir. Dario Argento)
Synopsis:
A young Danish Girl, Vera Brandt (Fiore Argento) stumbles upon a seemingly-deserted house when looking for a telephone she can use after missing the bus in a remote part of the Swiss countryside. Something or someone has been kept chained up in the house and, upon her arrival, breaks free and savagely murders her.
A few months later a police inspector (Patrick Bachau) in charge of an investigation into a number of missing girls (of which Vera was the first), enlists the help of disabled entomologist Professor Macgregor (Donald Pleasance), whose expertise enables them to establish that a decomposing severed head is that of Vera’s and the other girls have also most likely been murdered.
At the same time, a young American girl, Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connelly), the daughter of a famous film star, who seems to have some sort of telepathic control over insects; arrives at the Richard Wagner International School for Girls in Switzerland, the site of many of the disappearances.
With the help of Macgregor, his trained chimp — Inga, and various insects, Jennifer sets out discover the identity of the killer.
This particular post has been sparked by my recent re-acquaintance with Dario Argento’s work for a new film project. As mentioned in my previous post about Argento’s Four Flies On Grey Velvet, There was a time when I was obsessed by his movies and, like all obsessions, this one has never completely left me despite my moving on to others.
In his essay on the film (included in “Art Of Darkness”), Matthew Coniam suggests that most interesting way of looking at Phenomena (and possibly why Argento himself holds it in such high esteem) is as an ‘Argento primer’: “a kind of unofficial ‘best of’ compilation, a distillation of all his quirks, tricks obsessions and recurring images”, as he puts it. In this regard, Phenomena is unique in Argento’s output in combining both the thriller and supernatural elements in a single film.
In short: it’s not a film for the faint-hearted but if you’re feeling adventurous, it could be the perfect place to begin exploring Argento’s work.
It’s very important to mention that there are several versions of this film. On it’s initial release in the U.K. and U.S., the film’s distributor: New Line Cinema re-titled the film “Creepers” and cut over 30 minutes from the film.
Thankfully, Anchor Bay and later other DVD distributors have since released versions with the footage restored (though for some sections they have had to resort to the Italian soundtrack with English subtitles, as the English version has either been lost or perhaps never existed).
So what was missing? Aside from every bit of Argento’s trademark outlandish bits of violence being trimmed to some degree or another; several lengthy scenes of exposition which help make more sense of the plot (such as it is) and a sequence where Jennifer is forced to have an EKG exam after sleepwalking (which makes her remember seeing the second, on-screen, murder — which explains her interest in the killer and makes no sense otherwise, as she says repeatedly that can’t remember anything when she sleepwalks), plus the crucial flashback where she sees Sophie’s murder by touching the killer’s maggot-infested glove — explaining her scream when she returns to her room, were removed making the film feel even more nonsensical and ridiculous than it already is (which is saying something).
Sometimes trimming scenes from a film can improve it’s narrative flow. However, in this case, where the narrative is really only loosely held in place by the spectacular set pieces; truncating either the sketchy plot line or the meticulously-filmed acts of cinematic violence (that Argento clearly spends far more time thinking about than the narrative) dulls the whole effect.
To this end it’s absolutely essential that you see this film in all it’s insane glory — the way Argento intended you to — especially if you’ve only seen the Creepers edit… Give the full version a go, it may well surprise you.
As I’ve already mentioned, Phenomena departs from the style of Argento’s both before and after by being neither a Giallo thriller (named after the yellow covers of Italian crime novels) — which often feel like an Antonioni movie with a higher body count — or a supernatural movie (Suspiria, Inferno) — which truly defy description, but think The Exorcist photographed like The Red Shoes/Black Swan and you’ll be halfway there… The connecting thread is Argento’s fascination with visual storytelling (elaborate camera moves and angles, extreme lighting and colour schemes) and whilst all those elements are present in Phenomena, they’re often in a much more muted and condensed form; which may explain why many Argento fans disliked it.
Gone are the retina-searing colours of Suspiria and Inferno and the Swiss setting seems remarkably ordinary compared to the modernist exteriors and interiors of his previous film, Tenebre (set mostly in Rome). However, the set pieces (the opening murder, Jennifer sleepwalking, the hoards of flies covering the school when Jennifer is bullied by the other girls and the entire ending — which is just as extreme, in it’s own way, as anything in Deep Red, Suspiria and Tenebre) are just as elaborate. Plus, it has far less narrative contrivances than either the preceding Tenebre or Opera, which Argento made directly after this.
Comparing the three films together, the only logical reason why fans of Argento should rate those two other movies more than this, is because they are remembering the handful of incredible set pieces in those films, rather than how well the film, as a whole, hangs together.
Even Argento fans will tell you that the power of his movies have little to do with the actors (who are often there to give the camera something to follow or react to) but this film contains some of the best performances in his films.
Aside from Donald Pleasance, who was never less than excellent in films far worse than this, both Patrick Bachau as the police inspector and Argento’s then wife and constant “muse” for the early part of his career, Daria Nicolodi, throw themselves into their roles with great gusto; With both of them creating the sort of “extreme” performances that only European actors would probably dare to give.
Growing up in the 80s as I did, it would be hard not to like a film starring Jennifer Connelly (Labyrinth). She was the cinematic stand-in of all those slightly older teenage girls who you secretly (or not so secretly, in my case) had a crush on. Looking back at her career as a young actress from the perspective of an adult, however, it’s clear that her choice of roles, even then, was as daring as they are now. In a way, it’s hard not to feel that she unwittingly created a template for young actresses doing more varied roles from a young age that has since been followed by the likes of Nathalie Portman, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jennifer Lawrence etc and wasn’t there before her.
Having recently re-watched Labyrinth for the first time in many years (because I wanted to introduce my own children to it) shortly before re-watching Phenomena for this review it’s interesting to compare the two films, which were made within 2 years of each other.
Connelly’s performance here is far superior to that in Labyrinth (which admittedly may have something to do with acting alongside David Bowie and a bunch of puppets). Take a look at the scene when she tells her roommate Sophia about her mother “walking out” on her and her father on Christmas Day (which is one of the moments that was trimmed in the Creepers edit, presumably to increase the film’s ‘pace’). It’s a two minute monologue and the camera focuses on her face throughout. By anyone’s standards it’s an excellent piece of acting, for a 12 year old -it’s exceptional…It also demolishes the standard comment that nobody “acts” in an Argento film.
The character requires a lot of Connelly: pretending to sleepwalk and talk to insects, acting alongside a chimp and falling into a pool of rotting corpses and yet she handles it all without falling into the trap of being just another screaming child in peril; In fact her scenes with Donald Pleasance’s character may well be the best acted scenes in Argento’s entire canon.
As I now live in Switzerland, the use of the Swiss setting was of particular interest to me and encouraged my colleague (and producer of the new film project) Stefano Cocchi and myself to track down the Swiss locations used in the film. During the course of our research, we discovered that only a handful of the film’s locations were actually shot in Switzerland: The abandoned house, the waterfall and the exterior of the school (plus a few small shots such as the night exterior scene when Jennifer is nearly hit by a car whilst sleepwalking) — the rest were all shot in Italy — but we visited those 3 main ones and took the camera with us to film what we found. The result is the short documentary, “Jennifer’s Footsteps — The Swiss Locations of ‘Phenomena’” — which you can view below:
Argento’s use of music in his films is, in many ways, just as adventurous as that of his mentor, Sergio Leone. His first three films feature some of the most “out there” music that acclaimed composer Ennio Morricone has ever produced. Then, starting with Deep Red, he began a musical association with Claudio Simonetti & Goblin that would continue right through until Opera (the only non-Goblin score during this period would be Keith Emerson’s for Inferno).
Phenomena marks the beginning of Argento’s attempts to combine music of several artists or different styles for the soundtrack, some (the eerie opening music by Bill Wyman, the operatic music by Goblin that accompanies Jennifer using her power) are superb; whilst others, especially his use of heavy metal music less so. Admittedly, it still works marginally better here than in his subsequent film, Opera — the first use of the Iron Maiden song “Flash Of The Blade” could almost be a diagetic music cue as it starts directly after Jennifer’s roommate Sophia has fallen asleep in front of a television watching a rock concert. However, the use of Mötorhead and a reprise of the same Iron Maiden track later on when Jennifer is trying desperately to reach the phone that’s locked in an adjoining room works far less well and evokes more laughter than tension for me.
Perhaps that’s a good thing though as the film’s finale is so completely insane in terms of disturbing violence, gore and “jump scares” (even by Argento’s standards) that some light relief is actually welcome (though I doubt it’s what Argento intended). Despite how much I’ve come to enjoy the rest of the film, it’s last ten minutes are still somewhat of an endurance test for me.
One could argue that endings have never been Argento’s “strong point” and that even his best ones: Four Flies On Grey Velvet, Deep Red, Tenebre etc tend to seem disturbingly abrupt (generally working along the lines of: the villain dies a horrible, gory death; roll credits…) Here, after the preceding craziness, the film literally has nowhere to go. However there’s no denying the power of it’s images to linger on long after you’ve watched it and for that, if nothing else, it deserves greater recognition than it’s often been given.
