Phenomena / Shudder / Friday Night Features

 Any time I'd pull up Argento or Giallo on Shudder, or even Featured for a potential film on the popular horror streamer, Phenomena (1985) was right at the front. I knew it was only a matter of time before I'd have it as my Friday evening must-see. I finished watching Edge of the Axe (1988) in the afternoon as it is on rotation on Slashics, with the idea of following that up with a Giallo, but instead Phenomena seemed like an even better choice. I wanted to include my old review for it from 2008, a great year of horror for me. It can get quite crazy as many an Argento horror film, with Daria Nicolodi reminding me of Norma Bates, laughing maniacally at the end while Jennifer Connelly true to pull herself out of a water pit full of dead body parts, skeletal remains, skulls, maggots, and flesh. Not to mention, Nicolodi's monster-face son left to go mad in a room under the house, using a knife attached to two interlocking handles to stab local girls. Donald Pleasence, before commiting to multiple Halloween sequels, eventually starred in a Dario Argento film, bound to a wheelchair, an insect expert, partnered with and befriending teenaged Connelly to find the killer(s). The Switzerland locations are often breathtaking, the music sometimes jarring but other times catchy, with heavy metal and Goblin competing for how to coordinate along with Argento's anarchic amalgam of psychic insect teenage friendship, manic winds quite stirred up often, and brutal Giallo butchery as scissors stab hands, an uncle's head is cleaved off, and a blade perforates a head. This gave us larvae POV, close-ups of flies and bees, a horde of animated flies swarming a Swiss school similar to the dance school in Suspiria, and this monster kid enveloped by flies, called by Connelly in need of rescue. Gotta love Argento. Connelly has ALWAYS been beautiful...she clearly just wanted to get this over with. I do love Pleasence. He just had this kind face and pleasant presence I appreciated. Connelly does have that eat shit and die look down. I'm still comfortable with my rating of ****/*****