Format: DVD from NetFlix on The New Portable.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—I’m not a massive fan of a lot of Italian horror. So much of it turns out to be nonsensical in my opinion. I get the sense in many cases that a lot of Italian horror—Dario Argento’s films as much as anyone else’s—are not written with the plot in mind. Argento seems to write with scenes he wants to film and then writes something that sort of loosely connects them. That seems like the case with Phenomena, a film that has particular plot points that seem like they should be important and then turn out not to be.
So let’s dive into this thing head-first. We’re going to start with a murder—a young woman gets abandoned by a tour bus somewhere in Switzerland, gets attacked, and is beheaded. Eight months later, Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connelly) show up in roughly the same area as a new student for that favorite of all Argento tropes, an all-girls school. We’re going to learn three things about Jennifer that are of varying levels of importance based on what you think the movie is going to be about. First, she is the daughter of a famous actor. Second, she frequently walks in her sleep. Third, she has the ability to talk to insects.
