Phenomena
Director: Dario Argento
Release year: 1985
Like in Suspiria, a young woman arrives at a female-run school where students are being murdered by an unseen killer, but there are no witches in Zürich—instead we have a girl who has an unexpected telepathic connection with insects.
Jennifer Corvino, daughter of a famous actor, is sent to a Swiss boarding school for the summer. On her first night she sleepwalks and witnesses a student being murdered before being led by chimpanzee Inga to the house of her owner, forensic entomologist John McGregor. There are more murders, and Jennifer comes to realise she can use her growing psychic connection with insects to discover the bodies of victims, as well as protect herself from attackers.
Donald Pleasance plays the wheelchair-bound McGregor, who is trying to find out what happened to another student of his, Greta, who he suspects was also murdered. He has the chimpanzee trained as a nurse so he can live in his secluded home cum laboratory. Jennifer’s burgeoning power over insects is implied to be linked to her coming of age, and McGregor encourages her to use a Great Sarcophagus fly, whose larvae feed on dead bodies, to lead her to Greta.
It’s all completely mad, and the final fifteen minutes throws gore and weirdness at the story faster than makes any sense. People rave about this film, but I struggled with it. It’s a mash-up of everything that’s come before in his filmography—the first-person camerawork for a killer, an occasional heavy metal soundtrack, the magical powers of Suspiria, the whodunnit of his giallos, but the pacing is off, the acting is bland (until the ending), and the story borders on incoherent. And he’s said it’s one of his favourite creations. Hm!