Phenomena (1985)

“People call it the Swiss Transylvania...”

This is, to my shame, the first film by Dario Argento that I’ve seen. This film isn’t perhaps quite as good as the critics say, but it certainly isn’t the last of his films I’ll be Seinfeld. It’s very well shot, stylish and pleasingly weird, if a little slow.

This is a slasher, sort of, in a very ‘80s style yet a cut above visually with a more artistic approach than you might expect from the genre- as well as an interestingly prog and metal soundtrack with a central role for Iron Maiden. In many ways, I suppose, this is a vaguely European Friday the 13th- in terms of plot as well as style- but it’s much, much better made without escaping its genre.

It’s odd to see such a very Italian film in English, and to see its stars- a fifteen year old Jennifer Connelly and a late period performance by the great Donald Pleasance who, it must be said, does not have the most convincing Scottish accent.

It’s all very much of it’s time with the fashion, music, and cars, and visually it’s always made both with an artistic, dreamlike vision and the uneasily creepy grammar of horror film visuals. It is, at times, guilty of a slowness of pace caused by lingering arty camerawork, but the film works narratively and the final twist, although predictable to the genre-savvy, is well done.

This is, I suspect, a fairly average example of Argento’s work, but on the whole I enjoyed it. I’ll certainly be seeing more.