Phenomena
By Yahoo! Shopping User Jul 16, 2001
PhenomenaIn 1985, New Line Cinema released a film called Creepers; it was cut to pieces, 28 minutes to be exact and it made no sense. It died a quick death at the box office and continued the trend of Dario Argentos films being cut for American rel...ease. Well, finally after all the years of waiting Anchor Bay has released an uncut print of my favorite Argento film under its original title Phenomena.Jennifer Connelly is Jennifer Corvino, a teenage girl, who is sent to a private girl's school in Switzerland by her famous actor father. When she arrives at the school, Jennifer feels out of place because is that she isnt like most teenage girls, she can communicate telepathically with insects. That comes in handy when she discovers that there is serial killer is on the loose killing young girls. After the wave of killings, Jennifer runs into the wheelchair bound Professor John McGregor (Donald Pleasence) who has a pet ape that helps take care of him. The Professor is investigating the murders himself and when he finds out about Jennifer's special power, he persuades her to use the power to help him search for the serial killer. As far as Argentos plots go, this one of the silliest and weirdest, but the most original he has worked with. This originality adds a great deal to the film, with Argento successfully attempting a new style. Jennifer Connelly and Donald Pleasence are excellent and the movie has some very striking visuals with a truly excellent score by many all-star musicians including Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones. This is my favorite Argento film without a doubt.VIDEO--- The film is presented widescreen in its original 1.66.1 ratio. The film looks amazing, I saw no visible digital artifacts. The video is near flawless in showing Argento's unusual colors schemes. The only problem I have with this transfer is that it is not anamorphic, so Im subtracting 0.5 from the total score.AUDIO---The audio is Dolby Digital 5.1. This doesnt sound like a new film, but consider the age of the film; this is excellent as good as it gets, especially when you hear the rocking score.EXTRAS--- Phenomena has excellent extras with nice animated menus, I cant think of anything else that I would want Anchor Bay to add. The discs comes with The trailer, a 2 music videos, behind the scenes footage, bios, an interview segment with Argento from the long forgotten Joe Franklin show, and least, but not least an audio commentary featuring Dario Argento, FX man Sergio Stivaletti, Claudio Simonetti of Goblin & journalist Loris Curci. The commentary is not great, but good, you have to take into account that English is a second language to these guys. Im just happy to have it. OVERALL--- The film is Argentos best and the video, the sound & the extras compliment the movie. If you are an Argento fan or love weird or unusual films, I highly recommend you pick this up as soon as possible. Read more Less
