Phenomena (1985)

Phenomena is about Jennifer, the precocious daughter of a famous actor, recently sent to a Swiss boarding school. Upon arriving Jennifer is introduced to a few things the first being torment by her classmates who are more or less jealous of her father and put off by her odd love of bugs, and the second that a killer has been lurking the school for months. The mysterious murder preys on the young female students and has remained anonymous entirely to the police. When Jennifer sleep walks one night and is witness to one of the murders she ends up at a Dr. John McGregor, an entomologist, house with his pet and friend monkey Inga. Instantly McGregor takes a liking to Jennifer as they both have a love of insects in common but McGregor also notices her unique ability to handle them. Suspecting that Jennifer is able to telepathically communicate with bugs is proven true when she summons them to her school. With her new gift Jennifer may be able to solve the murders but it doesn't exclude putting her life in danger.

Insanity at it's best we have a crazy plot but with a much more mature director, especially at the beginning. A visual forepart of Swiss alps scenery, and in particular a waterfall, make this the 'nature version' of the Argento deaths. Often I felt the 'I've seen this girl's head fall through a glass window before' but got over it as I got way that our killer was rather keen on impalement and decapitation. Jennifer's sleep walking visions are intensely effective and appear almost nightmarish for the viewer. Often the sub-plots hit dead ends throughout the story and some things that occur in the beginning didn't connect to the end. The film falls apart in the latter half, and I preferred the story buildup to the absurd climax, but I had fun there too. A monkey wielding a straight razor is not a bad day in my opinion.

Jennifer's personality becomes a little high strong as the film progresses but still holds a likeability that's usually not allotted to her type of character which appeals directly in her being different. This is one of Jennifer Connolly's first roles and it displays her as a mature actress at her age. Donald Pleasence is the entomologist who helps Jennifer and alone steals the film with his quiet but great performance. I really did like his character and I was sad when he died. Unlike a lot of his works the film isn't enriched with a tantalizing blue and reds, instead we are treated to a more green scope of nature with the choice of scenary. And of course the deaths are as up close and personal as ever. I labeled this as Argento's heavy metal rock film of the eighties, an odd yet somehow brilliant combination I did not believe could exist. The film blares loud chords of rock music and in it makes itself much younger, maybe to appeal to the slasher teen audience of the eighties.

Phenomena doesn't really care that it doesn't make sense or that it leaves near dead plots, it's just a usual Argento; great soundtrack, great visuals, and interesting deaths. There's of course the inevitable similarities between it and Suspiria, but really only in plot. The two girls are Americans who go to a boarding school run by strict women but other than that the two scenarios vary greatly. Suzy is naive and doesn't do that much to get out of her situation where Jennifer is constantly pushing and has an ability above the typical final girl unfortunate. After seeing this its not hard to conclude what scares the director, in common theme I feel that boarding schools with strict cruel headmasters (Suspiria, Phenomena), and faces with distorted features that expose buck baby teeth (Phenomena, Deep Red) give him quite a scare. Or at least what he attributes to be the most effective. Either or Phenomena is a fabulously absurd eighties horror film, for any fan of Argento or for those looking for a light on the camp and high on the strange film.

The Vanishing (1988)

WARNING: May contain some spoilers.

The Vanishing is a Dutch/French language film about a heart broken boyfriend's obsession over his kidnapped girlfriend and, a film about the obsession of a sociopath. Rex and Saskia are on their way to a holiday weekend when Saskia goes missing. Rex, torn by her disappearance, takes on a three year search to find out what happened to her. Raymond, our kidnapper, is a family man, teacher, and incredibly intelligent. The film derives into his preparation of the kidnapping, even taking a comical approach to it as his first few attempts are a bit of a fail. Raymond, in respect of Rex, has decided to send him postcards awaiting the moment where they can talk face to face. Eventually Raymond approaches Rex in person and offers him everything he's wanted to know but only if Rex goes with him. This poses the question, would you go?

I can't relay what kind of viewing experience for this film might be to someone else but for me it was calm. Surprisingly for a movie about kidnapping I never felt anxious or overtly scared for Rex. The only thing was after the movie ended a creepy feeling over came me and I became genuinely disturbed by the entire experience. That was the movie's underlying effect. I attribute these elements to our killer, Raymond, who's very precise and in complete control of the movie and the viewers experience, which if you pull away is the utterly terrifying nature of the film. The movie might be a bit slow for some but if you are patient you'll see Saskia's disturbing kidnapping and her horrifying fate, which evokes a certain phobia (I won't mention it because it'll spoil the ending).

I don't watch a lot of Dutch films, in fact this is my first, so I can't say for certain how the acting fairs but from just what I like I thought the two male leads, Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu and Gene Bervoets, were very interesting to watch. My favorite kinds of films are where the villain has more depth than just being evil and that's defiantly what we get with Raymond's character. His thinking process reveals to us that he doesn't kidnap out of sheer pleasure or from a psychological mishap during his childhood development. He just calculates that he can't be one extreme without the other. It's a bloodcurdling thought of a sociopath.

The directing and the writing are good. Tim Krabbe wrote the book and the screenplay and it's doubtful that he messed up his own novel, though I haven't read it. George Sluizer directs and later went on to direct the American remake which has mixed reviews. There's a lot of other little details that I appreciated about the film. Such as casual conversations about items that later show up in helps of the kidnapping.

If you can't tell I'm in love with this movie. From one horror fan to another, there are those who might be disappointed with the absence of gore. But the suspense, the ending, and the affair of watching these two men's obsession over the same woman compensate for it. It's a very good film, maybe of my favorites, but either way I'd say it's something to watch.