1985 - PHENOMENA - Another Argento gore film

A very attractive and very young Jennifer Connelly is the heroine of this Dario Argento film which features a lot of disgusting killings by a homicidal maniac, lots of gore and body parts everywhere.  That's entertainment I guess.  The twist in Phenomena is that Connelly has some sort of psychic powers that allow her to communicate with insects.  Connelly and the insect friends team up to track down the killer. 

Argento keeps Connelly dressed mostly in virginal white outfits and manages at one point to have her wandering around in her underwear.  It sounds exploitative and it probably is but in this film Connelly is a fairly tough little cookie facing down the psycho killer.  The big problem with casting Connelly was that she just couldn't act.  Connelly struggles to look like she is actually worried about all these disgusting killings of students at the all girls school she attends but she comes off like she lost some of her Barbie dolls instead.

I have to give it to Argento, even with all the gore and nasty killings he does bring a lot of style of the film.  I think the question is at what point does the film cross the line?  At times Argento seems like a nasty little kid whose idea of fun is pulling the wings off of live flies. 

Well there's never a dull moment in this Argento film and the soundtrack choices are very effective.  This giallo film is probably mostly for fans of the director and I am guessing his fans are a rather strange bunch if they get off on this stuff.  Stylish gory horror films are only going to get you so far in your film career.

110 minutes, written by Franco Ferrini and Dario Argento.

1975 - DEEP RED, is stylish, disgusting horror thriller from Dario Argento

If you have a yen to watch a very well made Italian horror thriller with lots of disgusting murders, this film is for you.  If you don't have a yen for this type of film,  then cast blame where blame is due Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.  Argento's film and his directing style is very clearly influenced by the Hitchcock touch.  Argento's vision is to really ramp it up with the subjective camera, blood and grisly murders. 

The so called story has for lack of a better term "more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese."  The reasons given for not going to the police don't really make much sense and if you stop to think about it  Deep Red is really a collection of extremely well done murder and "sneaking around" scenes. 

Dario Argento isn't really interested in creating believable characters, he puts just enough time into character development so he can set them up to be killed.  Almost everyone in the cast is subjected to some kind of disgusting violence, although it is very stylized disgusting violence.  For what is basically an exploitation film there is no eroticism in the film, the eroticism is pretty much in watching the intricate murders. 

I can't say I was exactly entertained by Deep Red, but I probably won't forget it for a while.  This is supposedly Dario Argento's masterpiece and is usually placed in the category of Italian films called "giallo."

Enjoy