Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Iseerphia All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

rodrig58 You can watch this only for the fresh beauty of Jennifer Connelly, she is very young and absolutely unique. Also, the young girl murdered in the first minutes of the film is very beautiful. You can watch it also for the charm of Donald Pleasence, a very special actor. The music too is beautiful. And the cinematography. But, the story, the whole film, is totally stupid, complete waste of time. Disgusting scenes after disgusting scenes, very bad!

room102 I know Dario Argento by name, but don't think I've ever actually watched any of his movies. PHENOMENA is one of his most well known films, probably because it stars a 14-year old Jennifer Connelly, just before her breakthrough in LABYRINTH.The film is pretty terrible and all its elements are wrong: Bad pacing, bad direction, awful acting by the entire cast without exception (even Donald Pleasence can't help this film), bad ADR, bad editing, bad camera-work, awful inappropriate music. It's not only boring and moves extremely slowly, but everything about it feels completely unnatural. The combination of terrible acting, direction, editing and dialogue makes the film extremely uncomfortable to watch.Jennifer was - and still is - one of the most beautiful women on the planet, but her acting ability is limited in this movie (her first lead role, and her second acting role overall after a tiny role in ONCE UPON A TIME IN America). It took her some time to develop and become a real actress. The terrible direction in this movie didn't help either.

Brian T. Whitlock (GOWBTW) In her youth, Jennifer Connelly made a name for being a young actress. In Phenomena, aka "Creepers" she plays a student in Switzerland learning abroad. While learning, she discovers that she has the ability to communicate with insects. It comes in handy when a killer is on the loose killing the young ladies. Months earlier, one student is beheaded by a mysterious killer. A wheelchair bound doctor(Donald Pleasence) is determined to help find the killer with Jennifer's help. Her power of telepathy to insects makes her a outcast to the school. The rest of the girls insult her so bad, she wants to go back to the States. That happens right after her French roommate gets killed. Her sleepwalking gets the attention of the doctor. But when he gets murdered, Jennifer takes action. The chimpanzee assistant has her ways of getting into trouble, but even she has her connection with Jennifer. A great movie it is. Bizarre as well. A major keeper in the horror vault. Rating 4 out of 5 stars.

gwnightscream Dario Argento's 1985 horror film stars Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasence and Daria Nicolodi. This takes place in Switzerland and Connelly (Labyrinth) plays American, teenage girl, Jennifer Corvino who is newly enrolled at a boarding school. She has a special gift of communicating with insects which also gives her telepathy while sleepwalking. She soon learns that a killer is targeting young girls nearby and that her abilities are somehow connected. The late, Pleasence (Halloween) plays John McGregor, a professor/entomologist and Nicolodi plays Frau Bruckner, a woman who chaperons at the boarding school. Argento's daughter, Fiore appears at the beginning of the film as Vera, a teenage girl who becomes murdered and Nicolodi was also Argento's wife at the time. This is a strange, but not bad flick with grotesque make-up effects, Connelly is great in it, Pleasence was great as usual and Goblin's score is atmospheric and a bit eerie. I recommend checking this out at least once.