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Phenomena
Price: $72.80 Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
DVD Layers: 1
DVD Sides: 1
EAN: 0013131072693
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Starz / Anchor Bay
Languages: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Manufacturer: Starz / Anchor Bay
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Publisher: Starz / Anchor Bay
Release Date: March 16, 1999
Running Time: 110 minutes
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Theatrical Release Date: August 02, 1985
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Editorial Review:
Italian horror maestro Dario Argento made his name by turning homicide into modern art with a cinematic flourish, but with Phenomena he takes his stylish mayhem in new directions. The film opens with the dreamy grace of a fairy tale: a young girl wandering the green meadows of Switzerland and discovering a gingerbread house, wherein lives a monster more modern than mythic, a psychopathic maniac who plunges the picture into a lush nightmare. Jennifer (Jennifer Connelly in her first starring role), a gifted young girl at a Swiss school, has a psychic link to the insect world and develops a connection with the killer through midnight sleepwalks. With the help of a lonely, wheelchair-bound entomologist (genre stalwart Donald Pleasence, who inflects his sonorous tenor with a gentle Scottish burr) she turns telekinetic detective, which only draws her closer to the killer's lair. The densely plotted story becomes muddled at times (this is the busiest film in Argento's oeuvre) but the lyrical cinematography and gorgeous nocturnal imagery--dreamy sleepwalks, nightmarish murders, hideous horrors that emerge in the dark of night--take on a poetic elegance not seen in his previous work, providing the tale with a kind of dream logic. This is a slasher film reborn as an exquisitely grim fantasy: Jennifer in Argentoland. --Sean Axmaker
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Argento's Phenomena is Phenomenal.
"Phenomena was inspired by something I heard about insects being used to solve crimes, and because insects have always fascinated me I began to make a story around this idea. You know, it's a terrible thing, but there are many insects that are disappearing. Becoming extinct. But most people only want to kill them. You know, insects have souls, too; they're telepathic... amazing. People want to save the whales and dolphins, but nobody wants to save the insects. I'm a vegetarian, because I don't want ... Read More
Rating:  - PHENOMENA!
Dario Argento is one of the most well known masters of horror, and until recently I had never even heard of him.
I saw Suspiria and I found it visually stunning and extremely over-the-top...I especially loved that Dario's heroine in Suspiria was inspired by Snow White...I could clearly see that vision and found it really interesting!
Unfortunatly, THIS Argento film was just a little too odd for my taste.
Jennifer Connelly (one of my personal heroes ... Read More
Rating: - Supernatural Argento
Many Argento fans don't include this in their list of favorites, but is classic Argento.
Rating:  - Great release!
INFERNO-I liked this just as much if not more then "Susperia". I love Dario's supernatural stuff like this and "Susperia". The story isn't really as hard to follow as everybody says you just have to pay attention(like all his movies). The special effects are awesome and I love the classic Dario Argento lighting thats in EVERY scene and its obviously a cue he took from Mario Bava. Speaking of Mario Bava, he did some of the effects scenes for this movie and they came out great! If you like Susperia you should ... Read More
Rating: - very original
This is a very interesting and original horror. A very talented Jennifer Connelly has a very strange gift of communicating with insects and is the outcast of a girl's school where even the teachers are cruel to her and think she is mental. There is a killer on the loose and via telepathic communication with the insects is able to track down the killer, or will she be the next victim?
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