An Italian horror directed by Dario Argento, starring Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasence and Patrick Bauchau.
A teenage girl starts going to a Swiss boarding school near where murders have been happening. She finds that she can communicate with insects and befriends a nearby scientist who studies insects. With the help of the scientist and her insect friends, she tries to find the murderer.
I have never seen a movie that used music as well as this. Claudio Simonetti's Phenomena song was later covered by Rhapsody of Fire as Queen of Dark Horizons and they also did a cover of Iron Maiden's Flash of the Blade (used in 2 separate scenes!). Obviously, Luca Turilli and Alex Staropoli liked this film quite a bit. Another song to mention is Motorhead's Locomotive. I found this film a little slow and dull at times, but I was glad that I kept watching when it finished. The girl is really put through some extreme situations, but is able to call massive clouds of insects when she is in trouble. All of my favorite parts were at the end, so I won't spoil that. I rate this good and would recommend it for metal heads who like horror films.
A French Italian thriller directed by Dario Argento, starring Jean-Pierre Marielle.
A drummer from a psychedelic rock band accidentally kills a man and is photographed doing so. The photographer stalks him, so he hires bums and a crappy detective to solve the case.
Dario Argento is a cocksucker. There are no two ways about it. The plot failed to hold my interest even enough to finish watching this. The only main character was the drummer and he seemed like just some hippie that Argento found on the street. There was a serious lack of dialogue and the acting was unconvincing to say the least. Sets and costumes were ultra-mundane. Camera-work was good. I've said before that Argento should have been a still photographer because his shot composition is awesome. Audio is where this really bit it. The dialogue was mixed at barely audible levels, but all of the sound effects and music were clipping like an old kung fu film. Stylistically, you can tell it's Dario Argento's work by turning it on at any point. Being identifiable is not always good though. IMDb lists a rating of 6.7/10 and Rotten Tomatoes lists 75% Tomatometer with 60% Audience Score for an average of 67.3%. Even that seems high for this pile of horse dung. In accordance with my turn off policy, I rate this shit. DO NOT WATCH!
An Italian thriller directed by Dario Argento.
A pianist investigates the murder of a psychic woman who lives in the same apartment building.
I hate Dario Argento's work. The video is always underexposed and the audio is always uneven. The unevenness of the audio comes from whispered dialogue and music that is too loud. Whisper-blast audio so to speak. The plots in his films are usually very similar as well as having similar settings. The similar cast of characters always includes a detective or someone acting as one. He also always gets all artsy-fartsy with camera angles and framing. I think he would have been a better photographer than film director. One-trick pony, Dario delivered EXACTLY what I expected in this film. I rate it bad.
