PHENOMENA

We're loving Arrow Video here at SGM, sure they've not quite reached that nirvana level of home entertainment perfection but they're certainly slowly but surely heading in that direction. Another perfect example of their efforts to strive for sublime product comes to us in the form of their blu-ray release of Dario Argento's fantastical dark fantasy Phenomena.

Phenomena tells the tale of a young girl Jennifer (Connelly) Corvino who has a penchant for sleepwalking and telepathic communication with wildlife (in particular the insect world). The poor little rich girl is packed off by her movie star dad to a Swiss girls school (full of giggling Bee Gees fans!?) where a (traditionally gloved) serial killer is brutally murdering the young lasses. The police seem to be having no luck tracking the killer down, so with the questionable encouragement of a crippled Donald Pleasance (and his monkey companion Inge) Jennifer sets out to find the truth about all the murderous goings on...

Yes I know, if you have never seen Phenomena and you have just read that plot outline you'd be wondering what the hell is going on! But although this may be Argento's most off kilter experience plotwise (and yes, it is a plot that demands you leave your disbelief aside) - it has to be said that it's an entertaining dream like movie which floats between modern fairy tale and darkly violent horror. Stylishly directed (once again by Argento) and wrapped up in a aural mixture of stomping rock and the trademark Simonetti/Boswell sounds that regulars will know and love more so.

But what about the disc? Now this is where Dario fanatics will likely will lapse into a mild Argentogasm whilst the casual viewer perhaps not so.

A bit of very basic background - when first issued onto the English market, the film was chopped down to a neat 80 odd minutes running time (well, between 79 and 83 minutes depending on where you lived) under the title 'Creepers'. This was the version that many fans seen when the film was first released (mainly on VHS). It wasn't really until the advent of DVD that most folk got to savour a more complete version of Argento's work in his 'directors cut' of 'Phenomena' when Anchor Bay released their rightly applauded which ran for a more fulfilling 109 minutes. Argento fans were very happy, or they were...until they got wind of an even longer print available - this time in Japan with a running time of 115 minutes! But to the bane of the English speaking Argento-philes it was an Italian language print with Japanese subtitles (god forbid!) That was until German producers Dragon released their own English friendly edition of the longer 'Integral' print though sadly that edition needed the viewer to switch on and off the English subtitles manually when watching the English variant of the feature. So with the blu-ray debut of the Integral edition from Arrow Video expectations were high.

Firstly, and importantly, it has to be said that the image quality on the Phenomena blu-ray really is quite stunning. It would be an understatement to say that the image is pin sharp, in fact some scenes show so much depth of detail the high definition image has an almost three dimensional look to it. Of course, in turn such detail shows some of the original prints failings (such as the heavy grain of the opening first kill) but this simply reassures that this is the best the film has and ever will look.

The film is presented with two audio tracks, both two channel stereo feeds of the English and Italian audio; with in turn optional English subtitles for the full Italian audio version or part English subtitled for the Integral version. This though may be where newcomers to the film and casual mainstream viewers may have some issues.

As I mentioned earlier, with this release being the longer 'Integral' version of Phenomena longstanding Argento fanatics will rightly rejoice at such a sumptuous presentation. The casual viewer though may be unintentionally bewildered by the fact that in some of the additional Integral scenes no English audio was available/utilised for the restoration by Arrow Video so conversations flowing in English can on occasion swap into subtitled Italian then back to English again in the space of a short discussion (particularly perturbing when Jennifer's character even makes reference to only speaking English in the midst of one of those multilingual conversations!) Why this is such a shame as clearly the full scene would have been filmed/recorded with English audio that track either hasn't been sought or perhaps lost. Perhaps with hindsight then it might have been a better idea to maximise the space available on the blu-ray format to include the option of watching this Integral print or the slightly shorter 'full English' European print (as issued preciously by Anchor Bay on DVD) to help wean the new viewer to the movie.

That said, these thoughts should not in any way deter anyone from picking up and enjoying this exemplary presentation of Phenomena as it's another near perfect winner from the fine folk at Arrow Video.

As for extra features, well there's a nice selection of talking head interview features that will please Argento's fans. Best of the lot is a 50 minute feature 'Dario's Monkey Business: The Making of Phenomena' which showcases the reminisces of filmmaker Dario Argento, ex-wife and collaborator Daria Nicolodi, the great Luigi Cozzi, effects artist Sergio Stivaletti and underwater photographer Gianlorenzo Battaglia - the most entertaining input as always coming from Nicolodi who holds no punches in life with Argento. Also included is a nice segment interviewing maestro Claudio Simonetti who clearly didn't enjoy the experience of sharing screen audio time with 'guest artists' and a footage from live Stivaletti 'question and answer' sessions filmed in Glasgow and Dublin. As ever with Arrow Video packages, the whole shebang comes lavishly packaged with four optional cover images, a lovely fold out poster and supporting booklet by respected Argento fetishist Alan Jones.

With this stunning blu-ray presentation of yet another Italian gem, Arrow Video have set the standard once again as the leaders of the UK horror home entertainment scene. Order with confidence!

Review by Alan Simpson