MovieChat Forums > Phenomena (1985) Discussion > Love this. Proud to say it was my favour...

Love this. Proud to say it was my favourite film of all time.


I was five years old (1990) and saw Creepers vhs on the library shelf. My first R-18+ horror film and watched it and loved it. Shrugged my mother when she said (the classic) "Nuh ah. Your not watching this!" but by fate managed to persuade her, took it home and plugged it into my vcr. I loved everything. Pure eye-candy. From a young Jennifer Connelly to the dew-covered valley's, the killings, Donald Pleasance (R.I.P.) and the overall sense of "adventure" by the lead -Connelly. What was the best bit, that I didn't know until I was a teenager, that our Australian Palace Explosive tape was the Full 104 minute uncut standard English version, not the butchered 80min USA / UK tape at the time. I really feel sorry for the US and the UK, and much more for Argento, who had his vision plundered for the main video market by some low-life bigots of censors. I now have a video/dvd cinema room, thousands of rare vhs, dvd, bluray and have 3 Palace vhs versions (lovely non-cropped, uncut standard), dvd's blurays of the film (German, Italian, American, you name it), but would definitely hold my my Palace Explosive's close to heart. To this day I've only seen one of the 80minute prints on youtube - totally *beep* bro. Little tip if you want to see the most complete print, try the Arrow version, but I warn you, this "Integral Version" is mainly preferred by completists, and rather than nicely and simply restoring the lost footage, the distributors decided to "cram" every shot in, making some scenes choppy and nonsensical. I grew up with this film, and while the younger current generation may see it a bit dated and bland, I see it as a time-less, fantastic oddity. "Jennifer in Argentoland!"
And yes, she was beautiful and played the perfect part for this film.

"That's it. It bit into his arm-pit. Like It wanted to eat him, man. Like It wanted to eat his heart."

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Great story. Thanks for telling it. I remember the first time I saw this movie as well. I'd seen Suspiria and liked it so I wanted to watch more of Dario Argento's movies. Therefore I ordered a copy of Phenomena on DVD. I was waiting for The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) to play on TCM (a channel we have on American TV which shows older movies without commercials). I don't think it played until about 2 in the morning. So while I was waiting I decided to watch my copy of Phenomena. It was incredible.

I didn't get much sleep that night but it was worth it because both movies were very good.

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I just bought The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) the other day at my local dvd supplier. More of a collector's item than anything else...

"That's it. It bit into his arm-pit. Like It wanted to eat him, man. Like It wanted to eat his heart."

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