Phenomena (Redubbed Creepers by the unknowable wisdom of US marketing reps on all but the most recent DVD release) isn’t really that good of a movie. But if you want something original, something different, holy crap has Dario Argento made something for you.

Dario Argento is a horror legend, leader of the Italian horror pack. This master of the macabre isn’t really known for crafting solid plots; so you may not understand why everything in his films happens (see the barb wire comments in our Susperia review), but he is a genius in how he tells that story; its his visual craftsmanship that he’s known for. His movies are tightly edited, well shot, and as proven by Phenomena, very inventive.

The movie, at first, seems to be a straightforward tale of an escaped lunatic terrorizing the countryside. In a stunning opening sequence, a young girl is left behind by her tour group, only to be chased into a waterfall tour site by the escaped maniac, and beheaded on a pane of broken glass, her remains falling into the raging waterfall. Pure Argento.

But the insanity continues to build, as the young, beautiful, and talented Jennifer Connelly (Also playing a character named Jenny) is added to the cast. Jennifer is a student, new to the area, just entered to an all girls’ school. The other girls hate her and tease her incessantly; but Jennifer has someone else she can talk to. Jennifer is psychic and can speak to bugs. And sometimes they take out her frustrations against her fellow students.

This strange ability works out pretty well because Jennifer only has one close friend, and he is in need of her help. The friend is the amazing Donald Pleasance, and he’s a handicapped detective/entomologist with a trained chimp serving as his live-in nurse, working on a murder case. His only clue is a certain severed head recovered from the banks of the river, but it offers few hints as to its origin. However the maggots playing pea knuckle on its snout do have a tale to tell, and Jenny has to translate it for the doctor.

This puts Jennifer on the case, as she follows the clues left by her insect friends, into danger and through and increasingly bizarre cacophony of events. Soon she’s lost in a world of precognitive dreams, assassinations, scalpel wielding monkey-fights, and a fly swarm facilitated battle with a mutated, fish faced monster that’s closer to her than she could have dared imagine.

There are many Argento fans that swear by this film, but it’s far from the best in his library. This film seems to be a try to follow up the indy success of Supseria in the US with a film using American actors. In many ways, the formula of the film is derivative of Susperia (the murderous opening, the girls’ school setting). But either the budget was cut, or Argento wasn’t as inspired by his setting, as the technical mastery is missing entirely from this film. Even Argento’s legendary lighting is scarcely seen. There are some holes in the plot, and characters wander in and out of the story in a non-sense fashion. Perhaps most bizarre in this film is the musical selection. For example, as Jennifer watches in terror seeing a friend’s corpse being carried slowly, somberly away by the paramedics, Motorhead starts blaring over the scene. Motorhead!

But when the metal isn’t inappropriately blaring over the suspense, the band Goblin presents another amazing score, giving a fantastic and creepy synth-rock sound to the film. The film also culminates to a flurried series of battles across a burning, fuel-covered river, and into possibly the most incredibly disgusting charnel pit created for film. So, there are some qualities to the film that make it worth checking out; in technical terms, it’s a failure for the artful Argento, but it succeeds by strength of story. You know, if it being weird, weird, weird wasn’t enough for you.

So when you want something absolutely original and mind-bending hunt this one down. You can find a new, 2-disc print of the movie just released on DVD, and its also part of the new Dario Argento collection.