Phenomena
Short description
A young American girl, Jennifer Corvino, arrives at an exclusive boarding school in the Swiss mountains. She is not an ordinary student: she sleeps deeply enough to walk at night without waking, and she shares an unusual connection with insects. When violent killings begin to strike the girls around her, that connection draws her toward the crimes rather than away from them. She finds an ally in an entomologist, while the school's staff and pupils keep their own secrets.
Dario Argento directed Phenomena, his eighth film as director in chronological order, following Tenebre and preceding Opera. He also produced and co-wrote the screenplay with Franco Ferrini. Jennifer Connelly plays Jennifer Corvino, with Daria Nicolodi, Fiore Argento, Federica Mastroianni, Fiorenza Tessari and Dalila Di Lazzaro among a credited cast of twenty-five. Made in Italy and Switzerland on a budget of four million dollars, the film runs 115 minutes and mixes horror with thriller elements.
Phenomena was released in January 1985. On TMDB it holds a rating of 6.8 out of 10 from roughly 940 votes, suggesting a fairly positive but not unanimous response from viewers.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film was shot in Zurich.
- The film was Argento's first work in the English language.
- While filming a scene at the end of the movie, a chimpanzee bit off part of Jennifer Connelly's finger. The actress was immediately rushed to the hospital, and the severed piece was sewn back on.
- Dario Argento directed this film (he was also one of the screenwriters) after learning that insects are sometimes used in murder investigations.
- One night during filming, a trained chimpanzee named Inga escaped from her enclosure. The search lasted several hours, but the animal was eventually found.
- The swarms of insects clinging to the school building and then practically blotting out the moon were created using visual effects. Ground coffee was poured into a water tank, the resulting footage was filmed, and then overlaid onto the required background.
- The film mentions Patau syndrome—a genetic disorder characterized by a genomic mutation.
- In the scene featuring a pool of dismembered corpses and worms, plastic was used to create the human skulls.
- For the filming of the final scene with flies, over 2 million fly eggs were purchased and placed in the appropriate conditions. As soon as the flies hatched, actor Davide Marotta was dressed, made up, and rushed to the set. His face and clothes were smeared with glucose to attract the newborn flies. After filming, the pavilion windows were opened to let the flies escape, but they continued to plague nearby offices and institutions for another two weeks.
- According to Dario Argento, the idea for the killer's appearance was inspired by Patau syndrome, which causes facial deformation. This is why Argento named the child Patau, although no one in the film ever refers to him by name.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
