Jason vs. Leatherface #3

Published by: Topps Comics

Publication date: January, 1996

Writer: Nancy Collins
Plot: Nancy Collins, David Imhoff
Artist: Jeff Butler
Inker: Steve Montano
Editor/Colorist: Renee Witterstaetter
Computer Separations: Electric Crayon (WTF are they talking about?)
Cover Artist: Simon Bisley
Frontispiece: Jeff Butler

“Face Off”

Summary:

After helping Grandpa downstairs, Jason joins the rest of the Family for dinner. Suddenly, Hitchhiker attacks Leatherface for getting fingerprints all over his Iron Man comics. Hitchhiker takes it too far and stabs Leatherface with his pocket knife. Jason’s decided he’s had enough of this display and seizes Hitchhiker by the throat, hurling him across the room. Hitchhiker responds by stabbing Jason in the chest with his knife. Jason’s all like, “Fuck this noise” and decides to chop Hitchhiker up with his machete. Hitchhiker flees the rampaging Jason as Cook encourages Leatherface to go get his saw.

Cook buries a meat cleaver in Jason’s, to little response from the hockey-masked psycho. Cook and Hitchhiker then barricade themselves in the corpse pantry, but Jason bursts through the metal door regardless. Cook requests that they work things out through gentlemanly discourse, but Jason ain’t havin’ it.

Before Jason can do them in, Leatherface bursts in with his chainsaw. Jason sees Leatherface, but rather than fight, he lays down his arms. Leatherface, though, hacks Jason in the arm with his saw. The narration gives us an idea of what’s going through Jason’s head. Jason thought he’d found a kindred spirit in Leatherface and rather than kill, chose to protect someone for the first time in his life. This wound-up backfiring because unlike himself, Leatherface is alive and capable of feeling love: love for his family. Jason hates love, so he decides to screw that protector bullshit and just kill him.

Leatherface and Jason clash chainsaw with machete, but being more skilled, Jason quickly knocks the saw from Leatherface’s hands. As he looms over his adversary, Hitchhiker buries a hammer in his head, spilling his brains all over the floor. Hitchhiker can’t wait to finally get a peek under Jason’s mask, but Leatherface won’t let him. Hitchhiker begins to assault his younger brother for getting in his way, but one look at the pissed off look in Leatherface’s eyes makes him shut up.

With Jason down, Hitchhiker recommends eating him. Cook disagrees, thinking that Jason deserves more respect than that. So they tie him to a concrete block and dump him in a lake. As Cook and Hitchhiker head back to the car, Leatherface drops a rose into the lake and joins them. Shortly afterward, Jason comes to and frees himself from the concrete block. He considers going back to the house to deal with the Family, but decides that he’d rather go home instead. So he begins the long trek back to Crystal Lake.

The End.

Notes:

*This issue follows Jason vs. Leatherface #2.

*This issue also included an unrelated back-up comic, “Tales of the Toxic Turtle”, by Michael White.

*This issue also included an editorial, “Portrait of the artist with hockey mask and chainsaw”, by series author Nancy Collins.

Review:

So “Jason vs. Leatherface” at last reaches its conclusion. A part of me is thrilled with how well-done this series has been up until now, but a part of me is disappointed with the extremely brisk conclusion. The “Jason vs. Leatherface” story is ten pages shorter than it has been in the past two installments, with that space filled by a completely unrelated back-up story about a turtle with a nuclear waste barrel for a shell. It’s an amusing pantomime comic and all but…c’mon. I came here to see Jason and Leatherface throw down, not watch a radioactive turtle get caught in a fishing net.

At the end of the day, this was the only thing about the series I found bothersome. I don’t know what happened behind the scenes that resulted in this last issue being chopped down in length (especially since this issue came out a month late, if the indicia is to be believed), but the result is that “Jason vs. Leatherface” falters pretty mightily at its climax. Though the animosity between Jason and Hitchhiker had been building since last issue, the “last straw” was pulled far too abruptly. Jason and Leatherface’s big brawl was perhaps the biggest letdown, being criminally anticlimactic. It consists entirely of a two-page spread of them charging one-another, followed by one page of hacking around with their weapons. Personally, I expected a whole lot more than that.

So yeah, this issue really would have benefitted from the ten pages that went to that damn turtle being used to decompress the A-story.

On the brightside, Jason and Leatherface say a lot just by staring at each other, so a lot of credit belongs to artist Jeff Butler for conveying so much emotion and impact through characters with very little expressive features. Collins’s narration doesn’t tell us exactly what Jason’s thinking, but what he’s feeling and gets his opinions across nicely without being clunky or melodramatic. Collins did such a great job of having Jason and Leatherface bond in the last issue, that seeing them finally go at it was rather tragic. We got some excellent character work on both horror icons; a glimpse at the seldom-seen sympathetic side of Jason and a nice notch of character development from Leatherface, as Jason teaches him to stand up for himself.

Unfortunately, a lot more could have been accomplished in this last issue had they used the ten extra pages for the Jason/Leatherface story and not some stupid turtle.

Grade: C+ (as in, “Can someone just release this damn thing in trade paperback already?”)

Jason vs. Leatherface #2

Published by: Topps Comics

Publication date: November, 1995

Writer: Nancy Collins
Plot: Nancy Collins, David Imhoff
Artist: Jeff Butler
Inker: Steve Montano
Editor/Colorist: Renee Witterstaetter
Computer Separations: Electric Crayon (WTF are they talking about?)
Cover Artist: Simon Bisley
Frontispiece: Jeff Butler

“A Day in the Life…”

Summary:

Dreaming, Jason revisits the day he drowned in Crystal Lake and how, even though all campers were supposed to have swimming buddies, no one would be buddies with him because he was so weird-looking. And no one came to help him as he drowned, either. Suddenly, Cook walks in and wakes Jason from bed (though Jason initially seizes his throat, he releases him just as quickly). It’s time for breakfast.

At the table, the family’s having scrambled brains, but Jason refuses to take off his mask to eat. Cook and Hitchhiker get in an argument and Hitchhiker winds up with “garage duty” for the day. Upset, Hitchhiker takes it out on Leatherface by slapping him over the head. The sight of Leatherface cowering before his older brother’s blows reminds Jason of his own childhood, being beaten by his angry father.

Cook decides to give Jason a tour of the house after breakfast and takes him into the kitchen. He explains that all members of the Slaughter family have been great chefs, but that he actually aspires to one day open a fancy restaurant in Austin and retire to a double-wide trailer with satellite TV. He knows his dreams are silly, but he thanks Jason for listening, as he's embarassed to tell anybody else.

Outside, the Hitchhiker introduces Jason to his pet dog, Sparky. Sparky is dead. Hitchhiker then runs off to the “Slaughter’s Last Chance Gas & Bar-B-Q” garage in his tow truck to get to work.

Not far away, a bickering old married couple runs out of gas outside the garage. Hitchhiker gladly fills their tank up and takes a look under the hood (tearing out some wires) before sending them on their way. He then runs home to tell Cook that it’s time for “grocery shopping”. Leatherface goes to grab his saw, but Cook stops him and tells him to let Jason have a turn at it. Leatherface pouts, but Cook soothes him and encourages him to act like a “big boy”.

On a dirt road, the old married couple’s car has broken down. Hitchhiker then shows up and begins beating the husband to death with a ball peen hammer. Jason seizes the wife by her throat and instantly snaps her neck. Jason’s quick execution of the wife pisses Hitchhiker off, as he likes it better when the victims suffer for a while, first.

Hitchhiker brings the "groceries" home and takes Jason into the barn to show him his “hobby”. Turns out, all the furniture in the house made out of human remains was actually his handiwork and he’s rather proud of his art. He’s even built Grandpa a new rocking chair made out of a human skeleton. Just then, Leatherface sneaks in and attempts to sit in the chair; destroying it beneath his weight. Hitchhiker freaks out and once again begins beating Leatherface. Jason observes and again recalls the beatings he received from his drunken father. Those beatings didn’t stop until his mother buried a machete in his dad’s face.

Jason then grabs Hitchhiker and hurls him across the barn. He then extends a hand to the sobbing Leatherface and helps him up. Hitchhiker laughs, assuring Jason that there’s nothing he can do to hurt him. He then proves it by taking out a Swiss army knife and cutting his own hand up. Irked, Jason attempts to spear Hitchhiker in the face with a jagged bone. Leatherface grabs Jason’s hand and slowly lowers it, indicating that it’s okay. Hitchhiker calls Jason a chicken as he leaves, then makes fun of his little brother again.

As Jason finds his way into the attic, the narration explains to us that he’s confused. He’s always been so angry ever since he died and came back to life, but ever since he found this family of weirdos who aren’t afraid of him, he’s been feeling somewhat at piece. He then happens upon a family photo of the Slaughters. Cook comes up and tells him how when his wife Velma died, he promised her he’d look after her two brothers (Hitchhiker and Leatherface) because Grandpa was too old to do it. Jason then sets the photo down and returns to the dining room for dinner.

To be concluded…

Notes:

*This issue follows Jason vs. Leatherface #1. The story will be concluded in Jason vs. Leatherface #3.

*Writer Nancy Collins seems to be under the impression that the family’s last name is “Slaughter” rather than “Sawyer”. Even odder, last issue established that they family lived in “Sawyerville”, Texas.

*Collins also mistakenly identifies Mrs. Voorhees’s first name as “Doris” rather than “Pamela”.

*Missing from the family photo is Chop-Top, Hitchhiker’s brother who appeared in “Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2”.

*This issue also contained an editorial, “Keep telling yourself, ‘It’s only a movie…’”, by author Rick Meyers.

Review:

Well, this miniseries is getting better and better. This is the kind of story that’s a nice break between the action-y issues, giving us a welcomed peek into the everyday lives of the “Slaughter” family (gah) as well as some sympathetic background of Jason’s childhood. Bear in mind, this comic predates Wildstorm’s “Pamela’s Tale” miniseries by a decade as well as most other “Friday the 13th” media that has delved into Jason’s tragic past. Trying to present Jason as a sympathetic victim of society was a fairly uncommon portrayal of the villain back in 1995.

I think what’s best, though, is the almost mundane glimpse we get into the everyday lives of the “Slaughter” family (dammit). Films like “Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning” and comics like Wildstorm’s “Raising Cain” miniseries were still a long ways off. In the films preceding this comic, the Family (I’m just gonna call them that, since they’ve got too many last names to count, by now) were always just presented as this band of looneys living in Texas with no real depth of character or explanation as to why they did what they did.

Every time we see the Family, it’s always from the point of view of one of their victims. Here, we get the other side of the story; a look at just what they’re up to when they aren’t chasing and torturing teenage girls and fat guys in wheelchairs. Each member is given a moment or two all to themselves, allowing for these rather two-dimensional bad guys to have their personalities fleshed out. Cook’s was perhaps my favorite, as even though he’s a sadist, in the films he was always presented as the more even-tempered and (slightly) more sympathetic Family member. His dream of establishing a fancy restaurant, which he’s openly embarrassed about telling anybody, was just gold. And the hints we got about his past and connection to his “brothers” was also some great work.

Hitchhiker gets “depth”, but in a way that works with his character. He’s just a masochistic nut; he doesn’t need a tragic back story or anything like that. So instead, we get the reveal that he’s the crazed artistic genius behind all the furniture made from human remains that litters the house. Collins also calls back to his scenes from the first “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” film in which he cuts himself up for his own amusement and works it into his confrontation with Jason really well.

But I think one of the best things about this series so far has been the almost brotherly connection between Jason and Leatherface. They’re different, yes, but similar in many ways (both are mentally stunted and hide their deformed faces behind masks of shame). Jason sees himself in Leatherface and acts as something of an older brother, protecting his sibling. It’s all done remarkably well, as Jason’s flashbacks parallel Leatherface’s current predicament and this spurs him into action. Yes, it gives Jason a more human and sympathetic angle, but he’s still no less of a remorseless killing machine for it, as we see in this issue.

Personally, I think I’m liking this interaction between Jason and Leatherface more than Jason’s interaction with Freddy. In “Freddy vs. Jason” and the subsequent comic book sequels, Freddy always just used Jason as a pawn until Jason got wise and they fought. The end. There’s far more story potential between Jason and Leatherface and, at least so far, Nancy Collins has been getting the most out of it.

Grade: A (as in, “Although, I really wish she’d stop mixing up everybody’s names”.)

Jason vs. Leatherface #1

Published by: Topps Comics

Publication date: October, 1995

Writer: Nancy Collins
Plot: Nancy Collins, David Imhoff
Artist: Jeff Butler
Inker: Steve Montano
Editor/Colorist: Renee Witterstaetter
Computer Separations: Electric Crayon (WTF are they talking about?)
Cover Artist: Simon Bisley
Frontispiece: Jeff Butler

“Goin’ South”

Summary:

Camp Crystal Lake has been abandoned for years thanks to the legend of Jason Voorhees scaring everyone away. Since then, the lake has become a toxic waste dumping ground for Linhart Amalgamated. Deep beneath the murky, polluted waters, though, Jason remains ever-vigilant. Still chained to a rock, he waits for the right moment to escape. And he’s still pissed.

At the Linhart Amalgamated corporate office, R. Linhart discusses the problem of their Crystal Lake dumping facitility with his underling, Mr. Wayland. They decide to drain the lake and build a new office building over top of it. Wayland oversees the operation in the dead of night, hiring a shady thug named “Midnight” to dredge the lake and haul the toxic waste away to some place unknown. As the operation continues, a crazy old man warns them that Jason will kill them all. Man, those guys are everywhere.

Well, the dredging nets scoop Jason up, dump him into a container and load him onto a train. Jason bursts free from the container and makes his way to the nearest boxcar where he runs aground of a genuine harmonica-playing, rail-riding hobo. And then he chops off his hand, his head and slices his pet doggy in twain. At the main car, Jason finds two conductors and the engineer. With a single blow, he turns one of the conductors’ heads completely backward. The other conductor attempts to lay him out with a nightstick, only two have his noggin chopped straight down the middle by Jason’s trusty machete. Jason then rips the engineer’s jaw out, causing the train to derail and explode (Jason escapes just fine, naturally).

Turns out that the train dumped him in Sawyerville, Texas. Marching through the woods, he happens upon a poor schmuck who says he’s being chased by a family of crazy people that want to eat him. Jason’s about to chop this idiot up when the crazy people arrive: the Hitchhiker and his brother, Leatherface. The chainsaw-wielding Leatherface and the machete-wielding Jason duel for a little while, locking glares in the skirmish. Jason knocks the chainsaw out of Leatherface’s hands, but instead of striking Leatherface, he decapitates the victim that was trying to escape. Ever the gentleman, Jason picks up the chainsaw and hands it back to a humiliated Leatherface.

Hitchhiker decides that Jason’s alright and invites him back to their home for dinner. Jason follows, though the narrative text assures that he’s still considering killing the weirdos. Reaching the house, Hitchhiker introduces Jason to his older brother Cook, who isn’t pleased to see their new friend, at least until Hitchhiker shows him the delicious bounty he caught. Cook then welcomes Jason in with open arms, though Leatherface storms upstairs to his bedroom to pout.

Jason follows, but seeing the sight of the deformed Leatherface sobbing alone in his bedroom strikes a chord with him, taking him back to his own childhood as a deformed boy left to play alone in his bedroom. Leatherface spots Jason and slips his mask back on. Jason doesn’t want to fight, however. Instead, he politely motions with his hand to join him for supper.

They reach the kitchen and Cook introduces Jason to the other members of the family: the bloated corpse of Aunt Amelia (who fell down the stairs one day and hasn’t been the same since) and the decrepit Grandpa. Jason, remembering when his mother taught him how to spell his name, writes name on the wall in cherry Kool-Aid, much to everyone’s delight.

To be continued…

Notes:

*This story is continued in Jason vs. Leatherface #2.

*For Jason’s side of things, this story takes place after “Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives”, ignoring the sequels that came after it.

*For Leatherface’s side of things, this story seems to take place before the first “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” film, as the Hitchhiker is still alive.

*The identity of “Cook” is a bit confused. Cook would at first glance appear to be the same character as “Old Man” from the first “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” film (whom Hitchhiker addressed as “just a cook” in the movie), who was later identified as Drayton Sawyer in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2”. However, Hitchhiker also refers to him as “W.E.”, a different character who was first referenced in the prologue narrative to “Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3”, but didn’t actually appear until “Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation”. Making things even worse, Hitchhiker also refers to him as “Bubba”, which is actually Leatherface’s real name. Jesus.

*This issue also contained an editorial, “Halloween Chainsaw Hockey”, but some guy named C. Dean Andersson.

Review:

“Jason vs. Leatherface” is a comic I’ve known about for a very long time and always considered something of a “holy grail” for my horror literature collection. Topps’s output of “Friday the 13th” comics was pretty laughable during the early 90s, consisting only of the poorly-drawn “Jason Goes to Hell” adaption and a ridiculous one-issue cameo in “Satan’s Six”, with “Jason vs. Leatherface” being the only well-received offering from the trading-card-company-that-thought-it-could-make-comics. As such, it’s a bit of a rarer find, these days. Well, the books aren’t that hard to come by on eBay, they’re just a little pricey (often going for $20 bucks a piece). I managed to snag the complete series for around $45 bucks between eBay and the back issue bins at my local comic shop, though.

As I write these reviews, this is my very first read-through of the series. Outside of a vague understanding of the plot, I really have no idea what’s going to happen, so these are my raw, gut reactions without any knowledge of what’s coming in the next issue. Excitement!

With that in mind, I’m rather liking what I’m reading thus far. Nancy Collins is playing fast and loose with the continuity of the two franchises, not really dwelling on trying to fit her story in-between the current sequels of each series, but rather picking and choosing moments from the timelines that might accommodate such a scenario. It’s an approach I like. Being published in 1995, both the “Friday the 13th” and “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” series had more or less lost their way, with their most recent offerings being “Jason Goes to Hell” and “Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation”. In Jason’s case, he was turned into a body-hopping Hellbaby while Leatherface was turned into a gender-confused transvestite working for a “global fear organization”.

Yeah, I’d say ignoring those installments was a pretty good idea.

The fully painted covers for the series by Heavy Metal regular Simon Bisley are positively gorgeous and one of the most attractive things about the run. The interior art by Jeff Butler isn’t half-bad, either, if not particularly dynamic. Characters are very detailed and expressive and the violence is top-notch, but the illusion of movement and action is kind of clunky. Still, it gets the job done and there are some really inspired scenes, mostly involving Jason and Leatherface’s more “friendly” moments of interaction, such as Jason inviting Leatherface to dinner, which may sound retarded but was executed rather well.

So far as crossovers go, well, this one precedes “Freddy vs. Jason” by eight years (though that flick had actually been in development Hell for seven years by the time this comic hit the racks). Jason and Leatherface’s initial clash was a tad underwhelming and brief, though I hold out hope that they’ll be granted a longer scuffle by the series’ end. Jason’s actually acting like something of a gentleman in this story, which is…sorta weird. It kind of reminds me of Wildstorm’s miniseries, “Friday the 13th: How I Spent my Summer Vacation”, where we were again offered a glimpse at Jason’s more human side. I don’t dislike this by any means, as showing Jason’s human characteristics actually offers a smidgen of depth and sympathy to his character, which is something the film series had just about completely given up on by 1995.

I’d say the only thing I really hated about this issue was the editorial at the end, “Halloween Chainsaw Hockey”, by some nobody named C. Dean Andersson. It’s incredibly poorly written and unfocused, reading like the most juvenile of web forum posts. Andersson jumps topics mid paragraph, talking about vague similarities between Jason, Leatherface and Michael Myers one sentence, and then listing an endless number of mind-numbing “trivia” the next. And all throughout, the editorial is peppered with some incoherent “fanon” (that is, “fanboy conceived canon”), as he insists that Jason was mind-controlling his mother during the events of the first “Friday the 13th” film. Andersson’s bio at the end of the article claims that he’s a professional short story author, though for the life of me I haven’t heard of any of the titles listed there. And if this article is any indication of his writing prowess, I can only hope that he’s considered a “professional” in the loosest sense of the term.

Anyhow, that bit of bitching aside: good start. Can’t wait to keep going. I’ve been wanting to read this series for the better part of ten years, so this is actually pretty exciting for me.

Grade: B+ (as in, “But why the Hell does ‘Cook’ look like Elvis?”)

Phenomena (1985)

To echo some of my statements from my review of “Four Flies on Grey Velvet”, I don’t know enough about Dario Argento as I probably should. In the past, I just watched “Suspiria” and “Inferno” and pretty much called it a day. I’ve been meaning to rectify that mistake and, following “Four Flies on Grey Velvet”, I went out and procured a copy of Anchor Bay’s “Five Films by Dario Argento” DVD set. All five films were his “giallo” efforts (Italian murder mystery suspense-thrillers) from various points spanning most of his post-“Suspiria” career. Of the five films, however, my primary interest was this flick called “Phenomena”, which I’ve heard scads of positive buzz about. Having finally seen it, well, all I can say is that it wasn’t even close to what I was expecting.

Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connelly) is the daughter of a popular actor who has been shipped off to a boarding school in Zurich while her dad works on his latest picture. Jennifer’s a bit strange, having a bizarre affinity for insects and the often-dangerous habit of walking in her sleep. While Jennifer tries to acclimate to her new environment, a serial killer has been on the loose in Zurich, slaughtering young women, chopping off their heads and stealing the bodies. After a sleepwalking incident, Jennifer crosses paths with an entomologist named Professor John McGregor (Donald Pleasance) and his monkey assistant. He believes that Jennifer shares a psychic bond with insects and that her ability to communicate with cadaver-eating flies and maggots might be to the secret to finding the dead bodies and the killer with them.

Does that plot summary sound kind of, I dunno, stupid to you? Maybe a little? Well, it sort of is, truth be told. “Phenomena” is a very unbalanced movie, not knowing whether it wants to be a proper reality-grounded giallo flick or a supernaturally-charged slasher flick. The end result is something of an uneven mess, as Donald Pleasance rambles on about legitimate scientific theories involving the use of insects in locating murder victims one minute, while Jennifer Connelly goes all “Carrie” on us, using psychic powers to summon massive swarms of flies to consume people she doesn’t like the next.

Oh, and the monkey saves the day. Sorry if I ruined that for you, but he totally does and it’s positively ridiculous.

But the uneven nature to “Phenomena” extends even into its atmosphere. Dario Argento, for reasons I can’t imagine, decided to implement heavy metal music at the most inappropriate moments throughout the film. Most of the flick sports the traditional dreamy, haunting melodies you’re used to from Argento flicks, with loud crashing sounds highlighting certain moments and building a weird sense of dread. Then, at the drop of a hat: Iron Maiden! Motorhead! Don’t get me wrong, I like both of those bands. But this isn’t a flick like “Demons”, where kick-ass heavy metal enhances the action scenes. The use of the music is just out of nowhere and often doesn’t even fit the action we’re watching. In one scene, Iron Maiden blasts at the audience while Jennifer Connelly stands on a stool and tries to lift a telephone through the window above a locked door with a long stick. Yeah, I don’t get it either.

“Phenomena” is one-hundred and ten minutes long, and much of it is really, really dull. Nearly all of the film is from the perspective of Connelly’s character, so you don’t get as in-depth a “mystery” as some might like. There are inspector characters, but they hardly appear at all, save for the end, and their entire presence feels superfluous. Even Donald Pleasance doesn’t really get much to do beside roll around in a wheelchair and point a laser beam at his monkey assistant. “Phenomena” is all Jennifer Connelly all the time and, well, unless this movie is called “Labyrinth”, that kind of sucks. Yes, Connelly was very, very pretty, but she was also a very, very bad actress and her performance is as wooden and unconvincing as it gets. She’s like the female Hayden Christiansen.

And, I’m sorry, but her character is an imbecile in this movie. As we build toward the climax, the villain becomes completely apparent to anyone half-awake, but not to Jennifer Connelly’s character. The villain flips out, takes her on a tour of their creepy house full of life-size child dolls and covered up mirrors, and yet when they violently demand Connelly take “a pill”, what does she do? She takes the pill. Then she realizes its poison, pukes it up, and then what does she do? She turns her back to the villain who she knows is right behind her and attempts to call someone on the phone, only to get black-jacked over the head. Yes, women in horror movies are supposed to be stupid, but Connelly’s character was really stretching it.

Going back to the murder mystery aspect of the film, well, there isn’t much of one. The villain turns out to be a character we’d seen earlier, but there were no clues that they were the culprit. On top of that, the killer’s motivation for doing what they did is just…a grand “what the fuck” moment if I ever saw one. Next to no build-up or hints toward the big reveal, just…mutant child chained up in a basement. Wha?

I suppose if “Phenomena” deserves any credit, it’s that the climax sports about half a dozen false conclusions. You know, where the hero defeats the last perceived threat and breathes a sigh of relief, only to suddenly be attacked by the same threat that’s not quite dead or a new one altogether that the audience had forgotten all about? Yeah? Well, Argento pulls that stunt about six times in a row. It’s a bit exhausting, but executed well. At least until the monkey saves the day at the end. God dammit.

Overall, “Phenomena” wasn’t the movie I was expecting. I wouldn’t call it bad, as (random heavy metal music aside) it still sports a lot of Argento’s inspired directorial techniques and some moments that are really, really good. It’s just very unbalanced, unfocused and extremely dull in the middle.

Grade: C+ (as in, “Connelly is only enjoyable when she’s matching wits with David Bowie and a horde of Muppets”).