AENIGMA (1987, Severin Films, 89m 17s)
If you've ever seen THE EDITOR (2014), the ironic horror comedy co-directed by Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy, Lucio Fulci's AENIGMA is exactly the kind of Italian horror film it was spoofing. Stressing tomorrow (August 25), it's a sort of half-digested amalgam (aemalgam?) of CARRIE (1976) and its Australian knock-off PATRICK (1978) by way of Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA (1977) and PHENOMENA (1985); it's the story of Kathy (Milijana Zirojević), a plain, Elizabeth Keane-eyed student who is the butt of a rather incredible, mortifying practical joke played not only by her fellow students at St. Mary's College in Boston (make that "St' Mary's College") but - still more incredibly - by one of her male instructors, as well. The outlandish prank ends tragically with Kathy being hospitalized in a coma (and, incidentally, no one disciplined for their part in it). From the depths of her dissociation, Kathy discovers a psychic vantage from which to avenge herself against her tormentors. As soon as Eva (Lara Naszinski aka Lara Lamberti) - a new, attractive student - arrives at the school to inherit Kathy's former dormitory bed, she finds herself vulnerable to Kathy's possession and a conduit to all kinds of inexplicable goings-on. For example:
As the guilty students and teacher are serially knocked off in mostly silly, gory and ultimately illusory set-pieces, Kathy's doctor (Jared Martin) observes mental activity in her, though she is, like the other characters, technically brain-dead, and ponders the question of what's going on. A bit too conveniently for the story, this supposedly responsible adult is seduced by evil Eva and, eventually, falls more truly in love with another teenage student, Kim (Sophie d'Aulan), who one supposes represents a more innocent option.
From its very first scene, there is absolutely nothing about AENIGMA - its characters, performances, situations, locations - that bears any connection or resemblance whatsoever to real life. Rather like Jess Franco's BLOODY MOON (1980), the film unreels like a misanthropic, tongue-in-cheek satire of 1980s horror movie clichés made for idiots and those who take a modicum of pleasure in feeling superior to them. It amplifies the inherent silliness of the pictures it's modeled after to a level of hysteria, with Fulci directing every scene, every character, to be as laughably artificial and two-dimensional as possible. It's hilariously obvious that not one of the smoking college girls has ever touched a cigarette before; the dorm rooms are decorated with dated posters celebrating 1980s icons like David Bowie (in the "sell-out" phase of his career, natch), Snoopy, Tom Cruise and Sylvester Stallone (the latter two posters are incorporated into ironic, post-shock chuckles); all the gruesome set-pieces are scored with rip-roaring Van Halen-like guitar noodling; and after the first student death, there is no further reference given to any police investigation of the insane goings-on. (When one girl dies by being smothered in slimy snails, we hear through the gossip of her fellow students that it's been supposed she smothered herself with a pillow. For all the concern anyone shows, the film might just as well have been made by a crew of Eloi.) There is one brief scene in which an ill-looking Fulci himself appears as an investigating reporter, and most of the roles are dubbed by Ted Rusoff and Carolyn de Fonseca.
For all the jaw-dropping hollowness and half-hearted mimickry it serves up (culminating in a final shot that screams THE SHINING), AENIGMA reaches a ticklish point when its mind-numbing quality becomes entertaining in spite of itself, partly because the reaction it provokes mirrors the amused contempt with which the smug, narcissistic fools onscreen regard one another. Even if the movie is kind of indefensible as a whole, it's not entirely without interest, especially to anyone able to recognize the standard issue Fulci tropes. The metaphysical triangle that connects Kathy, Eve, and Kim - an implicitly indirect attack on the man who's keeping Kathy alive - becomes an intriguing abstract design by the conclusive scene in the marble-walled morgue, and Fulci pulls off a few fairly ambitious shots utilizing his own hand-made miniature effects. They are not convincing but they are charming. There is also a mysterious freeze-and-fade-to-black at one point, for which there is no apparent reason, giving the moment a strange, haunting quality.
This all-region release includes the film's first-ever 4K-sourced 1080p presentation, and it successfully banishes the greenish bias and non-anamorphic bars found on earlier DVD releases. The extras include an interview with screenwriter Giorgio Mariuzzo, which mostly avoids discussion of this film, as he relates vague, half-delineated memories of his history with Fulci; a roughly 40m documentary focusing on the "latter day Fulci" movies with input from writers Mikel J. Koven, Calum Waddell, John Martin and a couple of Fulci's past collaborators; and a podcasty audio commentary by Troy Howarth (author of SPLINTERED VISIONS: THE FILMS OF LUCIO FULCI) and Mondo Digital's Nathaniel Thompson.
The talk greatly favors Howarth, who says a great deal about Fulci in general, recommending other pictures like BEATRICE CENCI and DON'T TORTURE THE DUCKLING very highly, and mostly relating and reacting to the obvious details of what we're seeing, saying many times that he likes AENIGMA without reasoning why. Both commentators agree a lot, laugh a lot, and don't really present a case for the film so much as sentimentally embrace it as one of the inexplicably endearing, meager facets of a far worthier career.
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