Dario Argento's Phenomena, Now In *Real* 4k!

In 2011, Arrow released Dario Argento's Phenomena on blu-ray in limited edition with a fold-out poster. In 2012, they released the combo-pack edition, and in 2014 they put out an exclusive steelbook through zavvi.com. No matter which version you pick up, though, the actual blu-ray disc is the same, and so is the booklet. And as you can see above, I've opted for the superior reversible artwork cover, rather than the more comic-booky side they face out. Oh, and that's Anchor Bay's DVD on the left, because you guessed it, I'm going to do another comparison.

Update 1/27/15 - 5/26/17: It's becoming a pretty regular thing, as 2 and 4k scans are becoming more affordable, to see one DVD label reissue a blu-ray that was already been released on blu by another with a more modern, superior scan.  But you don't see too many labels replace their own blus.  But Arrow's done it.  Their 2012 blu is now being supplanted by a fancy, 3-disc limited edition release of a new 4k scan of all three cuts of the film.  But just how much of an upgrade is it - a massive overhaul or no big deal just marketed to sap suckers of their money? Oh, and you might be saying, come on, bro.  This was one of your very first posts where you posted .jpgs instead of lossless .png screenshots.  Those might be fine for basic comparisons, but in a hardcore blu vs blu comparison, where we'll be zooming in to hunt for macroblocks, you've gotta do better.  So, alright you hypothetical slave-drivers, you; I'm also taking all new .png screenshots of the previous three versions for 100% fresh comparisons.

Update 7/12/18: And now I've added the 2006 US DVD to the comparisons, bridging the gap between the very old, original release and the new blus.

Update 3/6/22: Well, we knew as soon as the 4k mastered blu-rays were released, it was only a matter of time until we'd see them on an actual 4k Ultra HD disc.  And that time is now.  And rather than making competing US/ UK editions with Synapse, they're releasing the same set (albeit with unique covers) together in both countries.

In the special features (which we'll come back to), Dario Argento calls Phenomena his favorite of his films. I don't think it's mine, but you can see why he'd choose it. It's got high production values and combines earlier giallo stories with his later fairy-tale horror plots. It makes amazing use of insect photography, a strong interest of his, and and he got to use real, underage actors as his leads (Jennifer Connelly was just 13 when she shot this film), something he wanted to do in Suspiria, but had to compromise with adults playing school girls. It's got great effects - in fact, it's Sergio Stivaletti's first movie, and also utilizes some inventive opticals by his compatriot Luigi Cozzi - great music, utilizing both Goblin and major label rock songs, exotic Swedish locales and a great cast, including Connelly straight off of Once Upon a Time In America, Donald Pleasance, and of course a highly dramatic performance by Daria Nicolodi.

It's the story of a rich, American schoolgirl arriving in a foreign country to stay in an all-girls boarding school, where there unfortunately happens to be a killer on the loose targeting girls her age. Hey, that's exactly the same set-up as Suspiria! But the similarities end there, because this time the villains aren't witches, and in fact the supernatural aspect comes from our heroine, who has a psychic connection with insects. She teams up with a local entomologist (Pleasance) and his chimpanzee (no joke) to track down the killer before the killer tracks down them.  And discovering the killer only turns the proceedings more bizarre.

And Arrow presents the full, longest 116 minute cut of the film, which is great because I don't believe any of the trims from the other cuts benefit the film (although the differences between the two longer cuts are practically academic - it's not a drastic shift either way).  But, still, there are fans who prefer the other cuts; and now Arrow's 2017 Limited Edition release should satisfy everyone by also including the 110 International cut and the highly truncated, 83-minute Creepers cut, each on separate discs.  And all three cuts are presented in both English and Italian (with optional subtitles), however, since the full 116 cut was never entirely dubbed into English, 6 minutes of the 116 cut revert back to Italian even on the English track.

Now, to be clear, Anchor Bay released this twice on DVD (not counting the times they included the same transfer in larger boxed sets of Argento films): the original version in 1999, and a later 2008 reissue, which bumped it up to anamorphic and included an excellent new featurette as an extra.  I've got the 1999 one here for comparison, too, so we can see how far we've come.  And of the first edition Arrow blu-rays, I opted for the 2012 combo-pack, so we'll be looking at both a DVD and blu-ray from there.  Then their 2017 limited edition (limited to 5000 copies, to be precise) consists of three blu-rays, and they seem to all use the same master, but just to be thorough, let's look at shots from all three cuts, too. Finally, we now have their latest 2022 UHD set, in partnership with Synapse, which is three cuts across two discs (both BD-100s), which again all seem to share a common master, but again I'll post all three just to be thorough.

1) 1999 Anchor Bay DVD, 2) 2006 Anchor Bay DVD, 3) Arrow 2012 DVD,
4) Arrow 2012 BD, 5) 2017 Arrow Italian BD, 6) 2017 Arrow International BD,
7) 2017 Arrow Creepers BD, 8) 2022 Arrow Italian UHD,
9) 2022 Arrow International UHD, 10) 2022 Arrow Creepers UHD.

Every release is pillar-boxed to roughly the correct aspect ratio of 1.66:1 (1999 Anchor Bay is more like 1.64:1, and the 2012 & 2017 releases are 1.67:1).  The old DVD is non-anamorphic, so it has that going against it; and the newer releases, even the 2012s, have clearly cleaned up dirt and damage, like the black mark on the upper right of the first shot above.  The 2008 AB looks a lot like the 1999 AB except it's a bit of a clearer image, anamorphic (the important bit!), and cropped ever so slightly tighter along the bottom.  Arrow's 2012 has a curious blu push, and not just the dramatic night scenes, where Argento gives the scenes a lot of blue light.  Just look at the skin-tones in the shots above; I think this new 2017 blu gets it right.  Or, at the very least, it's the most natural.  Given Argento's creative use of colors and lighting, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the most correct timing.  But it certainly looks good.  And speaking of looking good, the 2017 4k scan of the OCN definitely brings out grain and fine detail better than the 2012 blu.  Look at the green background in the first set of shots, for example.  The 2017 has very naturalistic film grain, where it looks smoothed away on the older blu ...though not as badly as the Anchor Bay, of course, which has a lot of high contrast and other hallmarks you'd expect of an old 1999 DVD.  But going back to the blus, the 2012 colors have a flatter look to them, compared to the 2017, which is more lively.  In my early comparison between just the 2012 blu and the DVD, I wrote, "Arrow's dual-layered disc has obviously superior image quality and compression, while the DVD is clearly boosted, but at the same time, the blu could be a little more colorful."  Well, the updated blus took care of that, too.

And the UHDs?  Well, it's not just the same 4k scan plopped onto a higher resolution disc.  I mean, first of all, it's been re-timed for HDR, of course.  The resolution gains is only slightly perceptible.  In the second set of shots, we're already looking at the same specs of film grain, which was excellently encoded on the 2017 BD, so we're really not discovering a whole ton of new detail.  Though in the first set, we do see the grain that's soft and washed out in the light much more clearly on the UHDs.  That's thanks both to the resolution boost and the HDR bringing out more subtlety and distinction.  A more surprisingly difference in the 2022 version is that the framing's different.  It's still 1.67:1, but it's actually shifted to the left in the first set of shots and zoomed in tighter in the second.  Throughout the film, it's always just a little different - consistent across all three cuts, but different from 2017 to 2022.  None of it really strikes me as better or worse, but it's been adjusted.

Now, both Anchor Bays gave us English 5.1 and 2.0 mixes with no Italian or subtitle options (though there was a random French dub).  The 2012 Arrow blu took care of that, giving us both the Italian and English language options in uncompressed LPCM stereo, with freshly re-translated subtitles.  For the 2017 limited edition, with multiple cuts, it gets a little more complicated but no less rewarding.  The 116-minute cut has the English (with a few minutes of Italian, as explained earlier) and Italian both in 5.1 DTS-HD and lossless PCM 2.0 stereo.  The 110 minute cut has the English in 5.1 DTS-HD and PCM 2.0, and the 83-minute Creepers cut has the English in lossless PCM 1.0 mono.  That's right, the 110 and 83 minute versions don't have Italian audio options, only the full 116 does, though all three still have optional subtitles.

And the 2022 UHDs are mostly consistent with the 2017 BDs, but with a couple of interesting changes.  It drops the English stereo mix on the Italian cut, but now Creepers has a stereo mix, in addition to the mono, and the International version has an additional stereo mix with alternate sound effects, both of which come from Synapse's previous blu.  This is the benefit of the partnership.  Before, both companies' blus had their pros and cons, but now we're getting everything.  Oh, and also the LPCM tracks are now all also in DTS-HD.

Extras are interesting and even more complicated.  Arrow's 2012 blu also comes with a host of brand new extra features, however it doesn't port over any of the old Anchor Bay ones, and Arrow's 2017 has even more strong, new extras, but doesn't even port over their own 2012 stuff, let alone the Anchor Bay goodies. The original DVD's strongest asset was an audio commentary by Argento, Stivaletti and Goblin's Claudio Simonetti.  It's not perfect; there are semi-regular gaps of silence, and the three commentators are clearly edited together, not all in the room together.  Plus they're all struggling a bit with their English, so it's informative, but a little clunky.  Thankfully, there's a moderator.  The rest sort of felt like random odds and ends, mostly sourced from video... A short clip of Cozzi's World of Argento 2 documentary showing a clip about one of Phenomena's special effects. There was also two music videos, the trailer and a clip of Argento being interviewed on The Joe Franklin Show. So, I can see not going to the trouble and expense of releasing that stuff (though the commentary would've been nice).  The 1999 disc also featured an insert with additional artwork.

AB's reissue retained all of that stuff, and also added what turned out to be the best of all their extras, a seventeen-plus minute featurette which included great interviews with Argento, Nicolodi, Cozzi, Stivaletti, writer Franco Ferrini, Fiore Argento (who plays the killer's first victim), and director of photography Romano Albani.

Arrow's blu has a brand new documentary, though, which is pretty good. It's 50 minutes long (although a good ten or more minutes are spent on clips from the film we've just watched, as well as Arrow's animations) and includes Argento, Cozzi, Nicolodi (who's pretty frank not only about working with her ex-husband, but she takes a strong shot at Ferrini), Stivaletti, and underwater photographer Gianlorenzo Battaglia, There's also a separate interview with Simonetti, which is good, and two festival appearances by Stivaletti are edited together into one Q&A, which is still a little dry but has its moments. I'd say the new extras are at least a tie with the old extras, but both feel a little lacking for want of the other's. The two documentaries cover almost none of the same ground, and it almost feels like Arrow was consciously trying not to repeat anecdotes and details from Anchor Bay's, as if they were originally anticipating including their content in addition to the old stuff, rather than instead of.  Oh well.  Anyway, the 2012 blu also includes reversible artwork and an 8-page booklet by Alan Jones.

Arrow's 2017 limited edition adds an all new expert audio commentary by Troy Howarth (on the 116 minute cut) to the table, which is quit informative and an enjoyable listen, though he does put down the film as "second shelf Argento" at times.  And even more excitingly, it replaces the 50-minute documentary with an all-new 2-hour one, which is even better, with fresh interviews with Dario Argento, Fiore Argento, Davide Marotta who played the monster kid(!), Daria Nicolodi, actress Fiorenza Tessari, Franco Ferrini, Romano Albani, production manager Angelo Jacono, Luigi Cozzi, Sergio Stivaletti, make up artist Pier Antonio Mecacci, Gianlorenzo Battaglia, Claudio Simonetti and Simon Boswell.  You can tell just by the bolding that they brought in several people all the previous releases neglected to talk to.  This is definitely the most comprehensive Phenomena coverage we've ever had, and frankly, it's about time.  There's also a great 30-minute featurette detailing the history and differences between the three cuts of the film, and the process involved in creating a new, more seamless English/ Italian audio hybrid track.  Plus, there are English and Italian trailers, the "Jennifer" music video (which Argento directed) and a "Japanese pressbook" stills gallery.  The limited edition comes in a nice, hard slipbox with two blu-ray cases, each with reversible artwork, and a 58-page book, featuring writing by Mikel J. Koven, Rachael Nisbit who I follow on Twitter because she has a great blog, and Leonard Jacobs.  And there's also a full soundtrack CD, which comes with its own insert for the track-listing and credits.

The new 2022 UHDs largely mirror the 2017 set.  All of that stuff: the Howarth commentary, the 2-hour doc, the featurette about the three cuts, the music video and all the odds and ends are here.  And the older stuff from previous editions is still absent.  But Arrow does have an extra treat for us this go around, specifically in the form of another commentary.  This time it's on the International cut, and it's another expert track, by Derek Botelho and David Del Valle.  If that rings a bell, that's because it isn't strictly all-new; this commentary originates from Synapse's 2016 blu-ray, another benefit of this cooperative release.  The swag is similar to the 2017 set, although it's a slimmer slipbox, as it now only houses one amary case (with reversible artwork) instead of two.  There's no more soundtrack CD, but now we get a double-sided poster.  And the 60-page booklet is largely the same, though as you may've noticed in the two photos, it's got a new cover.  And they've replaced the soundtrack card with six replica lobby cards, plus a card advertising their upcoming release of 1956's The Werewolf.

It should also be noted that their are four alternate versions, strictly in terms of packaging.  The one I've got pictured here is Arrow's standard set, but they also have a box with alternate art called the "Arte Originale Edition," and a third one with a Creepers cover.  Those are all UK releases.  In the US, Synapse has created its own, unique fourth cover (limited to 6,000), which will be released next week.  But they all have the same discs and contents.  These are just cover and poster options.

So it's still a shame the old extras were let go, but the new material is so comprehensive, you won't miss much of it unless you're just a completist who wants it all (which I absolutely understand).  I'll still hang onto my 2012 blu; but I think most fans who upgraded will feel comfortable letting it go once they've watched everything on the new release.  The old Anchor Bay commentary was still a nice treat, so you might want to hang onto that DVD still; but let's face it, too many extras just start to get repetitive anyway.  Like how many times do we want to hear the same anecdotes retold?  And regardless, Arrow/ Synapse's new UHD is easily and obviously the definitive winner.

Y'know, I felt kind of bad for Synapse there, when they spent years following Arrow's 2012 blu polishing that master into a cleaner and stronger looking blu for their 2016 steelbook release, only to have Arrow come back around and trump them with their 4k scan just a couple months after.  But now both companies are working together on this ultimate release, and us fans are getting the best of both worlds, so it's win/win/win.

The Two Third Mothers: The Black Cat and Mother of Tears

We've done Suspiria... We've done Inferno... Now I suppose it's time to do the final film in the trilogy.  Both of 'em.  Yes, Dario Argento and his then-wife Daria Nicolodi (R.I.P.) collaborated on the first of the Three Mothers films, about Mater Suspiriorum, the Mother of Sighs, in 1977, and it's become world renowned as a horror classic.  So they channeled that success into the even grander 1980 tale of Mater Tenebrarum, the Mother of Darkness.  And naturally, right after Inferno, they wrote the third film about the final mother, Mater Lachrymarum, the Mother of Tears.  Dino De Laurentiis was going to produce it, but because of financing problems, Argento instead went to work on the less ambitious giallo Tenebrae.  And then Argento and Nicolodi divorced, leaving the trilogy's conclusion in a vague state of mystery fans spent decades asking the director to resolve.

And he eventually did.  But Daria tried it first, giving their original script to Luigi Cozzi, they created what wound up becoming 1989's Edgar Allen Poe's The Black Cat, a.k.a. Demons 6, a.k.a. De Profundis, despite having no legit connection to the Demons films.  There is at least a tenuous connection to the Poe story, as it relates to a line that black cats are witches in disguise and features a black cat in a few scenes.  But in actual fact, this is the story of the third mother, rewritten by Cozzi to the point that Daria quit the film.  So now it's a bizarre, convoluted story that's sort of all over the place.  Like Paganini Horror, Cozzi inserts his sci-fi interests into a horror story, so we get some rather out-of-place feeling shots of outer space and disconnected dialogue about mutants and time travel.  It's a real mess of a movie, but it's full of non-stop wild set pieces, wacky effects, vivid colors, cult actors, and some surprisingly impressive photography.

It's also a fascinating puzzle to try and discern what does and doesn't come from Dario and Daria's original story.  What we're presented with is a group of famous Italian horror filmmakers (including Michael Soavi) making a film called The Black Cat.  It's taking it's psychological toll on their lead actress, a problem only exasperated when they introduce her to their next film: the third film in the Three Mothers trilogy.  Yes, it's a film within a film thing, where they actually talk about Dario Argento by name,  the fictional filmmakers find the ancient tome from Inferno during their research, and they even play Goblin's main Suspiria theme during key scenes.  The idea is that by carelessly invoking the final mother, they are inadvertently summoning her, as she tries to take over the lead actress's body and sacrifice her baby.  The witch also pops into existence on her own to make others do her bidding, including jealous co-star Caroline Munro, an evil film producer played way over-the-top by Brett Halsey and a teenage ghost named Michael who casts illusions and of course that evil cat lurking around.  There's also a good ghost who lives inside our hero and occasionally pops out to give advice, which will ring familiar later.  A surprising amount of the evil is centered around our protagonist's refrigerator.  It may be an objectively bad film by most units of measure, but it sure is a kick, with gross-out gore, explosions, laser beams, a disintegrating fetus, catchy music themes, cars crashing into houses (okay, just one of those) and green slime.

Given its cult pedigree, it's been startling how the film has managed to go all these decades completely unreleased.  There's been no previous DVDs, let alone blu-rays - not even a dodgy VHS rip from an obscure region.  No laserdisc either.  But Severin has finally arrived to fill this gaping hole in our collections, even restoring it in 2k from "pristine vault elements," with their Black Friday 2020 blu.

2020 US Severin BD.

Pillarboxed to 1.67:1, Severin's new transfer looks great.  The colors are bold and strong without looking artificially saturated, blacks are deep and the grain is nicely preserved.  The encode is clean and satisfyingly free of digital artifacting.  I daresay this is one of the best transfers I've seen from Severin in a while.  And all of this really helps restore The Black Cat's good name as a legitimate film after existing only in the form of ugly, fullframe bootlegs all ripped, I believe, from an old Hong Kong VHS - the only home video release this film had previously received.  The English audio (there's only one language track on this one) is presented in lossless DTS-HD stereo with optional English subs.

The only extras are the trailer (with some fun narration) and a brief (under ten minutes) featurette interviewing Cozzi and Munro.  It's alright but too short to answer many of the bajillion questions this film raises. Subtract the opening and closing credits, plus all the clips from the film, and we get maybe four minutes from each of them?  Munro doesn't even touch on the famous problems she had with this film.  The most publicity this film ever got is when Fangoria ran a hefty, 6-page spread called "Ripped Off In Rome" all about how she got scammed by the producers.  And Cozzi never tells the story of why this film was turned into a Poe flick, the Demons thing, and just shares a tiny bit of the Three Mothers debacle.  And that's surprising, because this interview was done by the same people who conducted a much better interview with Cozzi about The Black Cat on Arrow's Inferno blu, addressing much more of this stuff, so it's not like they didn't know what to ask about.  It feels like we just got previews of longer interviews that exist somewhere else.  Still, it's a lot nicer to have than nothing.

De Profundis stood as the only closing chapter for The Three Mothers, as unofficial as it may've been, for decades.  It wasn't until 2007 that Argento hired the American team behind Tobe Hooper's Mortuary and the Crocodile movies to pen his true conclusion, Mother Of Tears.  It starred his now quite famous daughter Asia, and they even talked Daria into appearing as a good ghost who lives inside our hero and occasionally pops out to give advice.  Again, it makes you wonder how much, if anything, of Dario and Daria's original Third Mother plans made its way into this.

This movie gets knocked about pretty hard by fans and critics.  It's got a 5.1 on the IMDB (actually pretty high for that writing team), but like The Black Cat, it's a blast.  It's super uneven in terms of quality, which definitely contributes to the "it's awful but I love it" vibe.  Take the special effects: the CGI is pure Sharknado, but it's paired with some genuinely kick-ass physical effects by Sergio Stivaletti.  Impressive fire stunts are intercut with pasted-on CGI flames.  The music never even gets near the genius of Suspiria's famous score, but Goblin's Claudio Simonetti is back and he does provide a score that would out-do most genre films of its time.  Although the title song might've benefited by not having its lyrics in English.  Instead of a black cat we get a nasty monkey, which is a definite improvement, and as the film travels from location to location, you can feel how much money was spent on the film.  The photography looks nothing like the technicolor fantasy of the previous chapters, but it still has an elegant, stylish look to it.  And it's a non-stop thrill ride full of extreme over-the-top kills, magical surprises, and a strong cast.  Asia gives as strong a performance as possible given the material, it's charming to have Daria back even if having her play a Force Ghost was a huge tonal miscalculation, and Udo Kier shows up to get killed.

But it's also a disaster.  The sinister witches of the past films are now presented as Hot Topic goth girls with fake boobs.  The end of the world is mostly illustrated by pairs of middle-aged men in business suits having a shoving match behind the protagonists.  One of the most memorable scenes, again to show just how mankind has descended into evil and madness, is watching these two random dudes in leather jackets and sunglasses bash a car with baseball bats.  The script spends most of its time ripping off The Da Vinci Code, except there's no mystery for Asia to solve, so she just shows up to various locales, meeting new strangers who explain what we already knew from the onset and then predictably die.  The historical exposition is displayed with comic book style illustrations.  It's kind of like the talent is still evident, but they keep making one wrong decision after the next.  But in a way, they're delightfully wrong.  If you go in looking for a respectable film to stand alongside Suspiria and Inferno, you're going to be super disappointed.  But if you're just looking for an unserious good time, The Black Cat's good and this one's even better.

Mother Of Tears came out on DVD as a new release in 2008 from The Weinstein Brothers' as part of their low-brow Dimension Extreme line.  And since the Weinsteins' have the rights, American blu-rays and 4k remasters are probably forever off the table.  Fortunately, it keeps on getting released and re-released overseas.  Yeah, they're stuck using the same old master, but at least you can import a nice, if dated, HD edition pretty easily.  Personally, I went with the recent Happinet blu from Japan, but really there's a ton of fairly equivalent options, so have at it.

2008 US Dimension DVD top; 2020 JP Happinet BD bottom.

Shot in 'scope, Dimension presents the film in a slightly pinched 2.32:1, which the blu corrects to 2.35:1.  Otherwise, as you can see, it's still the same master in 2020: same colors, framing, lighting.  Admittedly, with all its CGI, that would make a new scan even more difficult and expensive, so even though the film grain is soft and haloing to suggest unwise digital tweaking, I think we're going to have to get used to it.  It's a bit crazy, though, that it means The Black Cat winds up with a much higher end, fancier blu.  But it's sharper and clearer than the DVD.  It's just looks like an old blu despite having come out in 2020.

Another plus is that the audio is now lossless.  The English (there's only one language track for this one, too) Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is bumped up to DTS-HD on Happinet's blu.  One step backwards, though, is that Dimension offered English and Spanish subtitles, while Happinet only has Japanese subs.

And that language disappointment carries over into the extras.  The original DVD had a nice, roughly 30-minutes 'making of' with lots of good interviews and behind-the-scenes footage.  They didn't get much from Dario, but they made up for that with a separate on-camera interview.  And there were two trailers.  Not the loaded special edition you'd want, but pleasing enough. 

Happinet carries all of that over, but doesn't offer any English subs, just Japanese ones.  And that's a bummer, since most of the extras are in Italian.  They also included some new special features, including an interview with Argento's friend Vivien Villani who was on set during the shoot, and a new interview with Argento.  But those are all in Italian, too.  The original Argento interview, which is on both discs, is in English though, and both offer an English trailer.  So it's a little disappointing not being able to watch it all, but you could do worse.  Plus, they might win you over with their fancy packaging.  Besides including reversible cover art, a stylish slipcover and an obo, it also comes in a fancy Three Mothers box, designed like the E. Varelli book, to house the whole trilogy.  You can of course put the other Happinet blus in there, but you get the whole box with just this disc, so you can just as easily put in whatever versions of Suspiria and Inferno you own (though the Camera Obscura mediabook doesn't fit, natch), and they even provide custom slipcovers so your editions will match.  It's pretty neat.

So say what you will, but I get a heap of pleasure out of both films, and the fact that they're rather artlessly tacked onto two masterpieces just adds to the cheekiness.  I'll certainly take either one of 'em over Amazon's competently dull Suspiria remake.  And Severin and Happinet have given us some nice new options to take advantage of.