A bunch of stuck up jerks at a private school decide to play a cruel prank on Kathy (Milijana Zirojevic), the cleaning lady’s daughter and least popular girl among the student body. They set her up on a date with a hunk and then humiliate her as soon as she lets her guard down. It all culminates with Kathy running down the street while they chase her in their cars and the poor girl ends up in a coma. This tragedy awakens Kathy’s latent psychic abilities and before you can say Patrick Still Lives (1980), the astral projecting ass kicking begins.
Enter Eva (Lara Lamberti), the new girl at school whose strange behavior lands her an appointment with Kathy’s doctor Robert (Jared Martin). Robert takes an immediate liking to the lovely Eva and begins an affair with her. When he dumps Eva for Jenny (Ulli Reinthaler), one of the pranksters that landed Kathy in the hospital, the supernatural tomfoolery really kicks off. As each of the bad girls gets their comeuppance, Robert and Jenny begin to suspect that there may just be a connection between Eva and Kathy. Like duh, you guys!
Filled with outrageous visuals, odd tangents, despicable characters, a healthy helping of medical horror, 80s pop culture crap, and so many snails, Lucio Fulci’s Aenigma is quite an usual treat for Italian horror fans. Even after multiple viewings, I’m still baffled by this energetic and delightfully unhinged trash fest. Composer Carlo Maria Cordio gives the film a superb electro score that’ll have you tapping your foot and Luigi Ciccarese’s ace cinematography dazzles you while your brain is still trying figure what the actual heck is going on. The international cast of Americans, Italians, Romanians, and uh… people from other countries, are certainly game for this madness with Lamberti of A Blade in the Dark (1982) going all in on her wild character.
I love how some of these second tier (or third, depending on your taste) Fulci films are getting the HD treatment and are being reevaluated by film fans. I’ll be the first to admit that Aenigma takes a couple of viewings to really sink in with me. It wasn’t until I covered it on my podcast Hello! This is the Doomed Show -did you really think I’d resist a shameless plug here?- I found that not only is this bizarre and a heck of a lot of fun, it’s also imaginative and truly bizarre. Highly recommended viewing. I also advise throwing on Aenigma for a group of uninitiated friends who don’t know anything about Italian horror. They’ll never trust you again but thems the breaks.
Severin Films rescues Fulci’s nutty attempt at a teen-centric horror movie from the old Shriek Show DVD and injects it into right your eyeballs, courtesy of a gorgeous Blu-ray. The colors just pop on the screen in this version’s 1.85:1 aspect ratio and the audio in either the English dub or the Italian (with English subtitles) is very clear. Once again, Severin brings the goods in terms of extras. First up is an audio commentary by author Troy Howarth and Mondo-Digital’s Nathaniel Thompson. They have a good rapport and provide lots of insights into the film. There’s a 38 minute feature called “An Italian Aenigma: Appreciating Late Day Fulci” with a whole mess of interviewees on the twilight years of Fulci’s filmography. Screenwriter Giorgio Mariuzzo gets an interview where he discusses writing for and working with Fulci. He’s a little fuzzy on the details but it’s a fun interview, nonetheless. Also included are the English and Italian trailers.
Director – Lucio Fulci
Cast – Jared Martin, Lara Lamberti, Ulli Reinthaler
Country of Origin – Itay
Reviewer – Richard Glenn Schmidt