Review of Masters of Horror 4: Dario Argento's "Jenifer"

Left:Director Dario Argento.Right:A madman about to decapitate "Jenifer".



















A Grim Italian Fairy Tale!
What can I say!!!!!! Argento's has been in the realm of the director's that lost it. I wasn't very pleased with his latest movies like " The Card Player" and "Sleepless"."The Stendhal Syndrome" was his last decent movie. I love the man and his work, but he's up there with Tobe Hooper, and like him he proves me wrong. I loved "Jenifer", it had the spirit of a fairy tale that went wrong. Originally FRank Darabont(Shawshank Redemption) was entitled to this project, but left because of the sexual explicit content. I'm a fan of FRank Darabont, but I knew he wasn't the man for this. Darabont being a gifted writer and director he could of been on board for "Master of Horror" and adapt another Stephen King nouvelle. Argento took on the project and was given the budget and means to show whatever he wanted. Show time saw his final cut and said it was too much and cut it. What they just aired was enough for me, and the audience, I hope when they released on DVD they show this uncut. The reason why I call it a fairy tale is because the stories sounds a like one by the Grimm brothers or by one of your drunk uncles. Steven Weber(from my childhood show "WINGS" and who also wrote the screenplay) plays a cop who was on a stake out with his partner and catches man wearing a trench coat in his underwear dragging a blonde woman by a rope and carrying meat cleaver. AS he bends the woman over and tries to decapitate her with the meat cleaver Frank(Steven Weber) shoots him, the man's last dying words were "Jenifer". Now to get to the basics, the woman who was being attack was Jenifer( played by Carrie Ann Fleming giving an all out physical performance) a girl the body of a pornstar but a disfigured face. Frank still is frighten for a minute and tends to her, after having dreams of the girl he wonders what going to happen to her. He finds out that they stuck her in a insane asylum, he rescues her and brings her back to his place where he lives with his wife and son. For some odd reason he falls prey to Jenifer's aura and happens to have an affair with her. After the wife and kids leaves after catching Jenifer eating their cat, Frank tries to sort things out but ends up just having wild sex with Jenifer. As disfigured her face is she still as a hot body, and Argento does in a way that erotic but still twisted. Where he ventures the territory Joe D'Amato and Jess Franco go, where they mix horror and explicit sex, except Argento actually succeeds. The whole movie feels like "The Elephant Man" meets "Emmannuelle", you know. Except the movie goes into a state of Jenifer having cannibalism, and she eats the little girl from next door. Shown enough where you the grotesque tensity, the whole stories takes Frank and Jenifer running away to a small town. There he realizes that Jenifer must be stopped and does the same thing the man with the meat cleaver did and fails. The story has the sense of a fairy tale about a disfigured woman with a body of beauty that woos everyman shes meet and leaves them to insanity. The one opening factor about the whole movie was that the score was done Claudio Simonetti from Goblin. With his score it gives the old feeling of a 70's giallo, that has been lost in recent Argento films. Looking for plausibility is something that you should not look forward to when watching this. Argento created a whole universe that just allows the score, gore and story flow. I never found the sex to be pointless, it added to the atmosphere and was constructed well to the point of being unerotica, but not looking away. It's like "Jenifer" came out of the screen and brought that spell to you in your living room. You already know the ending about thirty minutes in to it, but you was trying to grasp more from it. As 2-dimensional the characters were I still had questions about "Jenifer" and why they call her "Jenifer"? How many men has she done this to? What is she? Argento never improvises an answer and it adds more to the mystery of "Jenifer" and makes you stay tuned till the last frame Ann Fleming, not to give her credit for just being naked even though it was enjoyable, but I really liked her performance. Physically, because it was all a physical performance but it's physicallity might even impress Buster Keaton. Alright, that was sad but she worked it and hope to see speaking roles that shes in because she could be in scream queen status. Steven Weber did a good job, he always does even from "WINGS" I always enjoyed is worked, I was surprised he did the screenplay, it needed albeit of work but was good. The gore is well-crafted courtesy of Argento's mind and vision to show extremity, but the make-up goes to Gregory Nocotero. There are scenes where how absurd it may be it still looks real. The gore is superb and grotesque that pushes the limits than most of his films. I enjoyed every minute and contemplating that it might be Argento's comeback or the best thing Argento has done in awhile. I truly loved this short and is a personal favorite right next to Stuart Gordon's and hopefully Joe Dante's next one! Argento is a sick, twisted, disturbing bastard and is back in the game. Could be his comeback!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!