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Aenigma

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An innocent girl gets a date with the boy she likes- only to find it was a joke. An accident sends her into a coma. The people responsible go to a girl's school, where a girl is possessed to take revenge on the perpetrators. The ending just kinda leaves you hanging. A pretty decent horror flick, but this is mainly for diehard Lucio Fulci fans. The story is a spinoff on Carrie in that it is a revenge film, but otherwise has no resemblance. However, it lacks the excessive gore that charcterise his most poular works: Zombie, Gates of Hell, The Beyond, House by the Cemetery, and New York Ripper. Still worth a look though.

AENIGMA

** Out of 5

Release Date- August 15th, 1988 (Italy)

Running Time- 85-Minutes

Rating- NR

Screenplay- Lucio Fulci & Giorgio Mariuzzo

Director- Lucio Fulci

Starring- Lara Naszinsky, Jared Martin, Ulli Reinthaler, Milijana Zirojevic, Dusica Zegarac

In general it seems as most filmmakers get older they start to decline and Lucio Fulci had one of the biggest declines of any filmmaker. Earlier in his career Lucio Fulci made some serious and smart films like Don't Torture a Duckling and Seven Notes in Black and with those two movies Fulci proved he could make a film as good as if not better than any other horror filmmaker. But the problem was nobody was really seeing these movies; it wasn't until 1979 with Zombi 2 that Fulci became a power player in the horror genre. And while Zombi 2 is noted for its gore F/X with good reason the movie like his earlier work is filled with suspense and tension and that is what most people overlook about Lucio Fulci.

Once the 80s started Fulci was now a splatter director where his movies were often incoherent, but what they lacked in plot they made up for in gore F/X and thus the title of the Godfather of Gore was born. But to Fulci's credit even his splatter flicks had some decent suspense and often had a lack of pending doom. Granted his splatter flicks weren't as good as his earlier work, but finally Fulci was getting his due. But after the release of The New York Ripper, Fulci seemed to lose his edge. The decline started and it was a rather big drop off.

To be totally honest anything after The New York Ripper I don't really like with the exception of Zombi 3 simply for the so bad its good vibe it has going for it. Aenigma may not be the worst movie in Fulci's career, but one can possibly make a case for it. About the only positive thing I can say about Aenigma is it does feel like a Fulci flick something a lot of his later flicks lacked. But even though it felt like a Fulci flick it wasn't a very good one. Aenigma has often been compared to Suspiria and Carrie, but this movie never ever reaches the level of greatness.

The screenplay by Lucio Fulci & Giorgio Mariuzzo is rather terrible; granted Fulci's splatter flicks often weren't very well written, but yet they worked despite that. But the characters in Aenigma are the typical faceless victims who quite honestly are better off dead. They are really annoying and totally unlikable. The plot is a total mess, while the idea isn't a bad a girl in a coma takes over the body of another to get revenge for the accident that left her in a coma. Problem is nothing is really explained and we get useless scene after useless scene.

As director Fulci doesn't fair any better; each scene is poorly set up with zero suspense and no real sense of pacing. While Aenigma isn't poorly made in general it is a sloppy film. The 80s was the splatter era for Fulci and with Aenigma he strayed from that. This movie features very little gore and this movie really needed that. While gore wouldn't have made this movie great or anything at least it would provide something. By this time in Fulci's career he clearly wasn't the same filmmaker and the decline in his movies seriously for me rates as the biggest drop off.

Like I stated earlier in my review Lucio Fulci really was a lot better of a filmmaker than he got credit for. Don't Torture a Duckling is easily one of the greatest Giallos ever made and Seven Notes in Black also serves as an excellent Giallo. Some people see Fulci as nothing more than a hack who can only deliver a gore movie. I urge those who think that to give the two movies I mentioned a chance and you'll see there's a lot more to Fulci. I also though did like his splatter flicks and while these movies weren't as well done as his earlier ones they were still great fun, but anything after 1982 in general was really bad even with gore scenes.

I really can't think of many good things to say about Aenigma; simply put this is just a poor movie. I'd only recommend this to the hardcore Fulci fans like myself and I'm willing to bet most won't like it. Aenigma is made by a director far past his prime. There's no gore and no suspense and tension. Skip this one and go back and view Fulci's work in the 70s and early 80s.

The movie itself would have deserved between 3 and 4 stars.
It is a fairly well directed version of the "Carrie" story.
Its blue tone and setting in a girl's boarding school are
reminiscent of Dario Argento's "Phenomena". It features some
macabre and bizarre deaths in the Fulci style.

Image's release is, unfortunately, rather meager ....
On the positive side, there is the transfer. Apart from occasional variations in color, it is sharp and colorful.
The first disappointment is the sound. Only a poor, monaural
english track is featured. No subtitles at all. This is
complemented by the total absence of bonus material. There are not even any interesting liner notes. ....

If "Aenigma" is the last item missing in your Fulci collection,
you may wish to go for this release, otherwise I recommend you
to check out some of the more interesting releases of Fulci
titles.

One of Fulci's lesser efforts, Aenigma is a blatant [copy] of so many other films, it's hard to count them all. Set in a school, it involves a misunderstood loner called Kathy who is cruelly taunted by her classmates, but takes revenge by means of psychic powers. So far, so "Carrie". But here, the cruel prank puts the victim into a coma, and it's from here that she wreaks havoc, which echoes "Patrick". She somehow manages to possess another student, who goes through the school leaving a trail of destruction and death on Kathy's behalf. Sounds great for Fulci fans, but don't hold your breath. The various revenge murders are all very unimpressive and often ridiculous, including a death by being scared of a museum and death by being confronted with a boyfriend's corpse! What's wrong with these people!? The film has no highlights of gore whatsoever, which is a major shortcoming in a Fulci film. Even it's set piece murder, a "death by snails" sequence will probably leave you laughing (how exactly do snails manage to overpower someone??). This, along with the film's title, makes me think that Fulci is actually trying to emulate Argento's far superior "Phenomeona". The film is generally pretty confusing, as Kathy's power, and her hold over the possessed girl are never properly explained. The acting is awful, the lead character (the possessed student) wanders around looking totally bored, so you won't really care about any of the characters. It's also ugly and dull to look at, even though Fulci tries to ape Argento yet again by bathing many shots in lurid coloured lighting, mostly a tiresome bright blue, but it just doesn't add up to anything coherent. Even Fulci completists could rest easy without ever watching this one.
A real stinker.

Lucio Fulci's "Aenigma" from 1987. This, as with many of Fulci's movies, isn't really susceptible to clear description.

SOME SPOILERS

This is set in a girl's school in Boston; the daughter of the housemaid is also a student. She's bullied for that reason. She's set up by the other students, and she's injured badly while running from her perpetrators. She goes in a coma, but she's able to infect the psyche of the students from her hospital bed. They start to die in mysterious ways. One has a heart attack in reality, but we see his reflection leave a mirror and choke him to death, followed by its eerie return and disappearance into the mirror. One suffocates herself with a pillow in her sleep in reality, but we see her smothered in snails. One has a giant sculpture fall onto her in a museum, but we see her killed by the sculpture come to life. One is pushed out of a window taken over by macabre visions, but we actually see her jump. Now, there's also another student that seems to be overtaken by the girl in a coma, but she appears only tangentially involved in the action until the end. Other than being a facilitator (like when she lures the museum victim to the museum), it's not perfectly clear what her involvement is in the story. I would need to watch the movie again to see how these pieces fit together, if in fact they do. I don't believe this student is a direct instrument of revenge, but she acts more like an assistant; it's open to interpretation.

There's been a lot of focus on this movie about things like "it's just not believable that she would lie there without moving when covered by snails" but that misses the point. The victims are entranced and paralyzed by fear; she's not really being suffocated by snails. To that end, Fulci effectively communicates that point.

The disc is viewable, but it's certainly not up to the quality of recent releases and it needs to be remastered. Also the sound is bad; I had to turn the sound system way up to hear it. English language, no subtitles; no special features. It's a lot of work to watch this movie, but for Fulci fans it's worth it.

AEnigma (Lucio Fulci, 1987)

There is a stark division in the films of Lucio Fulci. Where that division lies is subject to debate, but unlike the Argento argument, there's a very narrow band here--Fulci started going south in 1981 or 1982 (and the debate seems to stem from The New York Ripper). Once you get past 1982, you hit Murder-Rock, and I don't think even the most rabid Fulci fan would defend that monstrosity. After that, it's all pretty awful; Fulci liberally reused his own work (Zombi 3, Voices from Beyond) or borrowed liberally from other directors (Touch of Death, A Cat in the Brain). AEnigma is at least interesting in that it does both; Fulci takes the skeleton of Argento's Suspiria and lays it over with trappings from The Beyond to create a film that's borderline-unwatchable while never rising above the level of awful.

We start with Kathy (Milijana Zirojevic in her final screen appearance), a student at an exclusive girls' school, getting primped and pampered by her roommate and roommate's boyfriend for a date with Fred (Black Tunnel's Riccardo Acerbi), the hottest guy on campus (he's a dance teacher). Kathy's fallen hard for the guy, but he treats it as a joke, and when Kathy discovers the extent of said joke, she flips out. In any case, said flipping out results in her getting hit by a car and ending up in the hospital, comatose. Flash back to the school, and a new student, Eva (Red Sonja's Lara Lamberti, a cousin of Nastassja Kinski's, and almost as hot), has transferred in halfway through the semester. It's no surprise that Kathy possesses Eva and uses her as an instrument of revenge; we find this out while Eva is walking up the front steps, thanks to some painfully bad special effects. The rest of the movie, as with most post-1981 Fulci flicks, consists of people dying in (hopefully) interesting ways.

I've dabbled in post-1981 Fulci a few times, and I've never been satisfied with the results. What happened to the guy who made Zombi, The Beyond, and a raft of gialli considered to be some of the best in the genre? Don't know, but once again, here's more evidence that Fulci phoned it in. Take The Beyond's tarantula scene, substitute snails, and you get one of the scenes in this movie. In fact, it's the scene a lot of people I know use to sell the movie to those who haven't seen it yet. Now that I've seen it, that doesn't surprise me; it's the only truly striking scene in the film. But Fulci had already done it before. That attitude lies at the core of this film. * ½

Honestly people, it's not that bad. This is a different kind of Lucio Fulci movie. I get the impression that he was going for a more straight forward approach with this film. AENIGMA is more about atmosphere and mood. It's nowhere near as bloody as some of Fulci's earlier movies and it can be a little slow paced at times. Yet, those are small problems considering it's not really all that bad of a movie. AENIGMA's story is like a mix between SUSPIRIA, CARRIE and PHENOMENA. Take those elements and mix them together with Fulci's distinctive filming style and what you get is AENIGMA. Somtimes the movie works and sometimes it doesn't.

The movie wastes no time getting into the "meat" of the story. Things start out bad for a young girl named Kathy as she unknowingly falls victim to a mean prank by her fellow class mates. Some of the kids thought it would be funny to set her up on a fake date with a popular guy on Campus, and then spy on her while they "make out" in his car. Laughing and having a good time out of sight, the kids pulling the prank spring the joke on Kathy and then chase her down the street in their cars! Yeah', kind of pointless and elaborate if you ask me. Needless to say, the joke gets a little out of hand and next thing you know, Kathy is accidentally hit by another car in the middle of the road.

In the hospital, Kathy goes into a coma as a result of her injuries, and the doctors give her very little hope to recover. Yet, something seems strange with Kathy's brain patterns. They seem very active despite she's in a coma. Meanwhile, back at the school, the kids responsible for the accident don't even seem to care about what happened. Soon, a new girl arrives at the school named Eva. Some of the other girls think she's a little bit strange and rebellious, but otherwise a typical "new kid." Eva seems to have her own agenda at the school, as people start dying around her in very weird ways. Eventually the kids responsible for the horrible prank soon realize that Eva isn't who (or what) she seems, and Kathy keeps on having more strange brain functions in her coma. Is all the deaths a coincidence or maybe something more? If you're a well seasoned Horror fan, I'm sure you can see where this is heading.

So okay, it's not the most original story ever made (a wronged victim exacts their revenge through an otherwise comatose state) but at least it's enjoyable! Fulci fans seem to come into this movie with ridiculously high expectations. This is Lucio Fulci's "supernatural" Horror film and if you're looking for the gallons of blood and guts from his other films, prepare to be disappointed. (Sorry Gore Hounds! Might I suggest THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, THE BEYOND or CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD? Those movies have buckets of blood!) If you come into this film knowing that it's a different type of movie for Fulci, and just want to see a fun late 1980's "giallo" Horror film, then you'll realize it's not that bad.

Some of the scenes in AENIGMA are really horrifying and effective. Look for a dream sequence that involves snails smothering a girl to death! It truly does make the skin crawl! Over all, this movie really isn't all that bad. Is it Fulci's best? No, it isn't. That title might go to CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, ZOMBIE 2 or THE NEW YORK RIPPER. Yet, this is a worthy addition to anyones ever growing Horror movie collection.

AENIGMA is for Horror fans who have seen all the typical "giallo" films (SUSPIRIA) and want to see something a little more unknown and different. Give it a shot and you might find yourself enjoying it.

You be the judge.

WHAT? What is it with Italian HORROR directors having to play
some of the worst out of place music in a HORROR film?
Don't get me wrong for most Italian HORROR films have great
music...But baby when it's bad it is BAD!!!!!!!!!!!!
This gets my vote for all time Turkey award(hey it's close
to Thanksgiving) I mean you have never heard such a out of
place soundtrack till you watch Aenigma. Ruined the whole
movie for me and to tell the truth my vote is -5 stars for
this DRIVEL! Please if you are new to Fulci STAY AWAY!
Buy THE BEYOND-ZOMBIE-some of his earlier work and CITY
OF THE LIVING DEAD....Speaking of CITY I'm willing to go
toe to toe with the gut-vometing girl from C.O.T.L.D.
She can watch the BLOOD-eyed priest,I'll just listen
to the title track to this SLOP! I bet I vomet most!!!
If you do like the music to this film????? Than also
recommend CANNIBAL FEROX and STAGE FRIGHT for I was scratching
my head on the music in those two films as well! REMEMBER
YOU HAVE BEEN-been-ben warnnnnneyygggassUUUUUUUUUULP!

No figure in the horror film genre is as divisive as Lucio Fulci. After watching his films, viewers tend to move into one of two camps. One side hails Fulci as a master of terror, a man who upped the gore quotient in his films while creating wonderfully atmospheric pictures. For these people, Fulci is up there with the likes of Dario Argento as one of the best Italian horror directors. The other camp sneers at these claims, pointing to the plodding pace of his films, the use of extreme gore to camouflage plot holes, and the director's inability to draw good performances out of his cast as evidence of mediocrity. Initially, I enjoyed Fulci's films, specifically "Zombie," "City of the Living Dead," and "The New York Ripper" because I did not know any better. When I came on the scene, you went to Fulci to feed your gore cravings. What a difference a few years exploring the genre makes! While I will not go so far as to remove Lucio from my play list, I have seen enough of his films to realize he is not a cinematic genius. He is at best a competent director, at worst an abysmal one, and there are plenty of examples of bad filmmaking in this director's filmography. Come on down, "Aenigma"!

And yes, I've used this introduction for nearly every Fulci review I've done.

"Aenigma" arrived near the end of Fulci's storied film career. Anyone who knows anything about Uncle Lucio knows what this means. Yep, that's right. He's clearly running out of steam. What we have with "Aenigma" is a "Carrie" knock off with little in the way of gory carnage or real scares. Unlike "City of the Living Dead," "The Beyond," or "Zombie," this movie simply won't do much for the diehard gore fan. Here's the story. Kathy (Milijana Zirojevic) ranks near the bottom of the social scale at St. Mary's College in Boston. A constant litany of cruel jokes, smarmy wisecracks, and sneers from her classmates virtually assures us that she'll seek bloody revenge against her tormentors. Sure enough, that's exactly what happens after a particularly vicious prank leads to an accident that leaves Kathy in a coma at the hospital. How can Kathy seek vengeance when she's supine in a hospital bed with lots of wires running from her head to cheesy, beeping machines? That's a good question. An excellent question, in fact, even though it isn't one I'm especially interested in answering. Why should I? Fulci sure as heck didn't care about explaining this clunker to the audience.

Anyway, it turns out that Kathy has somehow gained the ability to take over the mind of another girl, Eva Gordon (Lara Naszinsky), and send her into St. Mary's as a sort of Charles Bronson with [...]. Eva befriends all of the girls involved in Kathy's accident, as well as the beefy gym instructor Fred Vernon (Riccardo Acerbi), a man whose own guilt in the accident Fulci clearly establishes earlier. Eva acts sort of tarty, claiming that her goal at St. Mary's involves sucking face with as many boys as possible. She's also a troublemaker in other areas, drawing the wrath of the administration. What happens next? Blah, blah, blah. The girls start noticing weird things about Eva, little facts that don't match up with things she said earlier. Blah, blah, blah. Fred Vernon perishes in an extremely humorous manner. Blah, blah, blah. Who's that weird maid? I'll bet she's important to the plot! Blah, blah, blah. Look! Death by slugs! Blah, blah, blah. Look! Jared Martin paying the rent as Dr. Robert Anderson! Blah, blah, blah. Tom Cruise? What in the heck? Blah, blah, blah. If you haven't picked up on the sarcasm, I found "Aenigma" to be...well...pretty darn blah.

It isn't difficult to see where Fulci went wrong with this movie. Pretty much everything fails on nearly every level. A lack of serious gore effects we've come to know and love from Uncle Lucio effectively kills the film. Sure, the slug scene works well, and a couple of lame decapitations certainly spices things up here and there, but it's all rather restrained and surprisingly banal. A dream sequence promises carnage but doesn't really deliver the goods. It's sad, really, that Fulci would go to all this trouble to make a horror movie and then fail to ratchet up the grue. You're known for buckets of blood, man, so c'mon and DELIVER! Other elements of the film fail as well, especially the eardrum bursting, bad 1980s pseudo pop songs popping up all over the place. Watching the movie is like being stuck in an elevator for ninety minutes. And what's up with the Slavic actors and actresses in this thing? I'm looking at the names of people involved in this mess and I'm not sure whether I'm reading a cast list or reading roll call for a class at Kosovo Community College. All right, enough with the wisecracking. In short, "Aenigma" is a waste of time and space.

Image Entertainment released "Aenigma" on DVD over here in the states, and I have to say it's a very sad affair. Not as sad as the movie, mind you, but sad nonetheless considering "Aenigma" is a Fulci flick. The picture and audio quality aren't that good at all, I thought. Then there's the lack of extras on the disc. I'm the first person to say that I would NOT want to listen to a commentary track or sit through some long featurette explaining every aspect of this film's production, but Fulci fans do deserve something more than a bare bones presentation. Fulci completists will certainly want to pick up a copy of the disc. For casual viewers and uncommitted Lucio lovers, I would recommend going the rental route. "Aenigma" really isn't worth spending more than a couple of bucks at the local brick and mortar video store.

i've seen a lot of lucio fulci's films and this is easily one of the worst! might be cause he does have a lot of great films but this one just gets ridiculous halfway through the movie. maybe worth a rent but definitely not a buy. stick to movies like City of the living dead, the beyond, new york ripper and other great italian films. this one's not very entertaining and does slow down in parts. only recommend if you are a very big lucio fan