Review of Aenigma

Aenigma (1987)
5/10
Gory and scary explotaition movie with eerie and shocking scenes , though inferior than other Fulci films
29 November 2021
Sordid and chilling Fulci pic with shocks , thrills , disagreeable scenes and lots of blood and gore . At St. Mary's College, a boarding school for girls located just outside Boston , Massachusetts , an underdog , unattractive student, named Kathy (Mijlijana Zirojevic), becomes the butt of a practical set-up perpetrated by a group of students and the hunky , but sadistic gym teacher. As the young girl is submitted to a ruthless joke when is suddenly wounded in a roadside incident and resulting in a coma condition , subsequently developing strange powers and causing weird effects on the people . A bit later on , Eva (Lara Lamberti) , a newcomer student arrives to the school , takes over Kathy's old room and begins socializing with some of the girls responsible for Kathy's situation . It results out be that Eva is a pawn under the control of the comatose Kathy from her hospital bed to execute a brutal vendetta against those whom did her sickness . While Kathy's physician , Dr. Robert Anderson (Jared Martin) meets and starts dating Eva whom also targets his latest sweetheart . They made a clown out of Kathy once too often! .Possessed by revenge! .All her enemies will be eliminated... but first they will suffer!

Thunderously overwhrought pile of Grand Guignol terror and displaying a lot of slaughter , mayhem , sickening images and quirk phenomenon with the considerable telekinesis talents carried out by a comatose patient against her tormentors . Including several nude women suffering grim , terrible and gory comeuppances and leaving nothing to the imagination . The plot is well known , plain and simple : a lonely , gaunt , outcast girl being hit by a car during a cruel practical joke , but she develops secret , amazing powers to manipulate with her mind , and making her angry could prove to be deadly by enacting a bloody revenge against the elitist coeds responsible for her condition . It blends ideas from ¨Carrie¨ (1976) by Brian De Palma , along with the original Australian film ¨Patrick¨ (1978) and ¨Patrick vive ancora¨ (1980) by Mario Landi , the latter has little connection to its predecessor , being really a crazy exploitation from Italy . This ¨Aenigma¨ (1987) turning out to be an exercise in pure depravity with special mention for a female character who's eaten and suffocated by thousands of snails and adding some others really grisly scenes of carnage . A sickening , incompetent and scary flick , including some frames with absolute insult to good taste and packing extremely elevated sleaziness . That's why it's rated NC-17 or R due to extreme graphic violence , disgusting gore , female nudity, adding strong sexual scenes , language and anything else . Mediocre main and support cast with full of gorgeous young girls . Being only the familiar face : the American Jared Harris who died in 2017 at 75 and also performed for Fulci , ¨Rome 2033 The Fighter Centurions¨ . And Lucio Fulci cameo as police detective at the crime scene of Fred Vernon's death and brief apperance by Sabrina Siani who played various heroines in Italian Sword and Witchery movies.

This horror-thriller was middlingly directed by Lucio FulciI who made some of the nastiest , sleaziest and most brutal gore yarns ever produced in Italy . This ¨Aenigma¨ was a poor mess from gore-meister Fulci . As Lucio Fulci was one of the most controversial filmmakers in terror genre , though frequently derided as sheer sensationalism and commerciality. Here Lucio Fulci directs in his usual style filled with flaws , failures , shortcoming and gaps , but professionally made because being a nice artisan . Critics are divided over both the moral and talents of Fulci (1927-1996) , who sometimes directed under the alias Louis Fuller. For some reviewers many of his flicks are extremely bloody and savage , yet their gory surface often concealing social, religious , or provoking commentaries or other thoughful , intelligent issues . Nevertheless , most of them considering his works have undeniably provided a considerable influence on the terror genre , creating decent efforts on low-medium budget flicks . Standing out his ¨Don't Torture a Duckling¨ deemed to be one of his best pictures . And in the adventure genre with two financially successful Jack London 'White Fang' adventure movies in 1973 and 1974 which were ¨Zanna Bianca¨, and ¨Il ritorno di Zanna Bianca¨. Also during the mid and late 1970s , Fulci directed 'Spaghetti Westerns' : ¨Massacre Time¨(1966) , ¨Four of Apocalypse¨ (1975) and ¨Sella d'argento¨ or ¨Silver Saddle¨(1978) , and another important 'giallo' : ¨The Psychic¨ (1977), as well as a few sex-comedies which include the political spoof : ¨The Eroticist¨(1972) , and the vampire comedy ¨Young Dracula¨ (1975) , and the violent Mafia crime-drama ¨Luca the smuggler¨ (1979) . In 1979, Fulci's film making career successfully another high point with him , breaking into the international market with ¨Zombi 2¨ (1979), an in-name-only sequel to George A. Romero's Zombi : Night of the Lving Dead (1978), which had been released in Italy as 'Zombi' ; furthermore , ¨City of the Living Dead¨(1980) , ¨From Beyond¨, ¨The House by the Cemetery¨(1981) , ¨The Black cat¨(1981) . And his big hit ¨New York Ripper¨ , at the time rated as a video nasty , due to it and why the excessive extra violence was heavily cut or prohibited in a large number of countries . With this film established Fulci as a gore director par excellence , following other horror movies until his fall in which he started working in Television in some very short budgeted telefilms.
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