Dario Argento had always been fascinated by bugs. In the early 1980s, he heard a radio story about a murder solved by insects. A body had been dated by the bugs feeding on it, the stages of decay read backward to a time of death.

PHENOMENA (1985) sends a teenage American girl to a Swiss boarding school where someone is killing students. She sleepwalks. She can command insects with her mind. She befriends a wheelchair-using forensic entomologist and his chimpanzee, and together they try to read the murders through the flies.

The film's budget ran to billions of lire, much of it spent on real insects and arachnids, some flown in from Africa, some bred in Rome.

Jennifer Corvino is played by Jennifer Connelly, fourteen years old, in her first leading role, a year before Labyrinth. The story she tells about her mother walking out on her was Argento's own, from his childhood.

The professor is Donald Pleasence, Halloween's Dr. Loomis. Goblin scored it, with Iron Maiden and Motörhead dropped on top.

Forty years on, Argento's Phenomena is being adapted into a TV series titled Phenomena – The Series by Italy's Titanus Production.