Bezenby At a school for wayward girls that would give any British/Australian TV presenter/entertainer from the seventies a stroke, a prank has gone way, way wrong. Cathy, the weirdo daughter of the weirdo cleaner, has been set up on a date with Fred, the gym instructor (more on him later). After being given a horrendous eighties make up job by her two 'friends', to the tune of horrendous eighties song that wouldn't be out of place on a Bowie album from the same era, she sets out with Fred, who puts the moves on her. What Cathy doesn't know is that everyone else at the school, and their boyfriends, are all listening in and shortly chase her around in their cars, causing her to be run over.Now in a coma and because this is a Fulci film, we get to see Cathy's spirit float above a model town (with some leftover model buildings from The New Gladiators – I wonder if Fulci kept them in the same cupboard as Jared Martin, who stars in both films). She decides to possess the body of new pupil Eva, who's goal in life is to shag as many men as possible. There's about six other actresses playing pupils in this film but for the life of me I can't remember any of their names.Eva's first port of call is Fred. Now, he's not in the film long, but he's worth a mention. Fred is the gym teacher for the school, and he loves to date the pupils, slap them on the arse, give them leg massages, tell the pupils that they're fat, and inadvertently cause them to get run over by cars. So Eva sets up a date with him but doesn't quite get there as his reflection comes to life and strangles him, as they tend to do.Basically, Fulci at some point has watched both Carrie and Patrick and thought "Me too!" Cathy is now possessing Eva, and causing the deaths of all involved in her accident. At one point Eva throws a hissy fit which brings her to the attention of Doctor Jared Martin, who of course is also Cathy's doctor, and they hit it off.So the rest of the film plays out like you'd expect, with those girls all meeting their demises in various surreal ways (death by snail, death by a statue coming to life in an art gallery after a picture comes to life and stabs itself, raining blood on one of the girls, a run of the mill falling out the window gag), until Eva's family show up suddenly and take her home, causing Jared to go out with yet another one of the girls. This doesn't make Cathy a happy camper.What surprised me after watching Aenigma was how it wasn't a pile of crap at all. In fact, I quite enjoyed it! Judging by how ill Fulci looks when he makes his usual cameo, I'm surprised he managed to make something that has an actual storyline (see Manhattan Baby for the opposite of this). Sure, it's your run of the mill late era Italian horror, but the snails, art gallery bit and completely original storyline if you haven't seen Patrick make it worth a watch. It's got all the visual trademark's of our Lucio, and looks pretty good in general. The fake heads look…faker than usual, but that seems to go with the low budgets. Seriously, see the fake head in Red Monks for a further example of the decline in fake head quality.

Gunnar_Runar_Ingibjargarson After her snobby schoolmates accidentally send her into a coma, poor little Kathy has only one way to get even--with her mind! Eva, another schoolgirl, falls under the spell of Kathy's vengeful psyche, which is capable of horrible destruction using telekinesis and even killer snails to do her bidding. Soon the hallways at St. Mary's School are filled with screaming, and there's no way to escape. In the tradition of Carrie, this psychic shocker from legendary Italian horror maestro Lucio Fulci, the man behind such outrageous cult favorites as The Beyond and Zombie, is filled with the visual style and gruesome madness his fans have come to expect. Available for the first time in America, this eerie look at the dark side of adolescence proves that girls might be made of sugar and spice, but they're not always nice!

The_Void Aenigma appears to be Lucio Fulci's attempt at 'Suspiria', as the plotting, atmosphere, locations and characters are all similar, and while this isn't essentially a 'bad' film, it certainly has nothing on Dario Argento's masterpiece. The influence from American cinema seems to have affected the great Italian maestro Lucio Fulci on this film, as he uses cheesy eighties songs a lot, and the way the plot plays out feels a lot like an American slasher, with the focus being kept on the kill scenes and bedtime activities of most of the school girls. The film forsakes logic at almost every turn, and much of the plot isn't explained and doesn't make a lot of sense. The central theme of a young, injured, girl possessing several members of her school and taking revenge on those that wronged her springs to mind immediately, as this isn't explained at all and that makes it hard to buy into the film. The way that Fulci handles this plot isn't very good either, as we are never made to care for her plight and therefore the fact that the plot doesn't make sense is made all the more irritating.Fulci does well with the atmosphere in the film, and the cinematography is rather nice also. As you would expect from a director who made his name with a whole load of blood and guts, there is no shortage of death scenes in this film. These scenes range from featuring severed limbs to gratuitous stabbings, but strangely enough; these scenes feel rushed and Fulci doesn't deliver a great deal of gore, which is probably the main reason why this film doesn't often get a very good write-up. Lucio Fulci has a bigger filmography than you would think, and many of his lesser known films - such as The Devil's Honey and Don't Torture a Duckling turn out to be his best. This film, however, is one of the director's more average efforts on the whole. I don't think Fulci really cared too much about the supernatural angle of the story, and so the film has ended up being disjointed and illogical. The acting and dialogue does nothing to alter this fact, as both are poor even for an Italian horror film. To be honest, I don't rate Aenigma as a complete dead loss; although it should be noted that I'm more tolerant of Fulci's films than most.

Coventry Judging by the amount of other user-comments and their content around here, this "Aenigma" (love the alternate spelling!) is a lesser known and thoroughly hated Lucio Fulci film. Well sure, it's not a patch on his earlier work but still it remains a remotely enjoyable bloodbath with some inventive killings (the snails!!) and an appealing cast of young & sexy schoolgirls. The story, although highly unoriginal, is easy to follow, unpretentious and fast-paced. Black sheep of Catholic girl's dorm Kathy is involved in a near-fatal car accident after a prank with the school's gym teacher. Shortly after, a new and extrovert girl makes her entry in the dorm but her mind seems controlled by the comatose Kathy. Through Eva Gordon, Kathy and her spiritual mother see a chance for revenge, starting with the death of the insufferable macho gym teacher. Fulci keeps the gore under control this time and focuses more on the brooding atmosphere. "Aenigma" features some beautiful camera-work, although admittedly, the same camera angles are often re-used several times. The girls' acting is extremely hammy and it's a good thing they all all look so cute, otherwise it would have been a lot more difficult to struggle yourself through the movie. Nothing spectacular or special, but it certainly isn't terrible, neither.