Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.0

Aenigma Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 30, 2021

One of the talking heads assembled for some appealing supplemental material included on the Blu-ray disc of Aenigma makes a joke about how pointless it is to decry any Italian film for being “derivative”, something that's perhaps especially true when discussing any given Lucio Fulci film. In that regard, however, it’s probably unavoidably ironic that other talking heads included both on screen and courtesy of a commentary track on the disc make any number of references to other films that Aenigma reminds them of. This list includes everything from Carrie to Suspiria to Phenomena, and so those unfamiliar with this 1988 horror outing might want to consider what blending that particular trio of offerings together might end up looking like. Aenigma at its core is a revenge fantasy, one that involves a young boarding school girl named Kathy (Milijana Zirojevic), who is tricked into going on a date with the school’s gym teacher Fred Vernon (Riccardo Acerbi), which right off the bat catapults the story into unseemly territory. It turns out that a gaggle of kids and Vernon are in on this prank, and when the homely Kathy responds to Vernon’s supposed seductive moves in a car, she’s suddenly surrounded by laughing teenagers in a scene that does in fact play very much like certain elements in Carrie. Kathy responds predictably, by freaking out and running away, where she’s promptly hit by a car and transported to a local hospital badly injured and in a comatose state. The film then segues to the arrival of a new student named Eva Gordon (Lara Naszinski), though an almost subliminal interstitial suggests Eva is under the telepathic sway of the supposedly comatose Kathy.

The rest of the film is frankly a kind of vignette driven exercise which simply features the culprits who led to Kathy's current state getting their comeuppance. There's an almost hilarious, if admittedly rote, inability on the part of various "experts" in either medical or police communities to figure out what's going on, despite fairly obvious and prevalent clues of the telepathic connections between Kathy and Eva. Instead, the film kind of lurches from set piece to set piece, with some of the deaths being relatively inventive (the narcissistic gym teacher gets attacked by his own reflection in a mirror) to just downright gonzo (one of the girls is swarmed by snails, in one of the film's more notorious images).

I think Aenigma might have worked better had the audience been given a bit more information about Eva, and if there were perhaps a "struggle" between the two personae, a la some plot machinations in films like Possessor or even Get Out. A subplot involving Kathy's mother Mary (Dusica Zegarac) could have arguably been better developed as well, something that might have given the film's climax more emotional heft. A whole sidebar featuring a doctor named Anderson (Jared Martin) seems designed at least in part to provide at bare minimum one native English speaker to help make the film internationally marketable.

Aenigma Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Aenigma is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The back cover of this release states "scanned in 4K from the original negative for the first time ever in America". This is another release from Severin, somewhat like the recently reviewed The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, where that "scanned in 4K" verbiage may raise expectations to unsustainable heights. The element in this particular instance certainly doesn't have the same sort of damage seen in the Sergio Martino film, and the palette looks much more accurate in this version than in the kind of green tinted Blu-ray from 88 Films that came out a few years ago in Region B. On the minus side, there are some pretty rough looking patches here that could arguably have been at least ameliorated with a tighter encode. I've documented some of these moments in screenshots 15 through 19.

Aenigma Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Aenigma features DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono tracks in either English or Italian. Since you're going to be getting some dubbing in either version, this probably boils down to whether or not you object to reading subtitles. Otherwise, while the mixes are more or less the same in terms of overall amplitude, the Italian track sounded a bit more forceful to my ears in the midrange. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly in both tracks. Optional English subtitles for both languages are available.

Aenigma Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Troy Howarth, author of Splintered Visions - Lucio Fulci & His Films and Mondo Digital's Nathaniel Thompson is enjoyably chatty while also offering a wealth of background information.


• Italian Aenigma - Appraising Late Day Fulci (1080p; 38:26) is a really interesting piece featuring a glut of insightful talking heads, including Mikel J. Koven, Kim Newman, Calum Waddell and Alan Bryce.


• Writing Nightmares (1080p; 14:21) is an interview with screenwriter Giorgio Mariuzzo. In Italian with English subtitles.


• English Trailer (1080p; 3:00)


• Italian Trailer (1080p; 3:00 )


• Italian Credits (1080p; 6:50)

Note: While it's supposedly "sold out", Severin also released a Limited Edition Blu-ray of Aenigma that additionally offered a soundtrack CD (including the delightful theme song "Head Over Heels" which is infamously listed as "Head Over Meels" in the film's credits), as well as a slipcover. A cursory investigation by yours truly discloses that this version is available online, though at pretty exorbitant prices, for those who interested.

Aenigma Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Lucio Fulci's life and career were not exactly problem free, as is alluded to in some of the supplements included on this release. Often hampered by less than fulsome budgets, and at least occasionally beset with personal problems, Fulci seemed to soldier on, even when others would have probably surrendered to the vagaries of fate and/or show business. Aenigma is obviously, um, reminiscent of some other films (I'm struggling not to say "derivative"), but it does feature occasionally goofy and memorably imagery. Video encounters a few rough patches, but audio is fine, and Severin has included some appealing supplements, for those who are considering a purchase.