Head Trauma

Head Trauma is about a man who suffers a head trauma while cleaning out his grandmother's condemned house, which results in bizarre nightmares that begin to bleed over into the waking world.

Very well-written, well-directed, and ties things up perfectly at the end. It has some thematic elements similar to the recent invasion of Japanese horror movies (in particular, a mysterious girl with black hair whose back is always to the protagonist/camera), but whereas those have all been disappointing and seem to have just latched onto a scary image without making any effort to justify it, in Head Trauma every strange and scary image actually fits into the story, and it all makes sense in the end.

George Walker is moving into his grandmother's old house. While fixing it up he suffers a head trauma which causes him to have weird dreams and visions. These weird visions are actually a link to his past. In the wrong hands this story could come out just plain silly but director Lance Weiler does a good job with his low budget. I liked the look and feel of the movie and there were some pretty scary moments. The acting was even decent especially from Mary Monahan who plays Mary, a love interest of George's who doesn't quite have the same feeling for him. The interactions between George and her are actually realistically written and well acted. There are even some well done special effects that these low budget movies usually stay away from. I'd be curious to see what new projects this director is working on. Over all this is good stuff!

Here's another pretty unique horror film, that you don't see much about. Here is the synopsis; After a 20 year absence, drifter, George Walker, returns home to settle his grandmother's estate. As if awakening from a long dream, he finds his childhood home condemned and littered with the remnants of squatters. In the midst of trying to save his past, George falls and strikes his head, triggering an onslaught of vivid nightmares and waking visions. As the horror intrudes on George's reality, his conviction grows that someone or something is trying to kill him.

The movie moves at a slow pace but builds up the tension very nicely, and begins to get disturbing as hell. George's nightmares and visions are indeed horrific, and until the end, it appears the story has moved into the supernatural. There is a couple of pretty good scares which add to the fun, and the movie reminded me in a strange way of "Schramn", not the story but the way the movie moves along. The good thing, is after it is all over, everything makes sense and explained in full, so you don't go away from the movie shaking your head. With a super low budget, the filmmakers used their money well, and created a memorable exercise in psychological horror. The movie came highly recommended to me, and now I recommend it too.

Director Lance Weiler and his co-writer, Brian Majeska, obviously love ghost stories. And it shows in their movie HEAD TRAUMA, because you can spot all the scenes from other popular creepy ghost stories like THE CHANGELING, THE GRUDGE, THE RING and even...GHOST STORY. But the difference between TRAUMA and any other shoestring-budgeted effort that would simply rip off those other films, is that Weiler has a strong visual sense, and a clear vision of how to tell the story in a way that makes perfect sense. He also fortunately has a pretty darn good cast to get the audience involved.

Homeless drifter George Walker (Vince Mola) finally returns to his late grandmother's house, once he learns that it has been condemned and will soon succumb to the wrecking ball. A not-too-friendly meeting takes place between George and Julian (Jamil A.C. Mangan), resulting in a bad fall for George in which he sustains the titular injury. Julian is then volunteered to help with cleaning the house by his grandmother, Ms. Thompson, (Meryl Lynn Brown), the former next-door neighbor to George's grandmother.

But what is already a difficult task is about to get a lot harder, as George, who is now staying in the house, begins to experience some pretty vivid nightmares. Haunted by visions of a sinister hooded figure, the hanging body of a dead girl and a fiery car crash, George is beginning to question his own sanity. Has something terrible happened in the house since his grandmother's death? Is someone trying to send him a message from beyond the grave? Is it the work of an antagonistic neighbor who wants to see the house destroyed? Or is George really losing his mind? HEAD TRAUMA draws you in and challenges you to answer these questions as George tries to, leading up to an ending that may either satisfy your curiosity, or present more questions to be answered, depending on your point of view.

In any case, it's a very strong effort from Weiler, and one I would definitely recommend for lovers of good, ghostly mysteries with a twist.

George is a troubled homeless man, returning home after 20 years. And to an empty house trashed by squatters and host to terrifying visions of violence. On a seemingly Sisyphean quest to clean up the house and earn it a reprieve from municipal demolition, George is more effective at uncluttering an old mystery.

Head Trauma is a great indie with plenty of moodiness. The alcoholic loner, George Walker could have been rendered with repellent creepiness; yet Vince Mola is superb at playing him as a sympathetic victim of horrific circumstance. The rest of the performances range with varying success.

Unfortunately - as is true of so many low-budget movies - sound design replaces any music, and it's mixed to push the visual scares. At the same time, one strains to hear the dialogue, which could have been recorded through a box of Kleenex.

The bleak cinematography is well-shot, though the visions are over-tweaked with After Effects. But no matter how much effort was put into the visual editing, we are still missing considerable back-story. And that's a serious omission given the ending.

All in all, it's worth a watch.