Trhauma

This little known Italian thriller (which is "correctly" spelled Trhauma) tells a typical giallo story, but has clearly been influenced by John Carpenter's Halloween. A group of people spend a weekend at a friend's house. Early in the movie, one of the females is killed by a disfigured killer, who rapes his victim post mortem. Soon after this, it becomes clear that the simple minded murderer is paid by an unknown person for the crime - with Lego (that's a cheap contract killer... toys instead of cash)! Soon, the other guests worry about the first victim, because (naturally) she hasn't returned. But before they find the body or realize that they are stalked by a maniac, one by one falls victim to the crazed lunatic.

This film by Gianni Martucci, who also made the awfully boring film I Frati Rossi (aka The Red Monks) in 1988, is a very entertaining and sleazy picture. He succeeds in delivering a nice uncanny atmosphere, and through moving camera and creepy scenes in the dark, Martucci keeps up the suspense. The murder scenes are mostly off screen, which probably will disappoint splatter freaks, but towards the end, the film delivers some gore and gets quite messy. Towards the end, the identity of the person who contracted the killer isn't that difficult to find out, but that's no surprise considering that only two people are left and one of them is stalked by the killer for about ten minutes. The only a little bit disappointing thing is the abrupt end, which doesn't make too much sense. All in all, even though it's far from being a masterpiece, it's a highly watchable movie that will satisfy giallo-, slasher- and sleaze-fans alike. Rating: 7 out of 10.

By the way: Assistant director and screenplay co-writer was Alessandro Capone who directed the gory Witch Story (aka Streghe) in 1989.

I've been trying to find out what the title of the film means, and I think that it genuinely is a spelling mistake! The mind boggles...

This bizarre semi-giallo seems to do everything wrong. The kills happen mostly off-screen. It's full of scenes of people wandering about a house shouting on each other. It's also full of scenes of people arguing with each other. And yet...it's not a total write-off.

First we get a prologue where a pushy kid cajoles a one eyed kid into climbing a tree which then leads to his injury. We then fast-forward to 1980 or whenever, where a guy called Andrea is working on a run down house he bought with his wife's money. They've invited a load of victims to the house to hand around the pool, but no one reckoned on the one-eyed killer stalking everyone in the place.

The best bit of this film I guess is the large Lego set one-eyed killer guy has. It's huge and some mysterious stranger keeps giving him more stuff for it. Best still, when he's trying to work on it, a cat keeps moaning to the point he just cuts the head off the damn thing. Beats taking it to the vets I guess.

This is a strange film in that most of the characters bicker with each other until old one-eye starts doing them all in. The giallo element is almost dispensed with in favour of more slasher elements, but there is a mystery that would be difficult to solve if you've never watched a giallo ever. The ending is truly a head scratcher though.

As anyone with more than a passing interest in this genre will tell you, the Giallo hit it's heyday in the early seventies. The genre started to dry up as the seventies wore on; and by the time the eighties came around, you would really struggle to find a decent example outside of Dario Argento's filmography. Trhauma is not a great Giallo by any stretch of the imagination; but in comparison to other entries released around the same period, it has to be said that this one isn't too bad. The plot is rather simple and focuses on a group of people staying at an old house. It's not long before a woman is murdered and it soon becomes clear that the murderer is being paid by someone. It's also clear that the murderer is of the cheap variety as he gets paid in Lego! The guests later realise that the victim has gone missing and naturally start to worry, and this worry is increased when another guest falls victim. It soon becomes apparent that there's a maniac loose in the house!

The film is very short at only seventy two minutes and while it doesn't exactly outstay its welcome; that does unfortunately mean that the film doesn't have much time to flesh out the characters or plot; and as a result it's left rather lacking. Trhauma does benefit from a claustrophobic atmosphere brought on by the fact that it all takes place in the same enclosed location; but this is not as effective as it could been if the characters were fleshed out and made more interesting. One thing that many Giallo fans look for in these film is a fair helping of gore; and despite the fact that this film was released around the same time as Umberto Lenzi's cannibal movies and Lucio Fulci's zombie movies; it features very little of the red stuff and while there's a few murders; they are basically bloodless, which is a shame. As we get close to the end, it becomes pretty obvious who is behind it all...but even so, while this is not a great Giallo by any stretch of the imagination; it's not too bad and is worth tracking down for collectors.

A couple invites some friends to spend a weekend together in an isolated cabin surrounded by woods and fields. But... there's a killer lurking around.... And... someone is monitoring him.

"Trhauma" is an Italian slasher/giallo film that seemingly took some inspiration from "Friday the 13th", but it has its own story and a completely different mood. The characters are not silly teenagers, but machiavelic young (mostly) adults. "Trhauma" was made on a low budget, but it's audio-visually creative and it takes good advantage of the natural surroundings (the cabin - interiors and grounds, the woods etc.). Most of the scenes (and killings) take place during the night. There are interesting scenes – people walking through the woods in the night carrying torches... illuminating bushes, boughs.... and...... to wrap it all up, a good soundtrack helps to stress the mood.

The film begins with a light touch and when the day turns into night, perplexity turns into apprehension and then fear... and from fear to terror...

"Trhauma" is not a film for gorehounds, but slasher/gialli fans that like non-mainstream films should like it. It's atmospheric and features a fast-paced story.

The Italians are often criticized for "ripping off" American films. There is some justification for this, but there are times also that the influence has gone in the other direction. The American slasher genre initiated by "Black Christmas", "Halloween", and "Friday the 13th", for instance, owes a lot to earlier Italian gialli thrillers, most obviously Mario Bava's "Bay of Blood", but also "Torso", "What Have You Done to Solange?", and even "Schoolgirl Killer", all of which played American drive-ins in the 1970's and no doubt had some influence on the early American slasher films. Nevertheless, just because "Halloween" and other early slasher films may have been somewhat derivative of gialli, it didn't stop later Italian giallo filmmakers from cashing in on the international success of American slasher movies by making their own films that were highly derivative of "Halloween". This is one such film.

In what seems to be a typical slasher-movie flashback prologue, one boy coaxes another boy with a deformed eye into climbing a tree. The boy falls out of the tree, apparently dead. Years later the first boy has grown up and he and a bunch of his friends, some of whom he is in debt to, and his wealthy wife are having a party at his secluded villa when someone starts bumping off the guests. Guess who.

This movie IS highly derivative of "Halloween", but the end does go in a very direction than what you might expect and the revenge-for-a-past-tragedy that is seemingly set up in the prologue is not necessarily what it seems. This movie turns out to be much more of a slasher-giallo hybrid than a simple slasher movie rip-off, owing as much to earlier gialli like "Bay of Blood" as it does to "Halloween". Also, the characters in this movie, unlike with most slasher movies, are adults rather than adolescents. Thus, there's even more nudity and sleazy sex than in your average slasher movie, but the characters also have much more adult motives than simply partying or trying to "lose it". You also get the big fat guy from "Strip Nude for Your Killer" (but thankfully this time he DOESN'T strip nude for his killer). Most of the cast, however, are relative unknowns and they're generally unremarkable as actors. This isn't terrible, but it's not great either.