Trhauma

Arriving at a secluded house in the countryside, a group of friends looking to spend a quiet weekend away together suddenly realize that several of them have gone missing, and when they realize that a hulking, maniacal killer is on the loose tries to find a way to get the survivors away alive.

There's very little to like about this slasher/giallo effort. Among the few positives here is the general atmosphere of the situation featuring the killer lurking about the house as this one generally tries to feature some atmosphere at times. The first stalking after the photoshoot has a few genuinely eerie moments of the point-of-view tracking her through the woods, while the scenes of the group going through the woods looking for their friend has some suspenseful moments where the darkness and the noises outside creatures a fine sense of atmosphere. Moreover, the frantic finale here offers a genuinely enjoyable series of stalking throughout the house as the activity is rousing enough, especially the final confrontation which has genuine creepy and chilling sections provided by the location and situation. The only other bit that's enjoyable is a nicely sleazy touch where the killer fondles a nude victim for several minutes for no reason giving this a nice touch of necrophilia added to the mix, but that's all the good points here. Among the film's biggest flaws here are the completely out-of-character mannerisms affected to the killer. The fact that the killer is shown off five minutes into the running is a huge departure for the genre which leaves one of the greatest qualities in the genre to be completely voided out. That means we get to see him interacting on-screen with a fake eye-piece and a sluggish limp trying to chase after younger, healthier victims who are struck down by his physical stature allowing for a series of some of the most laughable and awkward kill scenes here featuring no gore and very little actual interaction leaving this to feature scenes including strangulation, heart attack or shadow actions on the wall behind them exposing some of the most atrocious gore effects ever filmed as the aftermath shots. These are wholly disappointing and depressing which lowers the film significantly. That also leads to the wholly detrimental factor of how cheap and lay the film is. The overwhelming sense throughout here is one of incompetence, from the lack of locations to the inability to tell anyone apart because it's rarely giving out names for people or the utterly infuriating way things drag out simply to allow them to remain in the killers' crosshairs. These here are so poorly handled that the film comes off with little semblance of rational thought where the group is continually going out to look for people alone without coming up with reasonable motivations to do so. The last flaw here, and another stalwart example of the films' incompetence is the finale, which is the greatest, most creative, unique and mind-numbingly infuriating way to end a film ever which absolutely screams they've run out of money and had to do something to end this. It's insulting and leaves this on a forgettable note.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Full Nudity, Violence, a rape attempt and violence-against-animals.

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.

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.

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.

I always wondered about the spelling of the title of this film. Turns out it is simply 'trauma' misspelled. Not a great start!

Going into this, you would be forgiven for thinking that it is going to be a giallo but to all intents and purposes this is a slasher film, albeit one with some Italian flavour. It was made in the wake of the enormous success of the American film Halloween (1978), which at the time was in the Guinness Book of Records as the most successful independent film ever made. Unsurprisingly this led to a few films that riffed off its basic idea, Trhauma is one of those. As such, unlike its giallo brethren, it has decidedly less plot to it and it replaces the mystery element with extended stalk sequences. It also seems to be a somewhat lower budget film too, with limited sets, obscure actors and a basic score. The latter compromises mainly of a repetitive synth track but kicks things off with an unexpected upbeat disco number to accompany the credits – well it was the glitter ball age I guess.

The plot-line is set in motion by a short prologue and then the main story kicks in, which is essentially about party guests at a remote villa being killed one by one by a disfigured psychopath. It's not overly graphically violent, with much of the killings happening off-screen, although there was one rather creepy scene of necrophilia. It's mostly unremarkable and not terribly interesting stuff though but there are some aspects that are noteworthy, such as the fact that the killer is paid for his murders in Lego! It also, really isn't difficult working out what's going on behind the scenes and you can work out the 'twist' so easily, you actually wonder if it really is a twist at all. What was less predictable was the jarringly sudden ending. While it was unexpected, it was also not very satisfying either! The movie's run-time is pretty short, which is probably to be expected given the lack of material but was nevertheless a good thing overall.