Démence

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.

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.

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.

Like all my fellow reviewers, I clearly also couldn't resist making a remark about the spelling error in the title. It's just so unfathomable! It's a one-word title and making a film is supposedly a full-time occupation; how is it humanly possible to mess this up? Excellent job done by everyone even remotely involved in this production! In the other user-comments, I read that "Trhauma" is a belated giallo, because it's Italian, and a slasher inspired by Carpenter's "Halloween" because it got released shortly after. This is, however, merely just wishful thinking. In the end, it's nothing but a very lousy and zero-budgeted amateur horror film, made by and starring a bunch of nobodies.

The prologue introduces two 9-ish year old boys playing around in a forestry region. The smallest one is an irritating brat who commands the taller (and mentally underdeveloped) one to climb into a tree. He falls. After the opening credits, we are in the middle of a friends' weekend taking place in the country mansion of a continuously bickering couple. There aren't any proper character introductions or explanation on who these people are, though. In the film's absolute funniest scene, a really fat bloke just steps out of his car, throws off his clothes whilst crossing the garden and jumps into the pool. After that, everyone simply gets butchered by a savage maniac who turns out to be the dim-witted kid from the prologue (you can recognize him by his one missing eye).

Simply put, "Trhauma" is unimaginably bad! There isn't the slightly sign of tension-building, character development or coherence in the script. Due to the nonexistent budget, the murder sequences either occur off-screen or look very pitiable. If I would have to give an explanation on why this movie is still somewhat seen as a cult gem, it's probably because of two minor aspects: 1) there's a repulsive and 100% gratuitous necrophilia sequence and (2) the maniac killer still is the marionette of the same bully kid who rewards the murders with Lego boxes! The acting, directing, editing and cinematography are horrendous, but do stick around just in case in you are interested in witnessing the most moronic ending in horror history.