Trauma (1993)

Dario Argento

Italy / USA

106 min, color, English

Review © 2006 Branislav L. Slantchev

Almost universally reviled by Argento fans, this film is somewhat of an enigma. The director himself claims that it is "classic Argento" but he is either lying through his teeth or does not have the foggiest clue what makes his classic films so good. The film is not as bad as many would have one believe, at least it's way better than that abomination Phantom of the Opera that Argento would inflict on long-suffering fans several years later. However, it is among the weaker entries in the director's opus despite the many elements it shares with his really classic gialli.

Typical horror film opening	Asia hates eggs benedict

This was the first film Argento shot in the US (Minneapolis, to be precise) with major American backing. It certainly looks very professional, with plenty of complicated camera setups, technically challenging shots involving cranes and long tracking, and actors who usually would not touch such fare, like Piper Laurie. Paradoxically, the very slickness makes it look like cheap B-grade horror flick. There are several reasons for this. First, the locations are unimaginative and soulless unlike the architecturally-inspired European locales that Argento usually chooses for his films. The problem is that these Victorian-style houses in American suburbs have been the setting of way too many Stephen King-inspired horror films, and by now have completely lost credibility or interest.

Traumatized by a domineering mother	Romanian medium scam

The second problem is that actors hamming their way through the script somehow fit the Euro-setting in a way that is totally incongruous here. It is actually painful to watch Piper Laurie, for example, not to mention the lead Christopher Rydell who is very believable as an average schmuck but somehow does not quite make the protagonist that can carry a film. Asia Argento is still new to acting here and it shows too, although I cannot fault her as much as the others (probably because I like her a lot). The third problem is that the American setting invokes too many ghosts of directors like Hitchcock and De Palma, and unfortunately the comparison does not favor Argento here.

Not singing in the rain	This guy bangs the news girl

If anyone is to be blamed for these lapses, it has to be Argento himself. Why would he neglect his visual style and trade his inspired pacing for the bland and flat approach used in this film, I will never know. I am not impressed by technical shots, mostly because as a regular movie-goer I have been inured to dazzlingly professional execution that Hollywood provides without fail. It's not that I do not like it (I very much do), but that I cannot forgive a director for putting all his eggs into that particular basket. Argento has never been known for particularly coherent or interesting stories, and most of his success rests squarely with the way he translates them onto the silver screen. So his movies rise and fall with the execution. It does not bode well when the average gen-X Hollywood schlock looks better.

Gratuitous shot of Asia Argento	Unexplained symbolism #1

It's not like the film does not have all the ingredients of a classic Argento. There's the unseen killer and the prowling camera with the psycho's point of view. There are the gloved hands doing bad things to people. There is the animal symbolism (which I did not get, just like I did not get the scenes with the woman floating in a fireplace or Asia unreeling the tape from a VHS cassette). There is the heroine suffering from mental disorder (in this case, anorexia) although this bit was not connected to the plot in any satisfying manner. There is the unlikely protagonist who is trying to solve the murders and is one step ahead of the useless police. There are also enough red herrings to make a fine Norwegian salad. But it's like Argento has lost the cookbook: he has all the ingredients and yet the soup is a vapid mishmash at best.

Not buying shrink's approach	This crystal head has more brains than I do

The other major disappointment with the film is that it is not nearly as innovative in the violence department as Argento's classic films. The unseen killer is a one-trick pony. It's nice that Argento and Savini came up with the automated pocket guillotine (a contraption that runs on batteries and pulls in a string noose presumably cutting through everything caught in it), and the scenes involving decapitations are really well done, which means they are quite stomach-churning and disgusting. But that's how all the murders are done in this film. Sure, the killer knocks some of the victims on their heads with a hammer, but that's just a cheap way to "explain" why they remain immobile while the head detachment procedure is performed. It also did not help that some of the severed heads continued talking in Shakespearean fashion.

I wanna get some of those berries myself	Unexplained symbolism #2

The character development is, as usual, non-existent. Normally, that would not be a problem for a film of this type. However, Argento clearly wanted to make something out of the heroine's illness and so one would expect to see something happening with that. But in the end, Aura's anorexia is just another slogan: woo-hoo, look at me, I came up with this awful sickness that afflicts nearly a million girls in the US alone, and it's very bizarre and tragic, and so on. All of that may be true, but what was the point of making Aura anorexic? At one point there's a hint that it has to do with an authoritarian mother, which is fine except it's not the domineering part of her mother's personality that's the problem. Or perhaps it was to give David an excuse to look after her? But since she's pretty enough, there's no reason for that either. And what was the point of her dreaming of her father leaning over her in bed? Maybe Freudians will have a field day with all this incoherent and peripheral imagery, but for me it was all just distracting and uninteresting.

That's what you get with an HMO	Escape from the loony bin

There was actually a glimpse of the film going into the classic Argento area where memories form the backbone of the story. When Aura was sitting in Dr Judd's office, he tells her that the head is the repository of the soul, which needs memories to be alive. That's all very Platonic, of course, with the soul essentially having forgotten its real identity and one's life being an attempt to remember it in order to obtain release from physical existence and return to the ideal. So it would have been nice to see Argento actually do something with that notion when Aura ingested the berry that forced her to remember images she had tried to suppress. But that's just another dead end in the script.

You're not a killer, just a thief	Who would have thought severed heads were so chatty

Then there's the potentially intriguing angle about the killer's motivation which also has to do with memory and its attempted suppression, this time by external intervention and the use of electro-shock therapy. This one is particularly interesting because the attempt to erase the memory of an awful accident actually turns the patient into a psychopath who believes that a voice of a dead baby is commanding the execution of the perpetrators. Unfortunately, this revelation comes in a laughably lame manner at the very end of the film and serves only to explain to us, the exasperated audience, why in the world the killer committed all these murders. As such, it has no value whatsoever, not to mention that the connection between the storm on the fateful night years ago and the killer's need to murder when it rains is tenuous at best. Another thing that is never adequately addressed is why the killer has waited all those years to go on the bloody rampage. (I hear that there was supposed to be a scene where Tom Savini is accidentally decapitated and the witnessing of this scene actually triggers the killer's subconscious desire to avenge the trauma these others have inflicted years ago).

Not what it looks like (thank God)	Dr Loyd, M.D. Guadalajara Correspondence School

So I am not very happy with the film. The film is incoherent although not in terms of the story, which is fairly linear despite the annoying distractions like the bespectacled kid who lives next door to the killer and sees the implement of death as well as at least one severed head and is artificially put into several situations which I am sure were supposed to be heart-pounding. The narrative is incoherent because there is no additional level beyond the "that person's crazy because of that old trauma and killing ensues" or "that other person is anorexic because... I have no idea and this leads to... I have no idea." If anyone can uncover anything interesting going on below the surface here, I am all ears. Argento usually does have something to say beyond the typical stylish killing of people, but here the maestro is mute. And it's no excuse that he filmed this in the US, which probably meant he had to take cognizance of the market.

Primitive neck measurement technique	No seat belt

Trauma does not hold a candle to Argento's classic gialli, and methinks the director doth protest too much in the interview about the film. Not only does he call it "classic" but he goes on and on about how good the actors were, which they most certainly were not. He also talks at length about the enthusiasm Americans have when making movies, which is probably true although just how that is supposed to matter when the scene we're repeatedly shown in that context is a lame car crash, I have no idea. Tom Savini is pretty good with the special effects even if that severed head flying down the elevator shaft was too obviously combined with the background. (And it going "Aaaaaaah!" did not improve matters either.) The drenching rain that is so pivotal to Argento (check out the excellent scenes in Suspiria and Inferno, for example) did not induce the same menacing feeling it was supposed to. I do not know why, it just did not. Perhaps rain in Minnesota is not quite the same as rain in Rome or Freiburg.

Hi, I have come to get killed	It all ends, as usual, in a basement

The Anchor Bay DVD is excellent, and much better than the earlier R2 releases in the UK (Tartan and Optimum, the first one of which I still own if anyone wants it). The film is presented in its OAR of 2.35:1 (the cover mistakenly says 1.85:1) and is anamorphic. It looks fairly decent with no apparent damage and with good contrast although some of the scenes appear a bit too dark. I listened to the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track, which was very nice and there's a stereo alternative, also in English. There are no subtitles. The extras include a feature-length commentary, an interview with Dario Argento, an 8 minute short film of Tom Savini running around the set with a hand-held, some deleted scenes which were deleted for good reason, trailers, a text-only short bio of Argento, and a still gallery. Since Argento fans would want to own this film even if it's such a dud, this is the DVD to buy.

December 3, 2006