Traumatika
The terror Mikey (Ranen Navat) experiences as a young boy at the hands of his 'mother' (Rebekah Kennedy) will manifest itself as evil when he reaches adulthood in "Traumatika."
Laura's Review: C
In the press notes, cowriter (with his "Two Witches" collaborator Maxime Rançon)/director/cinematographer/editor Pierre Tsigaridis claims to be illustrating how childhood trauma can foster evil, but while there is indeed plenty of evidence indicating childhood abuse may foster criminal and deviant behavior in later years, the filmmaker seems more intent on mashing together horror genres for maximum effect.
Beginning with a 1910 prologue right out of the "Exorcist," a Syrian buries an artifact in the sand before committing suicide. Jump ahead to 2003 and it is sitting before John Reed (Sean O'Bryan, "Olympus Has Fallen"), who gets a call from Steve (Sean Whalen, "Idle Hands," "3 from Hell"), who tells him it houses the demon Volpaazu, a demon who preys on children, and begs him not to open it. John, an alcoholic whose wife is divorcing him and has inexplicably left her two daughters in his care, has already been raping his eldest, the teenaged Abigail (Kennedy), so what's another evil entity? Of course he opens it. Abigail, already traumatized, is not only about to be attacked by her newly demonically possessed dad, but will have him drool Volpaazu into her mouth as he does it. Abigail, wavering between her own identity and her new one, will resist the pleas of her little sister Alice to not leave, realizing that she would only endanger the girl. John will awaken from his blackout the next morning with no idea what happened, but Abigail is gone and when his ex suggests she may have gone to her grandparents' house, one which burned down, he rejects the idea.
As Tsigaridis tells the first half of his story out of order, we've already seen that that is exactly where she is, the decrepit structure with its burnt walls suggesting hell on earth. Mikey, who's been being terrorized by her, calls 911 from hiding to report his mommy 'scares him at night.' Sheriff Miller (AJ Bowen, "You're Next") arrives and makes his way in, but even though he calls for backup after finding a bathtub full of blood and three bodies in the basement, things never go well for lone cops in horror movies.
Tsigaridis has a talent for conjuring up creepy images, although they're often borrowed, contorted body movement having become de rigueur for possessions long ago, or hit and miss, the black ink streaming from John Reed's eyes not terribly convincing (John often appears to Abigail as Volpaazu when a more demonic looking creature (played by Rancon) isn't around. It is only as Abigail sits watching television with Mikey that we realize she is not his 'mommy,' as he calls her, his real one (Naomi Petit) seen pleading for his return on the news.
We'll see her some twenty years later being interviewed on Jennifer Novac's (Susan Gayle Watts) true crime show, talking about how Mikey was never the same after his kidnapping. Watching that program is the now grown up Alice (Emily Goss) who has written a book about the Pasadena murders and is now horrified to see her own interview on a show being advertised as a 'Halloween special' by its exploitative host. And it is "Halloween" Tsigaridis now goes to for inspiration, the non-speaking 'kid' who shows up trick or treating in a sheet with eyehole's identity obvious to all but Alice.
"Traumatika" is a grab bag of horrific images in a film of two very different parts, the first demonic possession, the second a garden variety slasher pick which criticizes the media for exploiting the same things that this movie does. It's not a bad film, just not a very narratively inspired one (see 2022's Belgian entry "Megalomaniac" for a much better take on the same theme). The film may have been improved with edgier music, Gioacchino Marincola's cheesy, derivative score only emphasizing the 'been there, done that' of it all.
Robin's Review: B-
Saban Films releases "Traumatika" in theaters on 9/12/25.
