Trhauma

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.

A group of people spend a weekend at a friend's house.One of the females is killed by a disfigured maniac using a machete.Then he rapes her corpse post-mortem.The other guests becomes worried about the absence of first victim.Soon they are all stalked and murdered by crazed killer.Very entertaining and pretty sleazy Italian giallo/slasher directed by Gianni Martucci,the man behind deadly dull "The Red Monks"."Trhauma" is a very beautiful giallo/slasher obviously inspired by "Halloween".The location used is serene and eerie and when you add some lovely and often fully naked ladies into the mix you have a giallo that was probably a lot of fun to make.Director Gianni Martucci manages to keep things interesting with only his small cast to rely on and fills the plot with gruesome murders.8 out of 10.

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.

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.

Andrea (Gaetano Russo) and Lilly (Domitilla Cavazza) invite a group of friends to spend the weekend at their country villa.

Guest Paul (Timothy Wood) escorts Olga (Anna Maria Chiatante) into the woods to take some photographs. Paul tells Olga to 'drop her dress'; she happily obliges to reveal that she is wearing nothing underneath. Trhauma ticks the nudity box early on.

Paul has an argument with Olga and leaves the woman on her own. She is attacked and killed by a drooling, half-blind loony with a gammy leg (Per Holgher) who makes out with her dead body, taking time out to strangle a dog. Trhauma also quickly establishes itself as sleazy and twisted.

The killer then goes to his home where he meets a mysterious figure who pays him for his nefarious work… in plastic building bricks (not even Lego, but some dodgy knock-off rubbish, like you would get down the market): Trhauma takes the weirdness factor up a few notches.

So far, so entertaining.

Unfortunately, the film then turns into a rather routine slasher that clearly takes its cues from John Carpenter's Halloween, but without that film's high-calibre cast or sense of style. Characters wander round the woods and are routinely dispatched by the psycho until only 'final girl' Lilly is left to discover the mutilated bodies littering her property, which might have been fun if there had been some decent gore—but there isn't.

A final 'twist' is extremely easy to predict and the film closes in an incredibly abrupt fashion, leaving me to wonder whether I had a dodgy copy that was somehow missing the real ending.