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List Price: $19.97 | | Label: Starz / Anchor Bay
Salesrank: 56226
Released: August 23, 2005 |
| Our Price: $9.24 |
| Used Price: $4.00 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
An anorexic young woman escapes from a psychiatric clinic and meets a young man who wants to help. She is caught and returned to her parents, who are soon beheaded by a garrotting stranger making the rounds about town, apparently striking only when it rains. The orphaned young woman and her new lover launch their own investigation and are endangered when a link is discovered with the victims and a particular operation performed years before.
Trauma Reviews:
Argento's best post-1987 work... 
2008-11-21 - I'm a huge Dario Argento fan, but like most of his fans, have been very disappointed by his post-1987 work, which ranges from mediocre to abysmal. This film, finally available in its uncut form at 106 minutes (most VHS version ran around 86 minutes) and widescreen, is a lot better than almost all of Argento's work after 1987. It isn't perfect, but it's very watchable and quite extraordinary at times.
This was Argento's first foray into American filmmaking, and while that could have been a recipe for disaster, it's not. The film is extremely well shot, with some fantastic camera work (it wouldn't be an Argento film if it wasn't), a surprisingly good performance by Dario's daugher Asia (most of Dario's films have mediocre to bad acting), and a somewhat coherent plot. It's also nice to see actors who aren't badly dubbed into English for once in his work. All of the dialogue is in English here. Christopher Rydell, the lead actor, is pretty good, and some of the supporting actors (especially Rydell's boss at the TV station) are surprisingly good. Unfortunately, the dialogue isn't very good, the music score is very, very conventional, and James Russo's police detective has some scenes that just jump into the film without a moment's notice. There are highly questionable character motivations, and the fact that Asia Argento's character is anoxeric really doesn't have any point other than she's anoxeric. Dario doesn't really explore this plot point at all, other than a striking shot from a moving car that focuses on overly thin women. But the revelation at the end of the film is quite shocking and strikingly shot, and it does pack quite a jolt. There are some intense scenes, especially when a boy from the neighborhood is spying on a person who might be the killer. There's not much gore here, and Tom Savini's effects don't really stand out like they do on other films. The only really memorable gore scene is when a woman's head is sawed off, and the head still manages to talk to Rydell. There's also a scene in an asylum that's really surreal and memorable.
If you are a Dario Argento film, you should really watch this. There's a lot in it to enjoy, especially since this DVD is the uncut version. Dario has always had problems with distributors in this country on almost every movie he's made, and it hasn't been gore that's the problem. They always leave all the gore in; they just hack up the plot, making the films even more incoherent. Make sure you check this one out. It's one of Argento's most underrated, and the best film from his later period (even though I haven't seen everything from that period).
Repetitious, Unrealistic Giallo From Dario Argento 
2008-04-09 - Dario Argento directed "Trauma" as well as the masterpiece "Deep Red," one of the most superior Italian gialli ever made. The most gruesome scene in "Deep Red" is the slow decapitation death of the serial killer when a chain is slowly pulled through his/her neck. This scene is repeated many times in "Trauma" when the black-gloved killer, known in the newspapers as "The Headhunter," leisurely decapitates his/her victims with mechanically operated piano wire. What is the connection between the victims and why is the killer doing it?
Asia Argento (daughter of Dario Argento) is a bulemic who must hunt for the person responsible for beheading her two parents. Laurie Piper (who played Carrie White's mother in "Carrie") is Asia's strange mom who was performing a séance on the night she lost her head. Christopher Rydell is the young man who risks everything in order to help Asia track down the serial killer before he/she can kill the last victims.
"Trauma" takes a serious departure from reality when a decapitated head utters the name of a doctor before "dying" and another head screams as it falls down an elevator shaft. This last scene was almost comical in its implausibility. However, this modern giallo does offer some mystery and suspense even if the murders are repetitious. A nice rock n' roll score would've helped. Perhaps a score from "Talking Heads?"
An OK movie with a ludicrous ending 
2008-03-25 - I feel very indifferent about "Trauma". It's not a great movie, but it's also not so bad that I feel like ripping it apart for 300 words. "Trauma" was made after, what is considered by many to be, the peak period of Dario Argento's career (the period between "Deep Red" and "Opera", which also includes "Suspiria", "Phenomenon" and "Tenebrae" - let's just pretend that "Inferno" doesn't exist), and is the beginning of a period of films that are not so much bad, as simply inferior to their great predecessors.
"Trauma"'s plot is very simple. Anorexic teenager, Aura (played by Argento's teenage daughter, Asia Argento), witnesses the deaths of her psychic parents at the hands of the Head Hunter, a serial killer who, as the names suggests, decapitates his victims. With the help of a news artist (Christopher Rydell), Aura then sets about solving the murders. You can probably fill in the rest. Nothing about this film really stands out: the acting is mediocre, the plot is mediocre; the only exception to this is the ending, which is so ludicrous that it is (unintentionally) laugh-aloud funny. This film is basically of the caliber of your average straight-to-DVD movie or tele-movie, and is only disappointing when you realize just how brilliant some of Argento's previous works truly are.
Bellissimo.
2008-03-11 - My four star rating is only in comparison to Argentos previous work, this still destroy's mostly anything else that does'nt have Agento's name on it. Trauma walks a fine line between 'classic' Argento and a failure to live up to his previous standards. If you compare it shot-by-shot (like I have) to his best work it's really not that far off, but as a whole it doesn't come close to film's like Suspiria, Tenebre, Deep Red, Opera ect. While it does'nt reach the level of those film's those are pretty high standards, and I'd still rather watch this than well...non-Argento film's. The special effects are done by Tom Savini (talk about a match made in heaven!!!!) and there are some pretty great effect's and gore, but the deaths are'nt as 'beautiful' (bellissimo!!!) as his earlier film's. Sadly Trauma was intended to be Dario's goriest film but the suits had to interfere. Argento and Savini were very upset by this (as am I), some more gore really would have upped the ante.
There is no Goblin music in this one which kind of hurts the rating but the orchestral score was still pretty good. I'd be lying if I said I did'nt miss the Goblin boys though.
Overall Trauma is a must see for fan's of Argento, there are pleny of classic Argento qualities like great lighting and cinematography, awesomely bizarre plot lines, and good death scenes, just don't go expecting Suspiria or anything. Highly recommended.
For Argento completists
2008-02-17 - Dario Argento's first US feature, Trauma, is a film I'd like to like more, partially because it's obviously so personal for Argento but largely because it's depressing to see how ineffectual most of his later films are. In many ways this feels like the work of an overambitious newbie rather than an experienced director: shots seem clumsily timed, performance styles are all over the place and the script is an undisciplined mess of good and bad ideas. Partially inspired by his stepdaughter's anorexia (she can be seen dancing in the film's end credits) to shock her out of it - an intention that would seem to be somewhat undone by Asia Argento taking dieting tips from her to play the troubled anorexic lead - much of it feels like an awkward reworking of past hits. Like Profondo Rosso/Deep Red the plot is triggered by a séance where a medium identifies a killer among those present, and the film features such Argento favorites as ill-fated lizards, elevator-assisted decapitations and a twist that hinges on a misinterpretation of what you think you see (although in this case the key shot is so badly photographed you literally CAN'T see it).
There are a few very subtle references to Les Miserables and the French Revolution (most pleasingly in a shot of Piper Laurie in front of a window with the curtain drawn aside to look like a guillotine blade) thrown in along with other half-developed ideas, but even the seemingly foolproof sequences are executed in a haphazard and workmanlike fashion, although there is one nicely inspired moment of improvisation when a killer who only strikes during rainstorms has to despatch a victim in a hotel room on a clear day. Argento's former visual prowess is little in evidence, the mastery of color that was such a feature of his earlier films reduced to a bland palette, but unfortunately many of his old weaknesses are all too apparent. Chief among them is a lot of really terrible acting: between Piper Laurie's tiresome histrionics and Frederic Forrest's Dwight Frye School of Overacting mad doctor, this may be one of the few films where Brad Dourif seems comparatively grounded. Neither of the leads, both played by the children of directors, can compensate, with Christopher Rydell faring only slightly better than Asia Argento, whose offscreen commitment to the role never translates onscreen.
If you're an Argento completist there's probably a bit more here than for the casual viewer, but it's thin stuff, though Anchor Bay's Region 1 NTSC DVD is fairly generous on extras, including four scenes deleted from the US version (two of which are minor plot points somewhat confusingly directly referred to in the US version).
