Traumatika review
Despite…or maybe because of…some weird choices, Traumatika can’t help but hold your attention.
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Traumatika
Directed by Pierre Tsigaridis
Written by Maxine Rancon and Pierre Tsigaridis
Starring Rebekah Kennedy, Emily Goss, Ranen Navat, AJ Bowen, Sean O’Bryan, Susan Gayle Watts and Sean Whalen
Traumatika Review
I wish the lights would have been on when I watched Traumatika. Not because it’s so terrifying that I felt uncomfortable…so that I could have looked around and seen what other people’s faces looked like at several points in the film. Traumatika makes a lot of odd choices. It skips around time, changing protagonists, at the drop of a hat. It follows up a genuinely compelling scene by immediately backing off what made it so interesting and doubling down on something far more routine. The first act seems intent on delivering shocking imagery in a way that can’t help but feel like it’s trying too hard to be controversial. It makes a character completely unlikable only to immediately give them a heroic moment and unearned ending. But here’s the thing about Traumatika and all of its weird decisions. They kind of work.
The basic premise of Traumatika is that a demon has been set loose. We’re told that this demon targets children…but that simply ceases to be the case when the story abruptly jumps two decades ahead, and it targets adults. I don’t know. I didn’t write it. Had I written it…I can’t imagine making any of the narrative choices that ended up in the script. And that would have been a shame. Because those peculiarities are exactly what makes Traumatika stand out.
The story begins with a missing child held captive by a young woman named Abigail (Rebekah Kennedy). She is seemingly possessed by a demon. This part of the movie uses a lot of first person camera work and even more recycled scare attempts. Eventually, the story jumps back in time a year to tell us the story of the young woman…and the demon that has infected her life. It’s a bleak one…complete with a rape by her father/the demon and a coat hanger abortion. Edgy, right? Abigail’s father is the one responsible for unleashing the demon from an artifact. That reminds me…Traumatika actually opens in the desert with an unnamed man cursing the object for what it has done to his son. Other than a brief cut back to remind us that this happened…that’s all we get of that story.
Having aborted the demon’s child…the woman is commanded to find another child to take his place in whatever the demon’s plan is. Given that there are a few child-sized bodies in the woman’s basement…you can guess how this goes. A bloody (and, at times, unintentionally funny) resolution awaits these characters until the story jumps twenty years forward to focus on…the young woman’s little sister, Alice (Emily Goss). It’s Halloween night and Alice is watching her appearance on Karen Novak’s (Susan Gayle Watts) television show which is covering the events Abigail was involved in two decades earlier. Abigail is frustrated about the way Novak is presenting the story…though I genuinely couldn’t tell what the problem was.
This is where Traumatika becomes an oddly compelling watch. There’s a scene on that Halloween night that finds the perfect use for the movie’s in-your-face horror imagery and undeniably wacky storytelling. It involves Alice and a character from the first half of the story…and, honestly, it’s one of the most interesting scenes of the year. That is until the script goes back off the rails by throwing an unintroduced character onto the screen to reduce the impact of what was just set-up. You’ll understand what I mean when you see it. Which you should. Because this movie is equal part intentionally and unintentionally entertaining.
Time jumps forward another day or two in a fashion so jarring I wasn’t sure I hadn’t blacked out for a scene or two. We’ve also jumped to Novak’s perspective after only previously seeing her on a laptop inside Alice’s story. It’s narratively wild. Traumatika throws a middle finger at every basic rule of screenwriting it can think of. And I don’t think it’s doing it on purpose. But I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work. There are six different characters who briefly take over the role of scene protagonist. Seven if you include that cold open in the desert. This often happens with little to no set-up…and less explanation. Simply because…someone has to do it. I was flabbergasted every time. This isn’t a Rashomon-style narrative design…or a Weapons-like way of relaying information. It just…happens sometimes.
And it works. In spite of, or because of, its unique design…Traumatika works. My eyes may have rolled into the back of my head on more than one occasion…but they spent the rest of Traumatika’s short runtime glued to the screen. Partially in disbelief at some of its choices. Partially in disbelief over how well they came together to make something that feels fresh and new. I just wish I could have seen how everyone else was reacting to it.
Scare Value
Whether the choices are intentional or not…Traumatika adds up to more than the sum of its strange parts. Sometimes we’re watching a child call 911…sometimes we’re watching a police officer investigate. Sometimes its 2003…sometimes its 2002. Eventually its 2023. We take the perspective of a TV journalist, a possessed father, a possessed daughter and a grown-up younger daughter who had almost nothing to do with the story before she takes its reigns. I don’t know quite how to describe what Traumatika is. And I’ll never be able to explain how it managed to work. But I think that it did.
3/5
Traumatika Link
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