The Best Horror Movie You Never Saw series looks back at the 1993 Dario Argento film Trauma, with FX by Tom Savini
It can be hard to tell sometimes what is a Best Horror Movie You Never Saw. You look at the credentials on a particular film without looking at the title and surely it has to be a mega popular hit. You have Italian mega director Dario Argento, Oscar nominated Piper Laurie, James Russo, Brad Douriff, and special effects by another master of his craft in none other than Tom Savini. I set you up with all those names and accomplishments and maybe you wrack your brain on the possibility that you have seen or even heard of the movie. But I say have you seen the 1993 horror movie Trauma (watch it HERE) and I’m guessing for most people, the answer will be no. That is a sure fire way for a movie to end up on this show and that’s why today you will learn why Trauma is one of the Best Horror Movies You Never Saw.
I’ll be honest. The reason I’m showcasing this movie is two fold. On the one hand, we recently learned that horror legend Brad Dourif is retiring apart from his work in the Child’s Play universe and if you look at his career, there is so much more to discover. The other reason is that I’m a huge Italian horror fan in general and specifically consider Dario Argento to be one of the best directors of horror that we ever had. For those of you that don’t get into Italian horror, looking at you Lance Vlcek, Trauma is a good way to dip your toe into it. It follows all the principles of your typical Giallo thriller, has some wonderful gore effects so long as you are watching the right version, and is one of the man’s few American efforts that is in English without being dubbed. It’s a Giallo gateway if you will.
Trauma starts with a lot of the hallmarks the genre offers. We have a rainy night, a character discussing a mysterious visitor, in this case a chiropractic office getting a new patient, and we see who the killer is clearly. Well, we see what Argento wants us to see as the person is dressed in all black with black gloves and carries with them a bag that contains another wonderful hallmark of Italian horror, the murder weapon. We don’t see the face or hear the voice of the killer or even find out if it’s a man or a woman, but we do see our first of many brutal killings. This is just to set up that there is a killer for the movie and show off their weapon of choice. That weapon? A motorized wire decapitator that effects designer Tom Savini called the Noose-o-Matic. According to the book Dario Argento: The Man, the Myth, the Legend by Alan Jones, Savini wasn’t even sure what the murder weapon would be at first but was tasked with creating one anyway and put it all together when he went to the hardware store. There was also a conceived but never shot scene where Savini himself was decapitated, setting off the killers, well, trauma, and setting the movie in motion.
Savini has been a legend for nearly 50 years and had worked with Argento before in another Best Horror that now you have hopefully seen after we talked about it, Two Evil Eyes. I won’t go over Savini as, I mean, he’s Tom freaking Savini. Argento is a different story, especially for those that haven’t gone all in on Italian horror. You can take your pick from supernatural horror like Suspiria or Inferno or any of his stellar Giallo entries like Deep Red or Opera. There is something for everyone, you just have to give it a try. Argento directed and co-wrote Trauma with his frequent collaborator Franco Ferrini. Ferrini also helped out with things like Phenomena and the previously mentioned Opera.
After the movies first kill, we are introduced to our two main characters of David and Aura who are played by Christopher Rydell and Argento’s daughter Asia. Asia Argento has made a great career for herself both in her father’s movies and others in horror and out. Rydell wasn’t the first choice for the role, but it was turned down by the likes of Tim Roth, James Spader, and John Cusack. While all of those choices would have turned in fine, different, and nuanced performances, Rydell holds his own here. He got in as a huge fan of Argento’s work and in a fun moment, this Argento movie is probably what he is best known for. The cast is rounded out by Oscar nominees Piper Laurie and Frederic Forrest as well as James Russo and Brad Douriff. David stops Aura from killing herself by jumping off a bridge. She has an eating disorder and had escaped a hospital but is found by police and returned to her parents. David is a former drug addict and writes segments for the news on TV. The evening of Aura’s return, her parents are helping find the identity of the serial killer we saw earlier via a séance. It goes wrong and both Aura’s parents are killed by the person known as the Headhunter who shows poor Aura the heads of both her parents.
The movie has more than just Ferrini and Argento as screenwriters with a handful of other people working on the story, script, and even additional dialogue. It does show as there are quite a few story lines. We follow a little boy named Gabriel who lives next door to the killer, all of the victims that the Headhunter is looking for, and the police. We also have Aura’s eating disorder that, while obviously a serious thing, doesn’t really go anywhere within the bounds of the movie. Even with the story being bloated and sure, the movie being maybe a tad too long, there is a lot to like here. The main characters continue to investigate and find out that the killer only strikes during storms. One of the most interesting set pieces in the movie is during another kill in a hotel room where it isn’t storming outside, but the killer sets off the fire alarm and sprinklers to make it rain in the room and follow their own rule. In true Giallo fashion, this is because the inciting incident that happened to the killer happened during a storm.
While Rydell and even a very young Asia Argento may feel a little weak in the acting department, the great character actors more than make up for it. Piper Laurie, in a small role for the actress, is great as Aura’s mom and psychic. Frederic Forrest is a pervy psychologist and part time red herring, James Russo as a police captain investigating the killings and attempting to find out how our leads are related, and finally Brad Douriff. Douriff has a small but impactful role. Our main characters finally link the killings together to the fact that nurses who worked at a specific time in a specific hospital are getting targeted specifically. Douriff plays Dr. Lloyd who was the group of nurse’s superiors but has since lost his license and fallen into drugs.
He doesn’t want to talk to David about what may or may not have happened during that time but since he was involved, you better believe the killer has eyes, and a handheld guillotine, for our Dr. Lloyd. Dourif may have a small part but gets the movie’s best death which is very fitting for such an icon. A necklace he is wearing jams the murderer’s weapon so the killer drags his body, still weak from the signature blow to the head that incapacitates his victims, over to the elevator shaft and has the elevator do the job for him. We even get a neat effect where Durifs decapitated but somehow still functional head screams all the way down the shaft. Just gory goodness for us to enjoy. While it is a short and bloody role for Dourif, its just another example of how much we will miss this incredible talent on the big screen and that he proved he was oh so much more than just cinema’s scariest murder doll.
Dr. Judd, Aura’s former psychologist who we have already seen go a little crazy around her, attacks Aura in her sleep and escapes after David tries to fight him off and the police arrive. After a short chase and deadly crash, the police find some heads of the victims in his trunk and conclude that Judd was the headhunter. David returns and is heartbroken to find a suicide note from Aura but no body. He falls into a depression and drugs again but see’s a shady figure wearing a bracelet he knew to belong to Aura. He follows them to a house, and we find out that Dr. Judd wasn’t the killer but who was? I know I discuss a lot of these movies at length but ruining the surprise of a Giallo movie just isn’t something I’m willing to live with. I will say, it follows the rules well that it’s not supernatural and that there are clues left to you to solve the mystery yourself.
Trauma was released in 1993 first in Dario’s home of Italy on March 12th, followed by the festival circuits and a very limited US release at the end of October. It was so limited, in fact, that I can’t find how much it made at the box office against its estimated 7-million-dollar budget. 1993 wasn’t exactly a sleeper of a year for movies and it had to go against quite a few heavy hitters both holding over from previous months as well as films released at the tail end of October and into November. The reviews were kind of down on it, seeing it as a lesser de Palma imitator which is kind of funny since Argento was making similar suspense and horror films in Italy while De Palma was doing the same here. If anything, they were contemporaries and I even see De Palma as making really great American Giallo’s such as his masterpiece Dressed to Kill.
While its hard to tell when Argento stopped being a master of his craft as nearly all of the greats, particularly in the horror realm, seem to hang around just a bit too long, this is certainly not it. While it doesn’t quite hold up to his earlier works, it has all of his hallmarks and could have been even more as it was cut down in a lot of areas. Even Piper Laurie’s death was originally supposed to have the wire come through her mouth and take the top part off rather than the whole head. Thankfully we have a wonderful Blu-ray packed with extras curtesy of our friends at Vinegar Syndrome. Even with what could have been, what we did get was a fun horror movie from Argento, a great appearance from Brad Dourif, and undoubtedly one of the Best Horror Movies You Never Saw.
A couple previous episodes of the Best Horror Movie You Never Saw series can be seen below. To see more, and to check out some of our other shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!