Trauma (1993)

By 1993 Dario Argento was becoming well-known enough internationally for American film companies to have interest in backing his movies.  He had made features based, and sometimes partially filmed in, New York in the past, and he filmed his segment of Two Evil Eyes in George A. Romero's stomping ground of Pittsburgh. Lucio Fulci and numerous other giallo and horror directors frequently made movies that involved a small amount of filming in the United States combined with the use of Italian studios for the interiors or unspecified locations.  They would often go by English pseudonyms and the distributors would advertise the movies as if they were from Hollywood, with audiences realizing from the dubbing and production values where they came from.

Trauma was a break from that.  The majority of the cast was English or American while the crew was still largely Italian.  It has many of Argento's typical camera movements and the convoluted storytelling, but in many ways it feels like an average horror film with some creative cinematography behind it.  Despite its attempts to be more like a typical Hollywood psychological thriller it still didn't click with mainstream horror audiences, while for many fans of Argento it felt like something was missing.

David Parsons (Christopher Rydell) is a sketch artist for a news station who rescues a young girl named Aura Petrescu (Asia Argento) from committing suicide.  She goes with him reluctantly and it turns out that is because she is anorexic and not wanting to be sent back to a clinic run by eccentric scientist Dr. Judd (Frederic Forrest).  Aura's mother Adriana (Piper Laurie) is a psychic and, after being sent home to her parents Aura witnesses them being murdered by a serial killer nicknamed the Head Hunter. 

She returns to David and, despite her being only 16, they begin a relationship as the two begin to actively search for the killer, who appears to live in a house across from a curious, lonely young boy.  Meanwhile, the murders continue, and soon a connection is found.  However, the attempts to discover the true identity of the murderer may prove a tipping point for everyone.

Aura is 16, the same age as Asia was in the movie and, despite being a minor, she does have a topless scene.  David, the lead character in the movie, is in his late 20s.  Per Asia herself she had flings with Rydell and several other crew members.  It may not be too shocking for Italians and it could be chalked up to being from another time but, even then, it's more than a little creepy.  The whole film industry itself kind of is, and it's even worse that this was encouraged by her father who, if Asia is to be taken at face value, was distant most of her childhood.  This also wouldn't be the last of her father's movies in which she did nude scenes.

This is partially why Trauma is not looked on as kindly as some of his other films that came before it.  It does remind one not to meet their heroes, and in this case there is nothing heroic, just exploitative.  The other reason why the movie doesn't have as great a reputation is because there is a feeling that it has been watered down.  Argento's American fans typically expected a certain something from him, and not to get it with a good portion of this film must have been more than a little disappointing, especially since for non-fans this must have felt like a sub-par Hitchcock knockoff. 

For me it felt like an over-long attempt at revisiting familiar territory.  There is some cleverness, but it is feeling old hat at this point, as if Argento was sleepwalking through the whole production except when it came to keeping the camera in motion.  Asia isn't bad but is sometimes difficult to understand, while Piper Laurie goes into the same comedic overacting she did in Carrie, another movie to which she came to the conclusion wasn't very good and thus deserved a camp performance.  Only here she is also doing it in a fake Romanian accent. 

It's not garbage, but it is, in hindsight, a warning of things to come.  Opera was the last classic Argento movie and ever sense his films have rarely even rose to the level of Trauma despite trying to go back to his giallo roots and finishing off the series of movies he began with Suspiria.  From this point on it is as if Argento passed away and was replaced by someone who looks like him but is not him.  For all intents and purposes this marks the end of the part of his career that matters, and it is a sad sputtering out of a once-bright flame.

Trauma (1993)

Time: 106 minutes

Starring: Christopher Rydell, Asia Argento, Piper Laurie, Frederic Forrest

Director: Dario Argento