Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Trauma - Dario Argento - 1993

★★★--It's no Deep Red. I don't think there is any way to take it seriously. I don't think any idea got thrown out. I loved it!

Gist is the main dude (sort of a combo of James Spaider and Tony Goldwyn) sees a young woman (the lovely Asia Argento) about to kill herself on the ledge of a bridge. He talks her out of it and she eventually lives with him. This girl is like 16 and in some clinic for mentally troubled kids. It's called the Faraday Clinic--basically a decapitation-based sex cult. Turns out she is bulimic which is more or less what the movie is about with some crazy murders thrown in there for fun. 

I like when the dude finds out the girl is bulimic, his friend at the TV studio he works at tells him all about her "anorexia" with such authority. "How do you know some much about it?" "I watch Oprah and Donahue." So a real expert. Not sure how we are supposed to take this, but however we are, it is hilarious. This guy is actually supposed to provide some insight and he got it from watching a few episodes of a talk show. Or, he is supposed to be an idiot with no idea what he is talking about but the main guy takes him seriously. Either way, dude takes this complete nonsense to heart. 

She is staying with him and is obviously infatuated. Should obviously know this, maybe does, but still brings this random coworker of his home to fuck with his door open. He seems to be a groomer type guy--yeah, a pretty unlikeable protagonist--trying to fuck with her mind while white knighting her. Obviously, this is a contemporary interpretation. He does end up having sex with her, by the by. Yeah. 

There is a kid in this movie, this little dork, that I hate so much it is alarming. He almost kills himself when he wraps the complicated murdering tool--this like drill with a wire loop on it that decapitates people--around his neck. When he is interrupted from self-annihilation, he kills this little lizard by squeezing it to death. Fuck this fucking turd. I can't even look at him. Absolutely no need for him in this movie. Also, Argento loves a slow decapitation. 

Finding these movies have these complicated, impossible-to-follow MacGuffiny subplots that speed the action along. Like the movie I watched last night had a bunch of nonsense about chromosomes indicating a propensity for violence and this being world-changing, this in the 1970s, long before DNA testing. This movie is similar with this whole Faraday Clinic/anorexia/main dude saving this young girl business. Clinic just keeps picking her up, she keeps getting broken out, people keep coming for them. This repeats throughout the movie multiple times. I assume this is all metaphorical. 

At some point Brad Dourif shows up. You are instantly like, oh, yeah, he's probably the killer. I won't say if he is or not, but you know it based on reputation. He doesn't disappoint and dials it up a time or two.  

Oh, and by the way, the "trauma" the movie refers to would indeed be the most traumatic thing to ever happen to anyone if it were real. In this bananas flick, the sheer impossibility of it it is so goddamned hilarious. Sorry if you watch it and whatever happens happened to you, lol. 

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