Content warning: This review contains mentions of child abuse and child sexual abuse.
As most horror fans can attest to, they're always looking for the next thing to shock and scare them. Most of us watch horror films to be frightened or, if we're feeling particularly bold, absolutely traumatised by what we've watched on screen. It can be a way to process real-life traumas or experience our deepest, darkest fears in a way that doesn't physically harm us. Traumatika, which had its world premiere at FrightFest 2024, explores some of the most wretched crimes that face our world today in a deeply disturbing narrative that is so profoundly unsettling it is hard to shake.
Directed by Pierre Tsigaridis, the film begins in Egypt as a man takes his own life after being plagued with visions of his son while holding an unusual artefact. We then travel to Pasadena, California, where Mikey (Ranen Navat) calls the police after being terrified by his mother's erratic behaviour. When police descend on the house, they discover the bodies of three boys who have gone missing in the area over the last year.
Flashback to a year prior and we meet John Reed, a man in the midst of a bitter divorce and trying desperately to retain custody of his daughters Alice and Abigail (Rebekah Kennedy), the latter of which it turns out was the woman who kidnapped Mikey and posed as his mother. He is in possession of the Egyptian artefact but is warned by his friend not to open it as it contains a demon that preys on children to abuse and claim as his own. Of course, John does not listen and soon finds himself possessed by the creature that subjects his family to the most heinous of acts.
Traumatika feels evil to its core from the very first scene, with traditional horror elements like ghouls that lurk in the corners and skitter across the floors, to the sickening, gut-punching horror of the abuse Abigail is subjected to at the hands of her father. The perspective of Abigail as the monstrous child abductor switches to that of a traumatised abuse survivor who escaped her dad's clutches to protect her younger sibling from the same fate, but in turn, passing that trauma to others. Traumatika is a terrifying possession film, but even more spine-chilling is its nuanced portrayal of the devastation child abuse has on families and how one singular act can ruin the lives of many for generations to come.
The film is told in three parts, from Abigail's horrifying crimes and the discovery of Mikey to her backstory and how her possessed father tried to make his daughter the vessel for his child. After her death, the third act focuses on Alice (Emily Goss) 20 years later who has written a book about her childhood and appears on The Jennifer Novak Show to tell her story. After such a strong start, in the third act, Traumatika fails to keep up the pace as it transforms into a generic slasher in which Mikey hunts down Alice while possessed by the demon. It's a somewhat refreshing break from the bleakness, but Mikey's hacking and slashing through television employees and Alice's boyfriend doesn't have the same impact as the powerful, yet putrid scenes that came before.
Traumatika forces viewers to witness the violent, devastating, raw effects of child abuse head-on in a gritty, 2000s-esque packaging that is gritty and dark throughout every scene, but its strange shift in genres towards the end throws it off course. While it's always exciting to see directors make bold choices, it's a choice that won't work for everyone and ultimately softens the punches it began with and the overall emotional impact many will expect.
Traumatika had its world premiere at FrightFest 2024 on Saturday, August 24.
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