Trauma (1993)

 Okay, get this out of the way: shooting your daughter nude, just creepy and not cool.

But I have always found Asia so striking, so alluring, so captivating. Always. I can watch her in anything. Thinking about that, I need to go back and watch her post father's work. She's got some interesting content out there.

I just love the fact that there is an Argento film out there that was made in Minneapolis of all places. And this is a very American Argento film. I like that this film doesn't look like any other Argento film he had made in the past. Oh, Argento's camera still goes a lot of places and doesn't want to stay static. He does some POV where the killer looks right into the faces of those he's about to kill. I admittedly got a kick out of what Argento does with severed heads, the decapitations caused by a mechanized garrote. Brad Dourif (who is tragically cast in a thankless role) who was a surgeon involved in an infant death tied to Piper Laurie, playing an Italian mother to Asia Argento, is hit with a hammer in a spot on the neck (as the killer does with all victims) that paralyzes him, dragged to an elevator ledge, and loses his head as a result of the elevator pressing down on him...the look on his face as his head falls, the "oh shit" sound of shock from his mouth, had me cracking up. And Piper also decapitated by the garrote when a boy neighbor happens to catch her off-guard, while she approaches towards Asia and Rydell, uttering "Nicholas" three times as her head rolls across the floor is wonderfully as absurd as it reads.

Improvising in the case of Dourif when the mechanized garrote gets hung on his necklace sure shows how motivated the killer is to take off the heads of all members of the surgical staff responsible for the decapitation of a baby during the end of a pregnancy...that was a malpractice accident.

Asia's character is a mess of anxieties, including anorexia (I read Argento included this in the script since Nicolodi's other daughter suffered anorexia) and suicidal ideations, found by Rydell initially as she plans to throw herself off a bridge. Rydell works at a news company (he eventually sleeps with a reporter who also works there), driving past her, getting Asia to follow him to a cafe. Forrest's neck-braced psychiatrist tries over and over to get Asia back in his hospital, obsessed with her. Rydell tries to keep her safe, both falling in love with each other.

Asia, from what I can see, was 18 at the time, still a teenager, so her being thrust into an adult horror show could be seen as a bit (well, more than a bit if you include her dad shooting her removing her top to show her breasts) yikes. But I find her so watchable. I guess I can only describe her as charismatic and, I dunno, "photographic"? When she would opine that it appeared Dario only wanted her as a daughter was to cast her in his movies...she has a star quality and I could see why he'd want to. But sexualizing her? That is a step too far.

I noticed many of Argento's big fans finds this too long and not as stylish. But I personally found this to be unique in his resume. I also thought it perhaps gets a bad rep. It isn't really that bad at all. And I liked his style. I just think the score is a bit too "American Orchestral". Maybe if this film was directed by De Palma or Lynch, the score would work a ton better. But I guess in terms of this being an Argento film through an American production, this score sounding so different than what we are used to might actually work for most because of that. I guess I just couldn't connect that score to what Argento delivers on screen. I always thought there was this clash.

Rydell in the lead bored the hell out of me. I think if there is a continued issue in almost all of Argento films is that the male lead never really has much charisma. Argento tries to correct that by how he shoots him, compensating through what happens around him.

3.5/5