Trauma | Film Review

From Chile comes a powerful and diabolical film entitled. Trauma, a horror film in which the most heinous forms of violence and cruelty converge. Horrors, these, drawn from a real-life basis in which light is shed on the nefariousness that human beings are capable of. Written and directed by the talented Lucio A. Rojas (Perfidia and Sendero), Trauma wins a place of honor among the crowded ranks of horror cinema, in general, but also of the extreme horror and rape&revenge subgenre.
The film had its Italian premiere at the The Optical Theatre Film Festival 2017 in Naples as the winner of the "Best Feature Film, "Best Supporting Actor" (Felipe Ríos).

Bleak, suffocating, and deeply diseased in tone, Trauma builds its villains around figures rooted in Chile's violent past. The film echoes the legacy of Augusto Pinochet, the dictator who ruled the country from 1973 to 1990 and was held responsible for crimes against humanity, including sexual abuse and the systematic torture of women.

Plot: Andrea (Catalina Martin), along with her sister Camila (Macarena Carrere), her friend Julia (Ximena del Solar), and her cousin Magdalena (Dominga Bofill), travels to the remote home of a distant relative in Chile. Once there, the four women are brutally attacked by Juan (Daniel Antivilo) and his son Mario (Felipe Ríos). With no help coming from the locals, they turn to the authorities, only to later uncover that their attackers are tied to one of the darkest periods in Chile's history.

Trauma opens with a barrage of unspeakable horrors, pushing past any sense of limit from its very first moments. In Rojas' film, every form of human and familial bond collapses, breaking down until nothing is left but emotional wreckage. What takes its place is a landscape defined by suffering and grief, where unimaginable depravity, twisted forms of affection, and destructive ways of living emerge.
The violence in Trauma spares no one, there are no boundaries between men and women, adults and children, parents and offspring, siblings. Evil seeps into every space, even into what begins as a carefree gathering among friends, infecting every human connection and extinguishing any trace of joy, emotion, or hope.

Within this atmosphere of rage, submission, and humiliation, the film unfolds through flashbacks to a rotten and brutal past, revealing Juan's traumatic adolescence. These fragments of memory run parallel to the present-day narrative, shaping a story that grows increasingly painful and unbearable as it progresses.
What makes it even more disturbing is the relentless chain of abominable acts psychological abuse alongside physical violence, bodies beaten, stoned, and stabbed, decapitations, fetuses dissolved in acid, forced abortions, crushed skulls, bites, and more (heightened by the striking work of Isabella Marchesse's special effects).
The result is a harrowing, deeply unsettling film that cuts straight to the bone.

The performances from the four actresses (Catalina Martin, Macarena Carrere, Ximena del Solar, and Macarena Carrere) are particularly strong, especially given the demands of their roles, while Daniel Antivilo and Felipe Ríos deliver truly chilling portrayals of the film’s two villains.

Trauma stars Catalina Martin, Daniel Antivilo, Macarena Carrere, Ximena del Solar, Dominga Bofill, Felipe Ríos, Alejandro Trejo, Max Torres, Claudio Riveros, and Eduardo Paxeco.