Review of "Trauma" by The Headless Critic

Trauma – 2017
Production by: Too Much Films, Chris Reiben Productions, SBH Films
co-production by: Border Motion Cinema
Distribution by: Artsploitation Films



Four women Andrea (Catalina Martin), Camila (Macarena Carrere), Julia (Ximena del Solar) and Magdalena (Dominga Bofill) go on a girls retreat in the Chilean countryside. When there’s a knock at their door, they open their home to danger. A father (Daniel Antivilo) and son (Felipe Rios) with dark loyalties enter their lives, treating the women as their play things. The abuse that follows is only the beginning. As the women fight back they find that getting help reveals another level of human depravity beyond the physical brutalities of mankind.

Writer and director Lucio A. Rojas takes rape/revenge horror to a terrifying level of realism. Trauma is one of the most brutal films I’ve ever seen. I connected with the character Magdalena whose personality resembles someone I know through actress Dominga Bofill. Her fate was hard to watch. It’s rare I come across a horror movie I have difficulty physically watching. I had to take a break from Trauma to get my mind right before finishing it.

Torture porn has become its own sub-genre of horror films. Trauma may just have invented a new sub-genre of terror porn. The women of Trauma portray terror well. The first hour of the film is an intense build with a brutal payoff. The fifteen minute home invasion includes some of the most horrifying scenes I’ve ever seen in cinema. Not being from Chile I couldn’t personally connect to the political aspects of the film as a citizen might as the filmmaker tries to shed light on the dark history of his country. The traumatic remains are a must see for every exploitation horror fan who thinks they can stomach it.

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3 out of 5 Headless Critics