Trauma (1976)

Trauma Film Details

Overview: A paranoid writer is unable to get started on his second novel. He hires a secretary and then his troubles really begin.

Tagline: Haunting intrigue… A shock to your system!!!

Review: This movie has the triple distinction of being one of the 72 (though some sources state there were really 74!) infamous “Video Nasties” crackdown that took place in England during the first half of the 1980s, one of the 39 among them that were successfully prosecuted and subsequently suffered from a long-term ban, and also the only British film to actually make the list! Now that I have watched it for myself, I cannot say the picture does in fact deserve all the attention that comes with such notoriety but, considering the quality of the sheer majority of those “Video Nasties”, this is definitely a step-up! Incidentally, EXPOSE’ has a couple of other more appropriate monikers: TRAUMA and THE HOUSE ON STRAW HILL (which is the title borne by the copy I acquired), and I am pretty sure the latter was intentionally evoking both STRAW DOGS (1971) and LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972), two even more infamous films of the era; to be fair, it does owe something to each of them but, to the movie’s credit, it also has its own identity. The plot deals with a novelist (a dubbed Udo Kier – as it happens, the star of yet another “Video Nasty” i.e. FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN {1974}) who has acquired instant celebrity status with his first book and is having a hard time following it up (though how he pretends to even be considered for the Pulitzer Prize with a piece of erotic fiction filled with such descriptions of someone engaging in the sexual act “like a virtuoso on his Stradivarius”, to say nothing of blatant errors in typography picked up in close-ups, is beyond me!). To this end, he retires to a county house in England and, in order to speed up the writing process and meet his publisher’s deadline, he is sent a secretary (Linda Hayden). The girl, however, has an agenda of her own – tied up with the nightmare that Kier himself keeps having (his neurosis extends to donning rubber gloves while making love to his girlfriend, softcore superstar Fiona Richmond!) – and soon proves to be even more disturbed than he is! The STRAW DOGS connection is particularly evidenced by the scenes involving a couple of yokels – one of whom, amusingly, sports a T-shirt boasting the inscription “I’m a Vampyre”) – who importune Hayden when she arrives at the train station and then get to rape her in the fields outside Kier’s house. The incident, however, does not traumatize her in the way that it should (which is, perhaps, another clue to her unhinged state-of-mind) since, for one thing, she disposes herself of the duo pretty easily but, also, because she had been repeatedly masturbating to the photo of the man who appears as a murder victim in Kier’s visions (she even absents herself from typing to go have a ‘quick one’, with her employer subsequently pointing out “You’ve been a long time”, to which she giddily quips, “In coming?”). One wonders why Hayden does not just ‘get it on’ with Kier (even if she does, eventually, as well as Richmond when the latter turns up at the house!)…but, of course, it has something to do with her mission there – which is to see the novel through before the revenge (I predicted the outcome of this, by the way: Kier is, in fact, a fraud who has not only stolen the manuscript of the true author and passed it off as his own but he has even killed the man, who happens to be Hayden’s hubby) can be actuated. An interesting scene in this regard has the leading lady so into her work by the end that she literally finishes the book for the hero. Therein, then, lies a typical problem with this type of fare: even if, deep down, we sympathize with Hayden’s motives, her extreme methods still decree that she is made out to be a villainess and, consequently, has to pay for her actions – but it also means that Kier himself, whose selfish/callous behavior actually put the whole thing in motion, is ultimately let off the hook (despite being the recipient of several knife wounds which will surely make him think that much harder on his next career move!) thanks to the eleventh-hour and, frankly, WTF intervention of one of the rapists who has unaccountably survived a gunshot to the face!! Apart from those instances already mentioned, the violence – not all that gory given its reputation (incidentally, my copy ran for 80 minutes, which I take to be a PAL conversion of the original 84-minute duration) – is directed at an old and nagging housekeeper (when she refuses to leave) as well as Kier’s girlfriend (after Hayden has tricked her employer so that the two can remain alone). The sex, on the other hand, is ample and rather strong for the time but still too-obviously simulated (especially Richmond performing fellatio on Kier). For the record, Hayden and Richmond would later reunite for the same director in LET’S GET LAID (1978) – with the film he made in between, HARDCORE (1977), being a fictionalized biopic of Richmond (who even portrays herself)!

Country: UK

Language: English

Duration: 84 min

Genre: Horror, Thriller

Also known as: La casa sobre la colina de paja,Exposé,Blodig afsløring,4 anomala eglimata,Trauma,The House on Straw Hill,Expose: A Casa de Straw Hill,La casa de la colina de paja,House on Straw Hill,Exposé,House on Strawhill,Дом на соломенном холме,Ta 4 mystiriodi eglimata,Achter ‘t bloot loert de dood,La casa sulla collina di paglia