Horror comes back to Red Hook, triple-fold, in the indie monster mash horror film Trauma Or, Monsters All, written and directed by the one and only Larry Fessenden. Sam (Larry Fessenden), who has been a vampire for 30 years, drinks up another poor victim in New York City. Meanwhile, upstate in the small town of Talbot Falls, Cassandra (Laetitia Hollard) is writing a book about Dr. George Washington Carver, taking a deep dive into the underappreciated inventor. One night, she hears a horrible growling noise coming from the house next door. Out her window, she sees the basement door of the house padlocked, with Adam (Alex Breaux), a gaunt, pale man with scars, wandering around outside. Adam sees Cassandra looking at him, and she shuts off the lights in her bedroom. She talks about it the next day with her co-worker Agnes (Aitana Doyle), at their job at the library.
Agnes lets her know that the small town Cassandra has moved to has had some strange happenings. Agnes informs her that two years ago, there was a series of killings by a werewolf. Cassandra is intrigued and does more research on the matter. She finds out all about Charley (Alex Hurt), the wolf man who was shot with a silver bullet by his girlfriend. She also finds out about an incident in a nearby town where a man was sewn together from corpse parts and brought to life. She writes an article about the underlying trauma that remains in the area from the monster attacks, which gets published in the local paper. The article hits the internet, and Agnes is enraged. Cassandra woke up a lot of bad memories among her neighbors, and soon she starts getting angry phone calls. Meanwhile, Sam sees the article online, and decides to take a trip upstate, as the city vampire wants to see how the country monsters live.
A scarred, stitched-together creature walks into a dimly lit house in Trauma Or, Monsters All.
“Meanwhile, Sam sees the article online, and decides to take a trip upstate, as the city vampire wants to see how the country monsters live.”
Trauma Or, Monsters All is technically either the fourth installment in a connected series of movies, or the sequel to three other Larry Fessenden movies. The only movie I have seen of the group is Habit, Fessenden’s 1995 feature debut with vampires as junkies. The other two more recent horror pictures are Depraved and Blackout, where the Frankenstein and the werewolf come from, respectively. You don’t need to have seen any of them to enjoy Trauma Or, Monsters All, as it stands up well on its own. I don’t remember much about Habit, as it was the 90s, though I do recall being impressed, even though I had at first avoided it due to the similarities with Abel Ferrara‘s The Addiction. Fessenden drops clips from the previous pictures where needed, not only keeping the uninitiated up to speed, but also whetting the viewers’ appetite to hunt down the unwatched installments.
Essentially, Fessenden has pulled off what Argento pulled off in Inferno: he has made a movie that has turned previous standalone movies into sequels. He has also cracked back open one of the most fun concepts in horror movies: the monster mash. These were some of the first shared cinema universes, when Universal would pack Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman into the same feature. In House of Dracula, House of Frankenstein, and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, you got three monsters for the price of one. Later on, Paul Naschy would employ the concept in a series of monster mashes in werewolf movies like Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror. It’s this concept that has kept The Monster Squad a cult favorite since the 80s. Fessenden even drops the name of a classic claymation mash in the film, the Harvey Kurtzman-scripted Mad, Mad Monster Party. And in Trauma Or, Monsters All, the tradition works like a charm to catch interest once again.
A bloodied Barbara Crampton screams as a clawed monster attacks in Trauma Or, Monsters All.
“There are several scenes where Fessenden shows his intuitive talent of knowing how to scare you.”
Trauma Or, Monsters All is one smart cookie for a monster movie. I learned more than I ever knew about Dr. Carver, all in seconds flat. If nothing else, Fessenden is a master of educational horror. In fact, Trauma Or, Monsters All has some of the best-written filler ever seen in a monster movie. If the devil is in the details, then the idiosyncratic references in Fessenden’s dialogue are positively Satanic. He also works in themes of otherness, addressing head-on how someone who isn’t white is treated in upstate New York. These are twined with the monsters concept, creating an interesting playing board for social commentary. The drama is also developed well, giving the audience some real connection with the lead characters, with real worry when the shit goes down at the end.
Trauma Or, Monsters All delivers on its promise of updated real monsters of film land. While modern to the hilt, the elements of the classic monster mold are honored. There are several scenes where Fessenden shows his intuitive talent of knowing how to scare you. He wisely keeps the monster clashes coated with bloody candy corn as this is supposed to be as fun as the old-timey monster mashes. It is heartwarming to see Fessenden still has it, as 25 years ago his film Wendigo was hailed as one of the greatest horror movies ever made. Many horror directors can’t keep the flame burning as well as this, as Fessenden is still light years ahead of where Jess Franco and Jean Rollin were at this point in their careers. Trauma Or, Monsters All is a very sophisticated pool of popcorn butter that you may find habit-forming.
For screening information, visit the Trauma Or, Monsters All official website.
"…a very sophisticated pool of popcorn butter..."
