Review of Trauma

Trauma (1976)
5/10
Cheapjack contribution to 'sex-horror' subgenre
24 December 2004
Warning: Spoilers
EXPOSÉ

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Sound format: Mono

Not so much a horror film, more a psychological thriller with lashings of nudity and violence, this cheapjack contribution to the 'sex-horror' subgenre of 1970's cinema stars Euro favorite Udo Kier (sporting a dubbed mid-Atlantic accent) as a successful novelist whose guilty secrets have isolated him within a picturesque cottage deep in the English countryside. Under a deadline to complete another book in the wake of his first bestseller, he hires temp secretary Linda Hayden (THE BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW), a ripe young sexpot given to masturbating languorously wherever the fancy takes her (in her bedroom, in the fields surrounding Kier's home) and murdering anyone who disturbs her fragile psychosis. 'Nothing, but nothing, is left to the imagination...' promised the original UK ad-mats, and - true to form - the film wears its exploitation elements like a badge of honor, casting British sex queen Fiona Richmond in her first major role (prompting acres of free publicity in contemporary skin mags) as Kier's highly-sexed girlfriend who enjoys lusty romps with her neurotic paramour before surrendering to a lesbian liaison with the lovely Linda.

Directed by James Kenelm Clarke (HARDCORE, LET'S GET LAID), produced by Brian Smedley-Aston (VAMPYRES, DEADLY MANOR), and partly financed by Paul Raymond (the smut baron who launched Richmond to fame), the film slows to a crawl between the aforementioned bouts of nudity and violence, until the reasons for Hayden's murderous rampage are unveiled and she launches a merciless assault on the object of her bloody wrath. Though she (reportedly) distanced herself from the production in later interviews, Hayden is the film's trump card, a voluptuous beauty whose ample charms and faux innocence conceal a cat-like fury. Sleaze fans will certainly get their money's worth, though casual viewers may be less forgiving of the movie's many drawbacks. Also known as TRAUMA and THE HOUSE ON STRAW HILL.
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