Head Trauma Review
In the course of covering Fantastic Fest, I've seen 25 features so far, with more to come. My mind feels like it's reaching capacity with blood, body parts, savage killers, and psychic traumas doing battle within my cranium.
Yet I keep coming back to Head Trauma as one of this year's touchstones.
Directed by Lance Weiler, the film had its World Premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival earlier this year, and then Weiler took the still daring and semi-insane self-distribution route across the United States. Head Trauma is available now on DVD.
Weiler captures the free-floating anxiety caused by skittering insects running across a hardwood floor when it's pitch black and you're lying all alone in a sleeping bag in an abandoned house.
George Walker (Vince Mola) returns to his hometown after a lengthy absence. His grandmother has died and left him title to her crumbling multi-story house, which is on the verge of being condemned.
George is not a very appealing character. He's balding, overweight, dresses bad, and unintentionally annoys people. Still, after a confrontation with a neighbor and old nemesis, it's easy to take George's side as he attempts what seems impossible: to fix up the old house on a tight deadline to keep the house from being condemned and torn down.
As George chips away at the garbage and decay, he enlists the reluctant assistance of another neighbor, Julian Thompson (Jamil A.C. Mangan), a young artist, and tries to rekindle a romance with long-ago girlfriend Mary Sherman (Mary Monahan), who is now involved with that old nemesis of a neighbor.
The problem is that the more time George spends in the house, the more he's afflicted with bad dreams and discovers unsettling items left behind in the house. And we just know that the mental trauma he begins to experience will spill over into real life.
Demonstrating once again that ingenuity and invention are more important than millions of dollars in budget, Weiler most effectively works within the confines of the dark house. As more and more unsettling things start to happen, it's almost as though the house were growing into a full-fledged, recently awakened character that is not sure what it wants to do when it sees that it's under attack.
Head Trauma creeped me out. Wherever you're able to see it, make sure the lights are out. And bring a friend.
The DVD is a fine set that includes an 8-page booklet, director's commentary, trailers, the artwork, special effects, cast interviews, and behind-the-scenes features. It also highlights the appropriately atmospheric musical score of composers Brian McTear and Amy Morrissey.
