{"id":37516,"date":"2025-09-02T00:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T00:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/37516\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T00:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T00:01:07","slug":"horror-movie-traumatika-became-way-more-disturbing-than-planned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/37516\/","title":{"rendered":"Horror Movie Traumatika Became \u2018Way More Disturbing\u2019 Than Planned"},"content":{"rendered":"

ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to Pierre Tsigaridis<\/a> and Maxime Ran\u00e7on<\/a>\u00a0about the new demonic possession horror<\/a> movie Traumatika<\/strong>. The director and co-writer discussed how the movie became more disturbing<\/a> than they initially thought it would be during production, how they fit so many different horror sub-genres into one movie, and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cA young boy\u2019s night terrors become reality when his mother begins showing signs of demonic possession,\u201d the synopsis reads. \u201cWhat he\u2019s about to experience will haunt him for the rest of his life and claim countless lives across generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Traumatika will be released in United States theaters on September 12, 2025, from Saban Films<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brandon Schreur: I\u2019d love to know a little bit about how this project all came about. How long ago did the two of you first have the idea for Traumatika, and what did the process of bringing it to life look like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pierre Tsigaridis: <\/strong>It\u2019s funny because I\u2019ve never really thought about it like that, but once we had the idea \u2014 from having the idea to actually starting to really do the movie \u2014 is, like, what, days? That\u2019s it. We wanted to make another film after Two Witches. It was like, \u2018Okay, we need to find an idea, and then we will do it.\u2019 We came back from Christmas break and had an idea around mid-January. We started shooting in early February. It wasn\u2019t like it was an idea that had been in our heads for a while. It was completely the opposite.<\/p>\n

It was coming from something really straightforward \u2014 we want a kid, in a house, and he\u2019s scared, and we want a creepy mother. Okay, then we\u2019re going to add some demonic possession. Then we were like, \u2018Oh, that would be very traumatizing.\u2019 We\u2019re going to add some trauma to it. We\u2019re going to package it with some POV shots. Everything came pretty fast.<\/p>\n

That is fast. That\u2019s awesome to hear, though. You never know how things are going to turn out when you\u2019re moving that fast, but I\u2019m glad it all worked out.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tsigaridis: <\/strong>Yeah. We don\u2019t have time, we don\u2019t have time.<\/p>\n

Maxime Ran\u00e7on: <\/strong>It also dictated the way that movie \u2014 you see that it jumps around to different timelines and different moments. That directly made this happen. Once the trauma subject was laid on the table, we were like, \u2018What\u2019s the effect of that trauma? What is it going to be in a few years? How is this kid going to be affected by this?\u2019 That\u2019s also why the movie is made how it is.<\/p>\n

Sure, definitely. That jumps into what I wanted to ask you guys next. I was really impressed by how much you fit into this movie, especially because it\u2019s only 81 minutes long. You have the whole possession with the demon. You have the haunted house aspect. And these ideas of generational trauma, where the timeline moves around a lot. I thought it was really cool how you fit so much into this. Was it challenging at all, to put all of that into one, single script, or did it just kind of come naturally when you started the writing process?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tsigaridis: <\/strong>I think it kind of comes naturally because of the pacing of the films we like to make. We like to have really fast-paced movies. In that sense, you have to add a lot of stuff happening. It\u2019s not about a slow burn; it\u2019s not about long establishing situations with characters. It\u2019s more like little vignettes of scenes that tell a story in itself. Then it\u2019s like little blocks you put together. By doing this way of filmmaking, you end up having a lot of room for a lot of stuff.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we wanted to blend a lot of genres of horror, so we were able to incorporate the found footage, slasher, and true crime into the foundation that was more like a demonic possession and haunted house film. I think it was pretty natural since the approach of a fast-paced film was chosen.<\/p>\n

Ran\u00e7on: <\/strong>Also, I don\u2019t know if people realize\u2026the way that we are going into a scene sometimes, a lot of times, even throughout Two Witches, we\u2019re talking, and let\u2019s say we\u2019re doing a thing with an actor, and then somebody is like, \u2018And then they could do this.\u2019 And we\u2019re like, \u2018Oh my god, that\u2019s so much better.\u2019 Or, \u2018Oh, yeah, that\u2019s f\u2014ed up, that\u2019s so crazy.\u2019 And then we just try to do it. There are a lot of liberties that are taken while filming is taking place that are sometimes chasing the direction of where we\u2019re going.<\/p>\n

That makes total sense. The movie is obviously very scary<\/a>; the haunted house stuff especially got to me, I loved all of that. But I also really like how it\u2019s not just jump scares. At the heart of it, you touch on some serious stuff about trauma and abuse. Especially when you dive back into the family and what happened to her as a kid. Can you tell me a little bit about working those elements into the script and how you achieved balancing the scary vs. the seriousness of it? Was it a lot of back-and-forth?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tsigaridis: <\/strong>It\u2019s funny because, for this movie, we approached the story not necessarily from a horror movie aspect, when it comes to the way the characters interact with themselves. You know what I mean? The heavy stuff was not supposed to be as much, in my mind, at the forefront. I don\u2019t want to necessarily spoil anything, but there are some really disturbing scenes that are not necessarily gory or horrific in the horror world. It\u2019s more horrific in a much broader, deeper meaning.<\/p>\n

It was more like the actors, Rebekah Kennedy<\/a> and Sean O\u2019Bryan, who are involved in the scene, had such good chemistry and connection. They knew what the story was, and they took it way further than we initially were going to take it. We were going to not show \u2014 not that we show that much, but we are very explicit, still, in how the stuff was conveyed, I would say. And that\u2019s because they were willing to do that. They trusted each other, they had worked with each other before. So they ended up making it way more disturbing than initially planned.<\/p>\n

Totally. They make it feel very real. I think those were some of the most disturbing parts of the movie, for sure. I\u2019d love to ask you guys about the opening of this movie. That quick little moment is so effective \u2014 we don\u2019t know the full story of what\u2019s going on with the guy who has the artifact at first, but we can tell it\u2019s something bad. It immediately kind of sets the tone. When you were coming up with that, did you have the full story of what happened to that guy and the kid in your mind? Did you ever write it down and decide to take it out, or was this how you always envisioned it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tsigaridis: <\/strong>It\u2019s funny because that scene was actually shot after the rest of the film, the opening. We thought it\u2019d just make sense to do that opening scene. We thought it\u2019d be kind of cool to echo what\u2019s happened with Mikey and the other children through this character, but without really knowing exactly. We know that he must have done something horrible to his child. He knows that it\u2019s the artifact that made him do it. But we don\u2019t explicitly explain that. You need to watch the rest of the movie to figure that out.<\/p>\n

Ran\u00e7on: <\/strong>If we make one day a prequel with Sean Whalen and Sean O\u2019Bryan, maybe we\u2019ll explain what happened back then.<\/p>\n

I would watch it, totally.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tsigaridis: <\/strong>The message of the film is that the bad things these people are doing nowadays, some people 100 years ago did it. And, probably, some people 1,000 years ago did it. And why do people do that? Why do people abuse other people? Why do people hurt? The artifact, the demon, is the metaphor of this evil that humans have in them, and why do they keep doing horrible things to each other? It\u2019s like the good \u2018ole question of, is it inherited? Is it something that happened to you? Do you just replicate what was done to you? We embody all of that through the figure of the demon and the artifact.<\/p>\n

Sure, definitely. You mentioned Rebekah earlier, and I know she\u2019s not here with us, but I just have to praise her performance in this movie. She has to do a lot, between being really scary in those haunted house scenes, and then when you do dive into the family backstory, she\u2019s really emotional and sad. She conveys all that so good. I know you guys worked with her on Two Witches; what made you feel like she\u2019d be right for this role, and how was working with her again?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tsigaridis: <\/strong>I think we realized why she was the right person for the role was, obviously, her performance in Two Witches, but also that she trusts us. This movie was going to be really difficult to make with the scenes we had. We were like, \u2018You know what? We\u2019re not having a lot of resources, we\u2019re not necessarily vetted by the industry on a higher level of things.\u2019 So we were like, \u2018Okay, to have someone who is down to do it and believes in the project is going to be difficult.\u2019 And she was just right in front of our eyes. Like, look no further, she\u2019s the one.<\/p>\n

She always wants to take up a new challenge. She likes us because she\u2019s always like, \u2018You give me new things to work with,\u2019 where she could be stuck as more of a character actor in some other productions that have bigger budgets. She has less creative freedom and can explore less. With us, and with this character, she\u2019s like, \u2018Wow, I\u2019ve never done this before.\u2019<\/p>\n

Ran\u00e7on: <\/strong>We were out there covering her with slime and stuff, you know?<\/p>\n

Tsigaridis: <\/strong>Yeah. She was the right call.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Pierre Tsigaridis and Maxime Ran\u00e7on for taking the time to discuss Traumatika.<\/p>\n

The post Horror Movie Traumatika Became \u2018Way More Disturbing\u2019 Than Planned | Interview<\/a> appeared first on ComingSoon.net – Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to Pierre Tsigaridis and Maxime Ran\u00e7on\u00a0about the new demonic possession horror movie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[28996,18,117,28999,19,17,327,28997,29000,28998],"class_list":{"0":"post-37516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-demonic-possession","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-horror-movie","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-pierre-tsigaridis","16":"tag-rebekah-kennedy","17":"tag-saban-films"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}