Traumatika had its world première at FrightFest 2024, 24 Aug Traumatika opens as it intends to go on: disorientingly overcoded. It begins with a television spot in which host Jennifer Novac (Susan Gayle Watts) advertises that evening’s Halloween special in hyperbolic terms, promising, “We’re gonna jump back 20 years, and go into the horrific story…
Director/co-writer/editor/cinematographer/producer Pierre Tsigaridis’ feature debut is not only, as its title baldly states, a tale of two witches, but also of two halves, formally separated into two numbered and headed sections, ‘The Boogeywoman’ and ‘Masha’, plus a prologue and epilogue. In Chapter I, 27-year-old, six-months-pregnant Sarah Johnson (Belle Adams), already uncertain about her relationship with…