Indie horror master Larry Fessenden has secretly shot Trauma, a monster mashup sequel that unites three of Fessenden’s monsters in one film, Variety reports today.
Larry Fessenden’s Trauma Or, Monsters All serves as a sequel to three monster movies that he’s written and directed: 1995’s vampire movie Habit, the 2019 Frankenstein riff Depraved, and his 2023 werewolf feature Blackout.
When we previously spoke with the filmmaker about the latter, he shared his desire to see how all three monsters would fare in one monster mashup feature. “No, what I’m more interested in, I could just say this, is doing a mashup, and that would probably end my business of recreating the Universal Monsters. I want to see them all together, and what would that look like? So, that’s actually what I’m thinking about, and I don’t know who would finance that.”
With the upcoming Trauma, that project becomes a reality.
Fessenden reprises the role of Sam from Habit, while Alex Breaux returns to portray Adam from Depraved, and Alex Hurt revives his role as Charley from Blackout.
Also starring are Laëtitia Hollard (“The Pitt”), Aitana Doyle (“If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing”), and returning actors from Fessenden’s past films, including Addison Timlin, James Le Gros, John Speredakos, Cody Kostro, Marc Senter, Rigo Garay, Joseph Castillo-Midyett, Joshua Leonard, and Barbara Crampton.
As for plot, the logline reads that Trauma “places the filmmaker’s beloved visions of this trio of ghouls under one roof, offering up an unexpectedly humanist and uncanny tale.”
“It was a slightly absurd mission to present my existential take on these monsters in a contemporary mashup, but I enjoyed the challenge and I hope the film will feel both familiar and provocative,“ Fessenden said in a statement, which also shared that he is “a lifelong fan of Universal Monster classics and the powerful messages about us that they can convey.”
The shoot quietly took place on and off in upstate New York over three months and is now in post-production. Stay tuned.