Posted in: Exclusive, Horror, Interview, Movies | Tagged: Maxime Roncon, Pierre Tsigaridis, Saban Films, Traumatika

Traumatika Creatives on VFX Scenes, Horror Influences & Future

Director Pierre Tsigaridis and co-writer Maxime Rancon spoke to Bleeding Cool about their biggest influences for the horror film, Traumatika.

Writer-director Pierre Tsigaridis and co-writer Maxime Rancon are passionate about their horror and have developed their unique brand since working on 2021's Two Witches. Three years later, they follow up the Saban supernatural folk horror film with Traumatika, which follows a young boy's (Ranen Navat) night terrors that become reality when his mother (Rebekah Kennedy) begins showing signs of demonic possession. What he's about to experience will haunt him for the rest of his life and claim countless lives across generations. The duo spoke to Bleeding Cool about how they blazed through production, working through some of the film's defining possession scenes with Kennedy and Sean O'Bryan, their biggest horror influences, including Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza, Neil Marshall, William Friedkin, and Sam Raimi, and their future.

Traumatika Director Pierre Tsigaridis and Co-Writer Maxime Roncon on Their Biggest Influences, Achieving a Specific Look for Possession Scenes, and Developing a 'Two Witches' Sequel

When I spoke with Sean Whalen earlier, he mentioned that you worked efficiently during production. Was there a particular sequence or scene that stood out to you that was difficult for you to get through?

Tsigaridis: The biggest thing would be time. Looking back and seeing how people react, the one I think I'm most proud of that was difficult on set was the actual possession scene between Sean O'Bryan and Rebekah Kennedy's characters. This one, we were pretty late. We were in this location that we needed to get out of; we were running out of time, it was such an important scene, and I remember doing those shots that ended up being so visually striking. They were so important for the story, and a lot of people talk about how we did those shots in minutes.

Rancon: We were on overtime and double time.

Tsigaridis: We did that within minutes, and thank God we had time to do these shots. Sometimes, 10-15 minutes can have such a big impact on the overall quality of a film, just those 15 minutes, yeah.

Rancon: Thank God for these actors who also delivered insane performances to us.

Tsigaridis: It was difficult. It was extremely messy, extremely sticky, and dirty. I remember telling Rebekah, I was like, "This is going to suck. These shots are not going to be a good time, but you're going to be grateful for those shots. You're going to think it's worth it," and we were happy that Saban is using a lot of those shots for the marketing. It's great, and Rebekah was like, "Oh my God!" Worth every minute, even though it was hard.

I always appreciate the "less is more" approach. My next question is, what are your biggest influences, whether you want to break it down to horror or in general?

Tsigaridis: For this movie, we'll mostly talk about horror influences, not going to lie. Off the top of my head, there's another influence that we don't talk about too much, I haven't mentioned. It's that Spanish horror movie 'Rec' (2007). I love this movie and it's one of my favorites. [When making 'Traumatika'], we wanted to give it this POV found footage-type thing for the scary scenes.

['Rec'] did so well in terms of the scare. I also had another movie like that in mind, especially for the possession, visually of Abigail. We wanted something with open sores and almost a disease-like, infectious, bad hygiene type of possession, rather than a more traditional 'The Exorcist' (1973) type of possession-looking makeup. At the beginning, we went more like 'Rec'; the zombies had a face similar to Abigail's.

'The Evil Dead' (1981) was also an inspiration. We're in a house, there's an evil spirit, there's something crazy, like this demonic presence that's impossible to fight. I also liked 'The Descent' (2005), which features the look of a demon in those chase scenes. We have a little of 'The Descent' and 'The Exorcist', because it's a possession movie, and it's impossible to ignore 'The Exorcist.' We have an opening that is a homage to 'The Exorcist.' The opening of that film opens in Egypt, and then we go into some slasher territory. A lot of people will see the influences of these boogeyman-types with all those slashing guys that we all love. Max, do you have any other references in mind?

Rancon: You're covering, we have pretty much the same. As Lee was saying, there's also a little bit of J-Horror vibes with the haunted house and this woman inside of it. We're also fans of…maybe less on the horror side, but we're also big fans of [Quentin] Tarantino and [Robert] Rodriguez for everything that's like sometimes a little gory or "What the fuck?!" moments that are like flirting with the funny aspect of things.

This is an influence that we find here, and generically, it's a mix with our French heritage. There's all this European cinema meets French extremities, which meets our desire to make big, crazy American movies and blockbusters. It's like this melting pot of all of these directions and references mixed into what we can put on the screen at the end.

What's next for you guys?

Rancon: Hopefully, this is the sequel to Two Witches. We're working on it right now and talking to people about it, but it will be ready. It's written, and we cannot wait to bring it to screens.

Traumatika, which also stars A.J. Bowen, Susan Gayle Watts, and Emily Goss, will be released in theaters on September 12th.

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