Movies
‘Trauma’ – Larry Fessenden Wraps Secret Monster Mashup Sequel to ‘Habit,’ ‘Depraved,’ and ‘Blackout’
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.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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