Filmmakers Pierre Tsigaridis and Maxime Rancon Link Disturbing Possession and Trauma in ‘Traumatika’ [Interview]

It’s been more than fifty years since William Friedkin terrified audiences with The Exorcist (1973), the tale of a young girl who becomes possessed by an ancient demon and undergoes an exorcism. In the years since the iconic horror film, there have been countless films about demonic possession. French filmmakers Pierre Tsigaridis and Maxime Rancon, who previously teamed up for Two Witches (2021), didn’t think it was necessary to remake The Exorcist, so they’ve made a different kind of possession movie with Traumatika.

Traumatika stars Rebekah Kennedy (Two Witches) as Abigail, a mother who is forced to face her demons when her son calls 911 one night because he believes his mother is possessed. Traumatika is unique in that it portrays demonic possession as a sickness that could potentially be spread from person to person.

Co-written by Tsigaridis and Rancon and directed by Tsigaridis, Traumatika blends complex emotional themes with gruesome practical effects in hopes that audiences will connect with the film on a deeper level than other films about demonic possession. Tsigaridis also serves as producer, cinematographer, and editor, with Rancon as an executive producer. Traumatika also stars Emily Goss, Ranen Navat, AJ Bowen, Sean O’Bryan, Susan Gayle Watts, and Sean Whalen.

Bloody Disgusting had the pleasure of talking with Pierre Tsigaridis and Maxime Rancon about the disturbing themes explored in Traumatika, the physicality of Rebekah Kennedy’s performance, and conjuring the film’s horrifying demon.

Bloody Disgusting: There are a lot of possession movies out there, but this one is different in that the demon is passed from one person to another, almost like a virus. Was there a specific inspiration for the story?

Pierre Tsigaridis: I think we wanted to tell a possession story using the tropes of possession, but without the religious aspect of it. We have a few crucifixes in the movie, just to add visually because it adds to the lore, but we wanted to leave Christianity out of it. I think one thing is that we didn’t really grow up religious in France. We were not very religious people. The demonic aspect was obviously super interesting, and we’re fans of possession movies; we’re fans of The Exorcist. But I think we wanted to make it different and give it more of a metaphoric trauma and show how people can be possessed and how people can do bad things because of the trauma they have. So, that was the DNA of the movie to try to portray demonic possession under a different light.

BD: Traumatika is quite disturbing and very scary. There are a few scenes that made me jump out of my chair, and that’s rare for me. You’ve only released a brief teaser trailer with the warning that the film is so intense and brutal that a full trailer can’t be shown. Can you tell me about this marketing decision and who came up with the idea?

Maxime Rancon: Originally, we had in mind to make a trailer that was not going to show anything. We had cut a trailer which was just showing empty spaces of the house, and you can just hear in the background that something highly disturbing is happening. That’s an idea that we submitted to Saban, and I think they liked the idea, but wanted to go for a more straightforward approach, with a full disclaimer at the beginning and then just a small blurb at the end. I think that was a good idea, and it made it look more like a Blockbuster [laughs].

BD: Demonic possession isn’t the only unsettling theme in the movie; the film also features subject matter about the darker side of humanity. Do you think humans are scarier than monsters, and is that something you discussed when you were working on the story?

PT: Yes, definitely. I think humans are scarier than monsters because, at the end of the day, humans really exist, and monsters probably don’t exist. We actually added the demon to be able to lighten up [laughs] the actual story. Without the demon, I think the story would be even more horrible, because if we were to only keep the story with humans, it would be too shocking; it would be unwatchable, I think. I think for me, the character played by Sean O’Bryan is scarier than the demon.

MR: I agree.

BD: The makeup and visual effects are impressive and very effective. The demonic creature is horrifying to look at! Can you talk about the creative process for designing the demon, as well as the makeup effects?

MR: It’s me! I am the demon. We had an idea to have someone else do the demon originally, and it just didn’t work out [laughs], and so, I ended up doing it. It is scary [laughs].

BD: Wow! So, it’s actually you in the makeup?

MR: Technically, nobody could tell. Also, our makeup artist, Kao Nunez, did such an amazing job. It was a three-hour makeup job each time we did the demon, and Kao was fantastic, and she was really able to transform me into something truly terrifying. We’re pretty happy with the look of our demon.

BD: The other effects, like sores and oozing black liquid, are great as well. Is everything practical, or is it a mix?

PT: Everything is practical. I think the only thing that has some digital stuff on it is the scream of the demon. I don’t want to spoil anything. But other than that, everything is practical. Everything on Rebekah is practical; everything on Sean is practical. We wanted to make the demonic possession aspect a little different from what we’ve seen before, and we wanted to make it almost like a disease, like an infection, like a skin rash. That’s why we did the sores. We wanted to blur the line between something that could still be possible. It could be a disease; it could be a lack of hygiene, like we mention in the movie, so it wouldn’t be too over the top for Rebekah. We wanted to still keep it within a real context. I think it was interesting to show demonic possession a little bit more like a disease, like a softer zombie makeup, rather than the typical Exorcist makeup. I think the Exorcist makeup is so perfect that I don’t know why we should replicate that. It’s been done and it’s perfect and I don’t think we need to touch it [laughs]. So, we tried to go in another direction.

BD: I love that it’s more like a virus.

MR: We’re big fans of movies like It Follows, so there is a little bit of that in there.

BD: You worked with Rebekah Kennedy, who plays Abigail, on your previous film, Two Witches. Did you write the role of Abigail with her in mind, and what was it like working with her again on this film?

PT: We actually did not think of her initially. We had another person in mind who was older. Initially, we wanted the character to be older, almost like a grandmother. But then we quickly realized that the movie was dealing with a lot of heavy things and a lot of complicated things to execute, and then we quickly thought that Rebekah would be better for the role. So, then we tweaked the script for her once we made that decision. She was super game to be on board. We had such a great experience working with her on Two Witches, and she trusted us and our vision. We trusted her, too, so it quickly became a no-brainer, even though at the very beginning it was not. It quickly became a no-brainer.

 

BD: The role of Abigail is very physical and requires Rebekah Kennedy to contort her body into uncomfortable positions. Some of the subject matter had to be emotionally draining for her as well. How much of what we see in the movie is Rebekah, and how much is a stunt double? How did you work with Rebekah on the physicality of the role?

PT: Everything you see is her. There is no stunt double. It’s funny because we would send her TikToks [laughs] of people dancing weird or people walking weird, and then she said she would just practice that in her room. Then she showed up on set, and honestly, the takes we started to do, we were like, “Oh, this is working!” Obviously, the house we were shooting in was kind of unsafe, so as soon as we would have a good take, we would not have her do a million [laughs]. You would have to ask her, but I think the physical aspect of her performance, for me, we nailed it pretty fast. So, it was something that I expected to be harder, and she knocked it out of the park so well. Regarding the difficult scenes, I will say the same thing.

I don’t want to spoil anything, but there is a really shocking scene, and she is the one who brought Sean O’Bryan, who plays the father. She is really good friends with him, and so they have a really good connection. They were laughing, they were making everything so smooth for us to do the scene. Initially, the scene was supposed to be shorter; it was supposed to be, honestly, less shocking, and because they have such good chemistry and they know each other and they felt comfortable trusting each other, they went the extra mile and they made the scene very uncomfortable because they were so comfortable doing it, if that makes sense. It exceeded our expectations in terms of shock value and the disturbing aspect of it. But it was a really smooth process, that’s what’s funny. The most horrible things in the movie actually were very easy to do, and it was a good time. We don’t think when we’re on the set where we have those memories, we don’t have anything bad. We just remember friends working together and having a good time.

Camera-wise, director-wise, I was not going to push unnecessarily in that direction. I was just going to tell them what it was that we needed to convey, and they were kind of setting up their own limits. I was just going to get what they were going to give me, and they just gave us so much [laughs].

Traumatika will be in theaters on September 12 from Saban Films.

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