With 'Dario Argento's Trauma' Dario Arengto breaks his own formula a bit, as here the principle mystery solver is actually from the country he is solving a mystery in. Set and filmed around Minneapolis, Minnesota, Christopher Rydell (son of director Mark Rydell) is a news copy writer for a local TV station (and currently sleeping with its top anchorwoman). A former drug addict who has gotten himself sobar, one day he stops on a bridge when he sees a young woman in distress. He succedes is preventing her suicide, takes her to get something to eat and learns that she is a drug addict, anorexic and run away.
The girl is played by Asia Argento, daughter of the director, she's not quite Sophia Coppala in 'The Godfather III' bad. She gets away from Mark pretty quick and is apprehended by child protective services (Asia is 18 playing 16) and returned to her parents, Romanian immegrants. Her mother (Piper Laurie) works as a medium and after a reading gone bad her and her husband are killed. Beheaded by a serial killer who has been in the news lately (the films opening sequence depicts one of the killers murders).
Asia flees to Mark's, having apparently memorized his address after seeing his ID once. The two proceed to investigate the killings while avoiding the efforts of Asia's old psychraist (she had spent some time in rehab) to apprehend her. They discover that the killer will only behead when it's raining, and is killing not at random, but working through a list of doctors, nurses and patients who were at a specific area hospital on a specific rainy night. Also Mark and Asia are falling for each other, which is creepy because she's 16 and he's like 30.
Argento is deep into well worn thematic terroitory by this point, but I found his idiosyncrasies as a story teller still held my interest. He's told this basic story before, but there's still some real creativity here, and despite some stumbles the film certainly isn't bland. There is even what apperes to be a very functional, non exploitive lesbian relationship going on between two side characters. **1/2
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