ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to Pierre Tsigaridis and Maxime Rançon about the new demonic possession horror movie Traumatika. The director and co-writer discussed how the movie became more disturbing than they initially thought it would be during production, how they fit so many different horror sub-genres into one movie, and more.
“A young boy’s night terrors become reality when his mother begins showing signs of demonic possession,” the synopsis reads. “What he’s about to experience will haunt him for the rest of his life and claim countless lives across generations.”
Traumatika will be released in United States theaters on September 12, 2025, from Saban Films.
Brandon Schreur: I’d love to know a little bit about how this project all came about. How long ago did the two of you first have the idea for Traumatika, and what did the process of bringing it to life look like?
Pierre Tsigaridis: It’s funny because I’ve never really thought about it like that, but once we had the idea — from having the idea to actually starting to really do the movie — is, like, what, days? That’s it. We wanted to make another film after Two Witches. It was like, ‘Okay, we need to find an idea, and then we will do it.’ We came back from Christmas break and had an idea around mid-January. We started shooting in early February. It wasn’t like it was an idea that had been in our heads for a while. It was completely the opposite.
It was coming from something really straightforward — we want a kid, in a house, and he’s scared, and we want a creepy mother. Okay, then we’re going to add some demonic possession. Then we were like, ‘Oh, that would be very traumatizing.’ We’re going to add some trauma to it. We’re going to package it with some POV shots. Everything came pretty fast.
That is fast. That’s awesome to hear, though. You never know how things are going to turn out when you’re moving that fast, but I’m glad it all worked out.
Tsigaridis: Yeah. We don’t have time, we don’t have time.
Maxime Rançon: It also dictated the way that movie — you see that it jumps around to different timelines and different moments. That directly made this happen. Once the trauma subject was laid on the table, we were like, ‘What’s the effect of that trauma? What is it going to be in a few years? How is this kid going to be affected by this?’ That’s also why the movie is made how it is.
Sure, definitely. That jumps into what I wanted to ask you guys next. I was really impressed by how much you fit into this movie, especially because it’s only 81 minutes long. You have the whole possession with the demon. You have the haunted house aspect. And these ideas of generational trauma, where the timeline moves around a lot. I thought it was really cool how you fit so much into this. Was it challenging at all, to put all of that into one, single script, or did it just kind of come naturally when you started the writing process?
Tsigaridis: I think it kind of comes naturally because of the pacing of the films we like to make. We like to have really fast-paced movies. In that sense, you have to add a lot of stuff happening. It’s not about a slow burn; it’s not about long establishing situations with characters. It’s more like little vignettes of scenes that tell a story in itself. Then it’s like little blocks you put together. By doing this way of filmmaking, you end up having a lot of room for a lot of stuff.
That’s why we wanted to blend a lot of genres of horror, so we were able to incorporate the found footage, slasher, and true crime into the foundation that was more like a demonic possession and haunted house film. I think it was pretty natural since the approach of a fast-paced film was chosen.
Rançon: Also, I don’t know if people realize…the way that we are going into a scene sometimes, a lot of times, even throughout Two Witches, we’re talking, and let’s say we’re doing a thing with an actor, and then somebody is like, ‘And then they could do this.’ And we’re like, ‘Oh my god, that’s so much better.’ Or, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s f—ed up, that’s so crazy.’ And then we just try to do it. There are a lot of liberties that are taken while filming is taking place that are sometimes chasing the direction of where we’re going.
That makes total sense. The movie is obviously very scary; the haunted house stuff especially got to me, I loved all of that. But I also really like how it’s not just jump scares. At the heart of it, you touch on some serious stuff about trauma and abuse. Especially when you dive back into the family and what happened to her as a kid. Can you tell me a little bit about working those elements into the script and how you achieved balancing the scary vs. the seriousness of it? Was it a lot of back-and-forth?
Tsigaridis: It’s funny because, for this movie, we approached the story not necessarily from a horror movie aspect, when it comes to the way the characters interact with themselves. You know what I mean? The heavy stuff was not supposed to be as much, in my mind, at the forefront. I don’t want to necessarily spoil anything, but there are some really disturbing scenes that are not necessarily gory or horrific in the horror world. It’s more horrific in a much broader, deeper meaning.
It was more like the actors, Rebekah Kennedy and Sean O’Bryan, who are involved in the scene, had such good chemistry and connection. They knew what the story was, and they took it way further than we initially were going to take it. We were going to not show — not that we show that much, but we are very explicit, still, in how the stuff was conveyed, I would say. And that’s because they were willing to do that. They trusted each other, they had worked with each other before. So they ended up making it way more disturbing than initially planned.
Totally. They make it feel very real. I think those were some of the most disturbing parts of the movie, for sure. I’d love to ask you guys about the opening of this movie. That quick little moment is so effective — we don’t know the full story of what’s going on with the guy who has the artifact at first, but we can tell it’s something bad. It immediately kind of sets the tone. When you were coming up with that, did you have the full story of what happened to that guy and the kid in your mind? Did you ever write it down and decide to take it out, or was this how you always envisioned it?
Tsigaridis: It’s funny because that scene was actually shot after the rest of the film, the opening. We thought it’d just make sense to do that opening scene. We thought it’d be kind of cool to echo what’s happened with Mikey and the other children through this character, but without really knowing exactly. We know that he must have done something horrible to his child. He knows that it’s the artifact that made him do it. But we don’t explicitly explain that. You need to watch the rest of the movie to figure that out.
Rançon: If we make one day a prequel with Sean Whalen and Sean O’Bryan, maybe we’ll explain what happened back then.
I would watch it, totally.
Tsigaridis: The message of the film is that the bad things these people are doing nowadays, some people 100 years ago did it. And, probably, some people 1,000 years ago did it. And why do people do that? Why do people abuse other people? Why do people hurt? The artifact, the demon, is the metaphor of this evil that humans have in them, and why do they keep doing horrible things to each other? It’s like the good ‘ole question of, is it inherited? Is it something that happened to you? Do you just replicate what was done to you? We embody all of that through the figure of the demon and the artifact.
Sure, definitely. You mentioned Rebekah earlier, and I know she’s not here with us, but I just have to praise her performance in this movie. She has to do a lot, between being really scary in those haunted house scenes, and then when you do dive into the family backstory, she’s really emotional and sad. She conveys all that so good. I know you guys worked with her on Two Witches; what made you feel like she’d be right for this role, and how was working with her again?
Tsigaridis: I think we realized why she was the right person for the role was, obviously, her performance in Two Witches, but also that she trusts us. This movie was going to be really difficult to make with the scenes we had. We were like, ‘You know what? We’re not having a lot of resources, we’re not necessarily vetted by the industry on a higher level of things.’ So we were like, ‘Okay, to have someone who is down to do it and believes in the project is going to be difficult.’ And she was just right in front of our eyes. Like, look no further, she’s the one.
She always wants to take up a new challenge. She likes us because she’s always like, ‘You give me new things to work with,’ where she could be stuck as more of a character actor in some other productions that have bigger budgets. She has less creative freedom and can explore less. With us, and with this character, she’s like, ‘Wow, I’ve never done this before.’
Rançon: We were out there covering her with slime and stuff, you know?
Tsigaridis: Yeah. She was the right call.
Thanks to Pierre Tsigaridis and Maxime Rançon for taking the time to discuss Traumatika.
