TRAUMA OR, MONSTERS ALL movie poster | ©2026 Dark Sky Films/Glass Eye Pix

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Laëtitia Hollard, Aitana Doyle, Addison Timlin, Alex Hurt, Alex Breaux, Larry Fessenden, John Speredakos, Cody Kostro, Marc Senter, Micheál Neeson, Joseph Castillo-Midyett, Rigo Garay, Barbara Crampton, Joshua Leonard, James Le Gros
Writer: Larry Fessenden
Director: Larry Fessenden
Distributor: Dark Sky Films/Glass Eye Pix
Release Date: November 4, 2026

Writer/director/producer/editor/actor Larry Fessenden has been making low-budget features since 1981. While not exclusively working in horror, his body of work in the genre has been significant.

Among Fessenden’s many previous films are the 1995 vampire movie HABIT, the 2019 Frankenstein-in-Brooklyn DEPRAVED, and 2024’s werewolf tale BLACKOUT.

In TRAUMA OR, MONSTERS ALL, Fessenden brings together multiple characters from those three films and deposits them in BLACKOUT’s setting of the small upstate New York town of Talbot Falls.

Young librarians Cassandra (Laëtitia Hollard) and Agnes (Aitana Doyle) form a friendship on the job. Cassandra is a newcomer to the area, researching the book she’s writing on George Washington Carver. Agnes is a lifelong townie who has never been anywhere else.

Agnes admires and envies Cassandra for her talent and travel skills, but it’s Agnes who inspires the writer. Cassandra has rented a house out at the edge of town, and her next-door neighbors seem peculiar. Agnes tells Cassandra about an incident at the local police station a few years ago, when a werewolf reportedly rampaged through the place, causing fatalities.

Cassandra is so intrigued by this that she does an online deep dive and comes up with a fair amount of information about both this and some odd experiments that apparently led to a lethal house fire. She puts what she’s found into an article, which gets published in the Talbot Falls Gazette.

The neighbors are appalled at being outed, a lot of townsfolk are outraged, and at least one other supernatural being comes along to check things out for himself.

This results in a number of separate storylines that inevitably converge at the finale. Our main focus is Cassandra, who we mostly like – Hollard is very effective in the role – though we’re not sure whether to believe her protestations of ignorance of what kind of havoc her article would wreak.

In fairness to Cassandra, and a big unanswered question hanging over TRAUMA OR, MONSTERS ALL, is that whether or not she should have considered the possibility of her article stirring things up, the editors at the Gazette should certainly have known what could happen. We never even meet them, much less find out if they had any ulterior motives. This wouldn’t matter if both the article and Cassandra’s arguable culpability weren’t such big plot points.

Likewise, we wonder why one of the main characters, returning from BLACKOUT, chose to stay in town when it’s so clearly a bad idea. (TRAUMA OR, MONSTERS ALL opens on a black screen, with another BLACKOUT character explaining to new pals why he left Talbot Falls altogether.) Then again, despite how small Talbot Falls is supposed to be, nobody seems to be able to find anybody’s home.

It’s possible that this is all meant to underscore the folkloric nature of TRAUMA OR, MONSTERS ALL. Fessenden maintains a comparatively low-key, understated tone to go with the moody visuals and largely contemplative people. The increasingly complicated narrative flows along with a naturalism not always accorded to supernatural stories, allowing moments to resonate.

Alex Hurt and Alex Breaux are excellent as Cassandra’s traumatized but functioning neighbors, and Fessenden reprises his role from HABIT.

The vampire effects are very good, as is the makeup on the Frankenstein’s monster-like entity. The werewolf is less impressive.

TRAUMA OR, MONSTERS ALL takes a lot of flashy, familiar horror concepts and renders them with unexpected quiet thoughtfulness. This is principally what makes it stand out from the crowd.

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