Month: May 2009

I've been reading your site for a long time now and decided to finally submit this burning name-that-trauma question of my own: Sometime during the early 1980's, I was traumatized by what must have been some kind of after-school special or something that ended with a too-gruesome-for-daytime-T.V. moment. The show or T.V. movie was about a kid who made some bad choices and got mixed up either with a gang or drugs or both. The only part I remember vividly was near the end, when the young hero found himself lying on the pavement with a gaping stab wound in his side. I'm pretty sure there was some kind of montage or voice over here that was all about how much he regretted the choices that had led him to this sorry end, but mostly I just remember that gaping, red stab wound. It was probably much more tame than I remember it, but as a young lad it haunted me for years. (Maybe it worked! I never did join a street gang!)

Perhaps one of your readers can identify this after-school trauma special.

Cheers,

Shane

UNK SEZ: Aunt John and I have thought hard about this, but we have only come to one conclusion; the after-school special you are looking for is probably not this one….

Okay, let me repeat what EVERYONE is saying…I love this site!

Anyhow, this is a long shot and if anyone can come up with this I will personally award SOMETHING whether material or online…because I have searched myself into oblivion…this has bothered me since I was about 9 or 10 years old and I am now 36…PLEASE!

I believe it was an HBO Short Take…around the early ‘80s (of course)….anyhow, it is a short cartoon about this little kid who is in a room. On the other side of the room is this doorknob that sparkles at him…taunting him to open it…but every time the kid tries, the door is locked. Next thing you know, he's a teen, the doorknob sparkles and teases him, but he still can't open it. Finally, he grows into an old man who is now literally INSANE because of this door…he can't open it but it keeps sparkling and taunting him to open it…the old man beats and screams psychotically at the door until finally he starts to keel over from either old age or a heart attack…and right when he is about to die, the door creeks open, and the man's eyes grow big as if saying "YES! FINALLY!"…but he dies.

All of a sudden, the door sloooowly swings open and it's an old fashioned in-door ironing board that unfolds and flops open.

Sounds lame, I know, but when you are about 10 years old and this psycho is freaking out, screaming, it sticks with you. I was scared for sooooo long…someone? Anyone? HELP…I need to conquer this! Thanks…

UPDATE: Name That Trauma SOLVED! Special thanks to Reader Tychoanomaly for unlocking the mystery of ROOM & BOARD:

Kindertrauma…what a site! Surely the only thing better than poring through confessions would be to submit one of my own…but someone's already purged themselves of HERBIE HANCOCK'S ‘Rockit', and my other trauma may be a little too obscure. I do have a Name That Trauma, but it's not a film. It's a game. A board game, of all things. Is that allowed? I'll press on anyway…

Late 1980's U.K. – I was 9-ish and enjoying the last day of term before summer holidays. It was tradition for us kidlets to bring toys and games on the last day, and one boy had brought in an odd board game. The first unnerving thing was that no one seemed to want to play it. He eventually scrounged a few victims, me included, and we huddled in a corner away from all the Guess Who's and Mouse Traps.

Now I loved my Horror Top Trumps. Indeed, I was one of those designated odd-kids who love anything creepy or monsterish or plain weird. But this? This was different.

I remember the actual board being quite large, the players looking down through an invisible ceiling of a many-roomed castle. Each room had a different and nightmarish feature. One showed a wall weeping from a pair of drooping eyes. Another was The Bloody Room, the walls splashed with gore.

Then there were the game cards. I think they represented monsters the player had to encounter upon entering certain rooms. I only remember two clearly; the Spider Woman was one, her arachnid body capped with freakish human face. The second was a demure looking woman in profile. On the back of her head, nudging through her hair, gaped a pair of inhuman, fleshy lips. Oh God.

But the rotten cherry on top is this; the centre of the board held a grey plastic mound with three or so holes. Each player had a small plastic sword. At the crux of the game players would push the sword into a hole to hear one of three sound effects; a fanfarish sound that meant you had won the duel against the invisible opponent, a metal clash signifying a draw, or, worst of all, a sinister chuckle.

Even now I shiver when I remember that chuckle, or my brain throws up the memory of Skull-Mouth Lady.

Everyone I mention it to thinks it's Atmosfear (it's not), or that game where a glow-in-the dark skull falls down plastic stairs (nope again).

Please, Kindertrauma, help me learn what this bloody evil game was!

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to reader senski for knowing that the game in question is called HORROR HOUSE.

Dear Kindertrauma,

I have the vague memory of a film that has left me wary of gifts received on Valentine's Day (especially ones that are wrapped and stuffed into boxes) ever since watching bits of it one Saturday afternoon as a six year-old child. I really need help identifying the title so I can feel more at ease, and hopefully be able to find out more about the film so I can at least chuckle about how ridiculous I've been over it throughout the past years.

The film's setting revolves around Valentine's Day, and many events had happened prior to the scene, which fascinated, yet frightened me. I do not care to explain what took place, due to time restrictions and the fact that I really don't want you to waste your time editing my submission.

Anywho, in this scene we are now at the house of a snobby girl in her late teenage years who carelessly wrecked her car days before, killing her baby. She is relaxing by the pool on a white lawn chair, supposedly trying to get a tan (which looked more like a sunburn to me at the time), when suddenly, the phone in the kitchen rings. She gets up out of the chair to go answer it, moaning and groaning all the while about how she 'cannot get any relaxation without people bothering her.'

"Hello?!" she answers in the most sarcastic-sounding voice that any human being could ever muster, but all she gets in return is an annoying dial-tone. The girl grumbles again, turns around to go continue to burn herself to a crisp in the sun, but then she stops. On the counter, right in front of her, is a beautiful white gift box adorned with an adorable red ribbon. She excitedly picks up the box and heads back out onto the patio to open it.

Back on the patio, the girl is already making little "ooh" and "aww" noises as she sits back down in the lawn chair and begins unwrapping her gift.

Now, here is the scene that has forever embedded itself into my mind, although I don't really count it as a trauma since it failed to actually frighten me to up the point of wetting myself.

As the girl unwraps the unexpected gift, her excited expression quickly turns to one of horror as she discovers what is actually inside of the box; a more gruesome, mutilated version of the infant that was killed in the car accident.

The region of i's skull that was smashed in from the impact is now replaced by a gaping hole, and the monstrosity moves its limbs in a robotic-like (it was an animatronic model) fashion as it lets loose horrible screeching noises that could easily be mistaken for a sharp object being grated across a chalkboard. The bawling horror then emits another screech, leaps out of the box, and latches itself onto the panicked girl's face and begins to viciously tear at it.

You are the last source I know of that I can turn to.

And if you happen to find the film's title, I would be forever grateful!

— Matterly