kindertrauma

Month: May 2009

Name That Trauma :: Reader Dan P. on Falling Females & Bad Birthdays

Posted on By aunt john

I have two, actually. Not sure if they're from the same movie or not. The first one involves a woman standing on a ladder which is in the hallway on the second floor, by the balcony. Someone (perhaps a child) pushes her off the ladder and she goes flying over the railing and hits the ground and dies. I thought that perhaps it was the scene in THE OMEN but it isn't. This is from a different movie.

The second trauma I have involves a birthday cake. I don't remember if it was a woman or a child, but just before or right after they blow the candles out, some sort of creature pops up from the cake and lets out some sort of ghastly scream. For a long time I was leery of birthday cakes because of this scene. Hope you can help!

UPDATE: The "Bad Birthday" trauma stems from the 1983 PETER WELLER classic OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN. Special thanks to reader jaakko, and check the comments for a clip.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Sanjr on Soldiers Stalked by Crab Creatures

Posted on By aunt john

name that trauma!

Salutations,

I got one for everyone that has had me going nuts for YEARS!!!

All I can remember for sure that it involved British or German soldiers during a war I just don't recall.

They were being preyed on by what I remember to be giant crab-like creatures (Yeah…that's right. Crab-like creatures). Why were the monster(s) there? I don't remember.

I remember one particular scene where a group of soldiers come upon a victim of said creatures & one of them vomits in disgust at the sight. That's all I remember, that & the poster which I believe was all black except for the eyes of the creature glowing in the dark….I think.

I don't even remember if it was in color or black & white but I'm leaning towards b&w.

The film traumatized me then & while I think I'm pretty much over it, I haven't seen it since (I saw it on the big screen by the way with my dad somewhere between '69-'73. I know that's a big time span but I'm pretty sure it was in there 'cuz I started going to the movies with my dad in '68 & I'm pretty sure it wasn't that year) so who knows?? I might just shrink into the fetal position if I got a chance to see it again.

I'm not sure I wanna do that but I do need to find out the name of the picture so if anyone out there has any idea what it is…then lemme know & free me of this torture!!!

By the way, this is the greatest website ever. I just thought I oughta throw that in. Thanx for rehashing the worst memories of my celluloid childhood.

Sanjr

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Name That Trauma :: Reader PhantomWerewolf on a Book Cover Bearing a Haunted House & Ghostly Gal

Posted on By aunt john

Hey Aunty and Unk!

Got a Name That Trauma for you guys, hope someone can help me out. Once again, this little trauma comes in the form of a book. I don't remember much about this book, I only remember that it was titled something odd. Something like "The House that Came to Life" or something of the sort. Anyway, on the front of this book was a really freaky lookin' old abandoned house, and on the center balcony of this haunted house was a ghostly woman.

Like I said, I don't recall much about the book having only looked at the pictures inside. I think there was something about a family moving into the haunted house… and there was a fire near the end. That's it. Hope someone can help me out!

Sincerely,

PhanWolf

Kinder-Editorial :: Kinderpal Mickster on the Horrors of Snoopy Come Home

Posted on By kinderpal mickster

snoopy come home!

Utter joy is what I felt when I first learned there was a feature length Charlie Brown cartoon, and it would soon air on CBS. What I didn't know was the traumatizing effect it would have on me as a child. One might assume it was Snoopy leaving Charlie Brown to live with his previous owner, Lila, that disturbed me, but that event was only a drop in the bucket of despair that is SNOOPY COME HOME.

Let us begin with the discrimination and prejudice endured by Snoopy. Right from the beginning of the film, Snoopy is cast out of all his favorite spots simply because he is a dog. A familiar deep voice (THURL RAVENSCROFT) sings, "No Dogs Allowed!" throughout the film. Even Woodstock is not immune to these senseless acts of bigotry. At the beach, library, bus, hospital, and apartment complex Snoopy is deemed unworthy.

snoopy come home!

Next, we are introduced to a future serial killer. As Snoopy and Woodstock are making their journey, they encounter a seemingly harmless little girl. The soon find, however, she is not harmless at all. Before you can say Lizzie Borden, Snoopy has a thick rope tied around his neck, and Woodstock is shoved into a cage. This diabolical girl likes her victims clean, so she proceeds to almost drown poor Snoopy in the tub. Her next step is to dress her victim, and play tea party where she purposely spills tea then blames Snoopy. She puts Snoopy across her knee and spanks him. This is truly twisted stuff. Snoopy makes a break for it and attempts to call for help. Unfortunately, she retches the phone from his paw and drags him to the local vet. Luckily, Snoopy escapes the vet's office and rushes back to the crime scene to help Woodstock get away. Nail-biting action ensues as the psychopath chases Snoopy and Woodstock through the house of horrors. In the end, Snoopy and Woodstock barely escape with their lives. I find it interesting psycho-girl keeps calling to her mother about her new pets, but there is no reply. My theory is the mother has already been dispatched PSYCHO-style by this miniature serial killer in the making.

The final death nail, for me, was the going away bash held for Snoopy after he announced his plans to live permanently with his former owner, Lila. When even Lucy begins crying over Snoopy's imminent departure you know it is for real. I cannot recall if I made it through the entire going away party before slipping off to my bedroom to sob uncontrollably. Once again, as she always did, my mother came looking for me. She encouraged me to return for the rest of the movie. Happily, I returned just in time to see Snoopy come home to Charlie Brown.

Many years later, I shared this film with my niece. I wondered if I had been a total wimp when I had watched the movie as a child. I soon found my niece had an almost identical reaction to the movie. I, like my mother, had to coax her into finishing the movie.

snoopy come home!

Little Otik

Posted on By aunt john

Little Otik

Perhaps the one thing your Aunt John knows even less about than birthing babies is the actual desire to have one in the first place. Really, the last thing I need is someone else to ruin my figure, or a write a tell-all book about my disdain for wire hangers. Despite my intrinsic lack of maternal yearnings, I found myself drawn into the dilemma of the childless Czech couple in surrealist director's JAN SVANKMAJER's LITTLE OTIK. After the hopelessly impotent Karel (JAN HARTL) fails at impregnating his barren wife Bozena (VERONIKA ZILKOVA, a dead-ringer for HOPE DAVIS if there ever was one), he carves her a baby boy from a gnarled tree root. Bozena is instantly smitten with her psychotic-looking PINOCCHIO, which she names Otik, and begins mothering it as if it were a real child.

Little Otik

Director SVANKMAJER skillfully sets up the action to first seem that Bozena is so far removed from reality that she really thinks her swaddled root is a living and breathing baby. Alas, Bozena is not completely bonkers, though her later actions speak otherwise; Otik is quite the animate object with an even bigger appetite to match. Without spoiling too much, let's just say he successfully moves from the bottle stage to solids in record time.

Little Otik

Providing a perfect foil to the harried parents with the killer (tree) tyke is the downstairs neighbor girl Alzbetka (KRISTINA ADAMCOVA). The parallels between Alzbetka and THE BAD SEED's Rhoda Penmark, on the surface, are somewhat obvious: the tow-headed plats, the expressionless affect, and the precocious ingenuity needed to dispatch a pesky pedophile. What differentiates Alzbetka from Rhoda is her subtle transformation from one-note creep to full-fledged Mother Hen. When his parents abandon Oztik, Alzbetka, just short of strapping on one of those BabyBjörns that bother me so, picks up the slack and steps in as the ‘tween surrogate mother figure. As she is cleaning out her mother's refrigerator, ADAMCOVA steals the movie out from everyone, when the third and final act becomes, more or less, her story.

Little Otik

Known for the animated shorts MEAT LOVE and FLORA, which both make cameos in the film, director SVANKMAJER brings his passion for food, signature animation style, and eye for disconcerting close-ups to LITTLE OTIK. Despite its lengthy run-time (2 hrs. 6 min.), the hypnotic visuals speed the movie along. The next time one of your mid-to-late thirties gal pals starts kvetching about her biological clock, sit her down and make her watch this film. Motherhood is really not for everyone, and it is not without its consequences.

*Special thanks to Reader Tara S. for bringing this gem to our attention!

Baby Blues

Posted on By unkle lancifer

2008's BABY BLUES (be careful there are two films from ‘08 which bear this title!) is a snarling little wombat of a movie and, like a misanthropic reality show contestant, it's not here to make friends. A minimum of blood is actually spilt on screen, but its subject matter crosses a line that is sure to leave thin-skinned viewers clutching their pearls and mentally designing picket signs. Helen Lovejoy, ya better sit down, this movie is about a mommy who kills her very own children! Now, it's a well known fact that the fairer sex is completely incapable of such atrocities in real life and that the history of the world has absolutely zero examples of a mother injuring her own children, but here it is anyway…they've gone and made a female version of THE SHINING!

This is a difficult little movie folks, and that's why I like it. It's not easy watching a mother decide that in order to properly clean house some moppet heads have to roll, but horror never signed up to be easy. In fact, horror pretty much yearns to make you feel a bit uncomfortable and my advice is to let it. I'm saying this because some viewers really are taking offense to this movie, which, in a way, I think is a good thing. Can someone please explain to me why Jack Torrance can run about swinging an axe at his family and wind up with his grinning mug on a Spencer's Gifts refrigerator magnet, but as soon as a Mom decides to grab a meat cleaver and follow suit people get all fidgety? Sounds like some ol' fashioned sexism to me! C'mon, there are not enough female horror icons as it is out there. I think it's time we got behind our trauma-mommas and support their right to go nut-zo! Sure this mom actually snuffs an infant (off camera by the way) and I know nobody likes that idea much but omelets or eggs people? Do you want your delicious scary omelets or do you want to keep your boring eggs?

As illustrated by our list of the 10 MOST HORRIFYING MOVIE MOMS, there is a rich history of killer moms in horror cinema, so what is so especially unnerving about this one? (I mean besides the whole infanticide bit.) My guess is that part of the unease comes from the fact that BABY BLUES catches the viewer off guard by showing a pretty accurate and sympathetic view of mental illness in the beginning (I was reminded of the brilliant CLEAN, SHAVEN) and then it abruptly morphs into full on genuine stalk and slash by the end (Mom really does give Michael Myers a run for his money.) It's a sharp turn to ask of an audience within such a short time. This clash of tones becomes shriller still when the poor soul we watched fighting off crying jags and audio hallucinations earlier in the film begins spouting out one too many clever zingers ala "Here's Johnny!" It's sort of like watching the LIFETIME Channel with one eye and FEARNET with the other, but gee; didn't I just describe the greatest thing ever? I'll admit that the logic defying closing scene is nearly impossible to swallow, but I chomped my nails like a cob of corn throughout the film and that's more than enough for me.

Directors LARS E. JACOBSON and AMARDEEP KALEKA do a great job spotlighting images of warm domestic paraphernalia and creating ominous environments out of the typically mundane. There are some great performances here too from actors you'll no doubt see much more of in the future. COLLEEN PORCH as "Mom" fearlessly goes from alpha to omega and brings to mind ANGELINA JOLIE when she still had some moxie and lived on Earth (oh, the halcyon days of GIA). RIDGE CANIPE as the final kid never seems less than real and that too can be said of the young actors who play his siblings. JOEL BRYANT as "Dad," besides providing a much-needed dose of gravitizing stability, has now earned the title of permanent Kindertrauma pin-up (I had to explain to Aunt John that the title BABY BLUES was a reference to postpartum depression and not JOEL's peepers.) This movie is certainly not for everybody, but if you dig real horror and are not afraid of a little squirming you should check it out. Heck, I'll go one further and call it the perfect Mother's Day gift!

Name That Trauma :: Reader Athanasios K. on a Married Snuff Filmmaker

Posted on By aunt john

name that trauma!

Hi there! When I saw this film I'm looking for, I was about 10 (31 now). So here it is:

Husband and wife; husband a doctor or something, says to wife he will go on a business trip for some time. She stays home alone, the same night she turns on the T.V. and while she is watching something, this is interrupted and she is now watching a woman's torture and killing. She thought it was a movie but the next day she gets a newspaper and realizes that it was a real murder. This story is going on for another 4-5 girls and the last night the serial killer gets into her house and tries to kill her. She kills him instead and finds out that he is her husband. Last scene of the movie: Phone is ringing, she answers it and hears a scary voice saying to her, "Who do you think was holding the camera?"

Back then it seemed to me sooo creepy. I don't know if it was T.V. production or a theatrical release, but it's been over 15 years that I've been looking for this one. It was a mid/late ‘80s production I think. Can you help me? Thank you.

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Name That Trauma :: Reader Julian D.'s Fiancé on Fleshy Disc Throwing Aliens

Posted on By aunt john

Alright guys, after telling my fiancé about the website and how you guys found my trauma, she wonders if you guys can find her trauma…

A movie about an alien who hunts humans and throws these strange discs at the humans (they're almost fleshy discs) and when discs hit, they suck the humans dry and then he hangs the humans in an outhouse or a barn or something!…

Any help??

UNK SEZ: Dear Julian, The movie your fiance must be talking about is 1980's WITHOUT WARNING (some might suggest that she has also described 1987's PREDATOR, a movie that has been frequently accused of ripping off WITHOUT WARNING.) It starred genre veterans JACK PALANCE and MARTIN LANDAU (both of ‘82s ALONE IN THE DARK) and featured an early performance by DAVID CARUSO.

WITHOUT WARNING has built quit a reputation over the years, much of which might be due to the fact that it has yet to have a proper release on either VHS or DVD. As a kid I remember a friend of mine's dad took him to see this one and ya know what? I'm still jealous! (Now that I think of it, that was the same kid whose dad took him to see DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE, some guys get all the luck!) This one might be a hard one to track down but here are some clips from the Youtubes if it helps….