Thanx to Cinematical!
Month: June 2009
Name That Trauma :: Reader Jeff R. on a Barbaric Butterfly
Hi there, I just stumbled across your site the other day and I'm loving it! I've got a Name That Trauma that I've been wondering about for the past 30 years. Wow, typing that just made me even more aware of my own mortality. But that's another trauma.
The one in question was a series of animated shorts that came on PBS sometime in the mid-to-late ‘70s. I must have been about 5 and my sister and I were at my aunt and uncle's house and were left with our cousins in a spare bedroom to watch "cartoons". Well, the first one starts off nice and pleasant as a man goes frolicking around in a field catching butterflies in a net for his collection back home. He pins them into his little display box and they look very pretty, besides, bugs don't have feeling, right? Right?
Cut to his next collection session and out of nowhere, a huge, school bus sized butterfly swoops down and snatches him up by the scruff of his neck. As he struggles, the giant, animated Monarch flings him onto a thorn of an incredibly large flower impaling him! As he slides down further onto the huge thorn, we are panned back to see all the other unfortunate human specimens in the butterfly's collection.
There was another one with a guy cutting off the top of his own head and putting his brain in the refrigerator or something, but it was the butterfly one that really got me. Hopefully you can help me figure out just what the hell these demented shorts were!
Thanks and keep up the disturbing work,
Jeff R.
UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! It appears to be a short from the International Festival of Animation.
Happy Father's Day!
Happy Father's Day! There I was getting ready to write an elaborate ode to CRAIG T. NELSON when I realized, we kind of covered that guy LAST YEAR. (Also there is the whole thing where there is a nerdy sci-fi convention in town today and I'm going to it and therefore do not have the time to give Mr. NELSON the proper respect he so richly deserves.) So forget that idea, who wants to hear me babble on about the greatest Dad in all of horror anyway? Instead how about you folks take some time to visit some of our favorite fathers out there in internet-land? These boys really know how to bring home the bacon and, as far as I know, none of them have ever been possessed by a giant tequila worm!
Note: You should also stop by and visit our pal Vince over at SLASHER SPEAK. (He recently became the proud father of a bouncing baby Bram Stoker award!)
P.S. If we missed any blogging dads out there let us know, feel free to leave your link in the comments section. Happy Father's Day to all!
Name That Trauma :: Reader Carlos L. on an Elastic Flesh Monster Party
Hello:
I've been looking for this ‘80s horror movie for a long time.
So, teenager boy moves into a new school and neighborhood. There's an accident and one of the kids dies; so he starts to investigate, suspicious that it was murder. Soon, he discovers that most of the town people are these elastic-flesh monsters – including his dream girl (that is not as mean as the others) and her whole family. These people consume normal humans in rituals where their flesh becomes very elastic (gooey), and they absorb it. In one of the scenes, the father is with the wife and daugther in bed, and he sticks his head out of the daughters butt or something like that (gross); the teen fights the elastic flesh monster "party."
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Carlos
UNK SEZ: I know this one, it has to be the first film from director BRIAN YUZNA, 1989's SOCIETY! What a weird flick! It's a bit clunky in places but the special effects from SCREAMING MAD GEORGE are awe inspiring. I'm pretty prone to loving any film that involves a secret cult, so a flick about a secret cult that is made out of silly putty and devours those less fortunate than themselves is aces in my book!
NOTE: The brave amongst you can watch SOCIETY's climax HERE!
Name That Traumatot:: Round Lucky 13
Put on your thinking caps! It's that time of the week again; time to name the movies that these here traumatots appeared in!
Stir of Echoes
Underrated and unpretentious KEVIN BACON plays underrated and unpretentious working stiff Tom Witzkey in STIR OF ECHOES. Tom, an ordinary guy who resents his ordinariness inadvertently becomes extraordinary when he allows himself to be hypnotized by his sister-in-law Lisa (habitual scene stealer ILLEANA DOUGLAS). Quirky Lisa has a long history of clashing with Tom's grounded, prosaic view of the universe so after rummaging around in his head a bit she leaves a suggestion that he keep it all kinds of wide open in the future. Soon the once level headed and under stimulated Tom is exposing emotions previously kept under wraps and experiencing psychic phenomenon that he can't control or understand. See what happens when you let down your guard for one second Tom? The ghosts, they come a knocking!
STIR OF ECHOES is an unassuming, straight shooting supernatural thriller that got elbowed out of the limelight by flashy juggernaut THE SIXTH SENSE way back in the olden days of 1999. STIR covers similar ground as SENSE involving a crime that must be exposed in order for its victim to cross over to the other side and it even has a kid (Tom's son Jake ZACHARY DAVID COPE) who sees dead people. With its focus on character development and aversion to spectacle perhaps STIR, based on a novel by RICHARD MATHESON, would have been better suited for the small screen in the first place. Its strongest scenes rely on slightly tweaking everyday occurrences and its weakest involve needless C.G.I. and clumsily staged shock cuts.
On the other hand, STIR OF ECHOES the movie may suffer from the same complex as its main character; sometimes its commitment to efficiency blocks it from being truly spectacular. You can't help feeling obliged to give it props for its earnest, responsible approach, but one wonders (particularly during a simple scene involving a ghost high jacking an episode of LIDSVILLE on T.V.) just how much more trippy and mind screwy it could have been if it just loosened up its blue collar and went nuts.
One of STIR's undeniable feats is creating a neighborhood setting that actually comes across as real and inhabiting it with the type of humans that you might come across on any given day. I'm not sure throwing a pair of horned rim glasses on a lovely starlet (JENNIFER MORRISON) convinces me that she is a mentally challenged loner, but the intention is appreciated and that particular misstep happens late in the game. There are a few pointless pit stops and our ghost's methods of getting her message across seem needlessly roundabout but the story is never less than intriguing and even if you see its final revelation coming from a mile away, you'll want to stick around to watch how it effects the likable characters.
NOTE: Speaking of letting your freak flag fly, the potential expressive power of art and the film career of ILLEANA DOUGLAS, let's take a moment to watch the short film MIRROR, FATHER, MIRROR by artist Roberta Allsworth. Not only does it reveal what it's like to inhabit its creator's specific skin, it's got kindertrauma written all over it!
Traumafessions :: Reader Kahotep on Creepy Movie Trailers
Loving the site, folks, though I wish I had proper access during the day to answer some of the questions first…
You got me thinking about some more of the work which scared me as a tot, and something which definitely remains fixed in my mind were some of the T.V. commercials for horror movies in the mid-to-late '70s. Four stick in my mind especially:
DAWN OF THE DEAD: That rolling scroll warning that no one under seventeen will be permitted into the theatre – with the zombies bursting into the elevator! Could never ride an elevator the same way after that, I always stood at the side of the doors, presumably so they couldn't get me.
PROPHECY: This image of a deformed bear fetus coming closer into view while an announcer says something about it being "15 feet tall and a gazillion tons in weight" or something – and then some attack scene where a kid in a sleeping bag gets mauled and feathers from the sleeping bag fly everywhere. Or something.
PHANTASM: Random clips of the Silver Sphere flying around, and the Tall Man pulling the kid in through a mirror…
And probably most profoundly, SUSPIRIA: It opens with a view of the back of the head of a woman brushing her blonde hair (and puts a flower into her hair too?), while a little girl sings "Roses are red/Violets are blue/This little flower… will be the end of you!" And the "woman" turns around to reveal a…
Okay, it's a skeleton in a blonde wig. I know that now. I know it was a cheap little advertisement for a rotten little film.
Damned if it still doesn't give me a bit of a chill…
Anyway, thought I'd share that and find out if anyone else underwent similar traumas. Keep up the good work!
Regards,
Kahotep
AUNT JOHN SEZ: Actually Kahotep, you are not alone! Readers Bilgin & FatherOfTears have gone on record about the skeleton from the SUSPIRIA trailer and David has discussed the infamous baby bear in PROPHECY.
Traumafessions :: Reader Danny R. on Evil Ed's Demise in Fright Night
This scene has haunted me for a while. I was going through a vampire phase during the 6th grade, and had fallen in love with THE LOST BOYS. I loved the bloody effects and the dark humor. Well, since I liked it so much, my father got me one of those "two-for-one" packs, vampire themed, with a DVD copy of THE LOST BOYS. The other DVD was FRIGHT NIGHT, which my cousin Derrick told my parents was perfectly okay for me to watch, and no worse than lost boys. And, for the most part, it wasn't. In fact, the blood throughout the first half of the movie was nothing compared to the constant slashing in THE LOST BOYS. I liked it a lot, and it would have been my new favorite if it weren't for one terrible scene: The death of Evil Ed.
I think what made it so brutal was the fact that, unlike the guys in THE LOST BOYS (who, to me, all looked like full-grown adults), Evil Ed was just a kid. He was probably my favorite character in the movie. Now, I would have been more than okay if he had simply been staked and died as a werewolf. But he didn't. After screaming his brains out for a good forty seconds as a hellish dog-beast, he turns back into a 14-year-old kid. And then he continues to squirm in agony, making possibly the most gut-wrenching noises ever recorded on film.
But I would have been okay if it weren't for a single shot. Just the two second shot of the young boy, covered in blood and throwing his head back, eyes full of unimaginable pain, still has the ability to chill me. He doesn't die in a comic way, or a "gross" way. He dies in the exact way that you would expect a 14-year-old with a table leg through his chest to die, screaming in agony. For such a light movie, it's an incredibly intense and heavy scene that STILL makes me feel more ill than anything in a SAW/HOSTEL movie. Needless to say, I ran from the room and didn't watch it again until last year when I turned fifteen. But every time I watch it, those screams stick with me for days after.
Name That Trauma :: Reader Em E. on a Deadly Doll
Firstly great site!
Secondly, I have a kindertrauma that's been haunting me FOREVER!!
It was either part of an anthology or a movie or part of a series but it starts with these group of men who go to a summer house (I'm pretty sure it was set in the '30s or '40s and all the men are on a break from college and are all wearing wicker hats and those stripey blazers. Anyway, they end up coming across this doll (a porcelain doll I think) and one by one the doll kills them all. In one of the death scenes one of the men is in bed and the bedroom door is closed with light shining through under the bottom, then you see two small feet (the doll's) appear as shadows.
Cut to the ending and I'm pretty sure the last remaining bloke is left to dispose of the doll, they stuff it in a picnic hamper and he loads it into the back of his car and just as you think everything's alright and he'll get out of it, the camera pans out from the car driving away and it begins to veer off into the side of the road indicating that the doll got him…
I know it's a long shot but this petrified me for years and still to this day I cannot remember what it was, but I'd love to see it again.
Thanks,
Em
UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to Reader DavidFullam for recognizing it as STEPHEN WEEKS' GHOST STORY (a.k.a ASYLUM).