Month: May 2010
Name That Trauma :: Reader Meander on Zombie Cowboy Goo
Hey Kindertrauma,
…This trauma has been severely bugging and alluding me for many years.
I remember seeing the movie when I was about 9 or 10. A modern day brother and sister ride around trying to find their parents and discover a strange town that is back in the Wild West Days. I remember the townsfolk ended up all being zombies that melted into green slime when killed. Also a major plot point revolved around the signature book in the old west hotel that the parents were staying at. Also I remember them trying to leave town in an old Cadillac but being blocked by a force field. I think when they found their parents they had no memory of the kids. I believe it takes place entirely at night.
Anyone know what this could possibly be? I've been trying to find this movie for years. The image of zombified cowboys melting into puddles of green goo terrified me and was ingrained in my brain forever.
Please help.
Thanks.
This site is awesome by the way.
-Meander
Traumafessions :: Reader Dana F. on The Price is Right, Tic Tac Dough, The Wizard of Oz, The Neverending Story & Raiders of the Lost Ark
I just discovered your site after a discussion on a Facebook thread about things that scared the bejeezus out of us when we were kids, and I thought I'd share some of mine.
1. The Cliffhanger on THE PRICE IS RIGHT. I wasn't scared of the climber himself, but I was SO SCARED that he was going to fall off, and when he did, I'd bury my face in the couch cushions and scare bloody murder. I mean, this guy was FALLING TO HIS DEATH!!! It happens at 5:25 here:
2. The TIC TAC DOUGH dragon. This pixelated monster made me want to wet myself.
3. The flying monkeys from THE WIZARD OF OZ. I'm sure I'm not the only person who was terrified of them.
4. Artax dying in the Swamp of Sadness in THE NEVERENDING STORY. I watched this today and was close to tears.
5. The Nazis' faces melting at the end of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Sure, they deserved it, but I still couldn't watch it.
Traumafessions :: Reader Craig J. on RCA Video Discs
You guys have covered most of the bases when it comes to all those things of yesteryear that have stuck with us longer than we would have ever imagined possible. But there's something you haven't touched on yet, and I'd like to know if any others had the same experience with this that I did.
The RCA video disc. These flooded video stores in the early/mid '80's, and I'm pretty certain they began my love of horror movies. Some had the standard covers that appeared on their Beta and VHS brethren, but some had the most vile and twisted cover-displays imaginable. And if you could make it past the cover, lord only knew what awaited you on the backside of the disc.
A couple cases in point: FRIDAY THE 13TH had a standard cover, but I will never forget what happened when you flipped it over–every brutal death displayed like a comic book layout. I'm not sure what they did or how they manipulated it, but the killings seem way gorier than what happens in the film (I think it might have had to do with a more saturated red used in the printing, and the shot of the girl with the ax in her face traumatizers longer and harder in freeze-frame than it does for the couple of seconds in the movie). And PARASITE showed the goods on the cover as the title creature was seen chewing through a leg (I think). These things were like modern-day porno movie packaging that gives away all the money-shots on the cover/back and makes you wonder why you would want to rent the thing when you could just slip it under your coat and high-tail it home.
I have a few of these things framed in my rec-room, but haven't been able to find more than 10 or so, and the great one's remain illusive (does anyone remember that really odd video disc cover for THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD?). A friend of mine once found a CD-ROM done by someone who had lovingly photographed every cover and backside of every RCA disc ever released (so I know I'm not alone in loving these things) but it died in his computer and I never got to see it.
I'm sure you guys at Kindertrauma MUST have a fond memory or two to share about these things (along with some images to post…?) 'cause I can't be alone with my memories of the RCA video disc. The strange scotch-tape scent of them mixed with that '80s video store second-hand smoke smell…the gawd-awful quality and image skipping of the actual film…etc.
Name That Trauma :: Reader Azabast on a Claw Crawl
I'm not even sure how to begin looking this one up since there is only one thing I recall about it, so if it's been covered already, I'll use the excuse that something is sucking out my brain.
My mother raised me right. She and I used to watch the ‘50s-‘60s-‘70s era classics together. She got me started early, and I recall the ones that scared the night-lights out of me… THE BLOB making its first appearance out of the meteor… the way its victims just completely disappeared… the word "absorbed" has always (and always will) have a much more traumatizing association for me than, say – paper towels. Another one: the hands with the alcohol needles and the drunk cow of INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN. Or the general's brain being revealed in EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS. You get the idea.
With all of those great (clear!) memories, there is one I just can't seem to pull out of my somewhat cluttered brain.
It was at the end of the movie, which I'm fairly certain was in B&W, and showed a claw, presumably from some regenerating creature (that's important), floating down to the sea bed, and then slowly beginning to "crawl" around. There was no mistaking that it was meant that "it ain't over yet."
I thought it might be the end of the original GODZILLA. Nope. It wasn't skeletal. THE GIANT CLAW? HA! Definitely not. REPTILICUS? Hmmm… if that's it, it doesn't appear on my VHS (what?) copy, and besides, that was in color.
Anyone who can direct me to the correct movie might just save the sanity of two movie fans. If not… well, I'm pretty sure we've all seen what happened in PSYCHO.
UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Kinderpal Senski solves it again with REPTILICUS!
Traumafessions/Name That Trauma :: Reader Kirsty D. on Time Bandits, Lord of the Flies, Full Metal Jacket and an Alien Teen on a Tractor
I was thinking about movies that traumatized me as a kid all night, and couldn't sleep. So, the first movie I kept thinking about was TIME BANDITS. O.K., where do I start… There was the scene where the boy and the time bandits run into the ogre on the ship with his wife. If I remember correctly, the ogre ate feet for municipal purposes. I think there were feet hanging everywhere in the ship. Then there was the scene where the giant steps on a house with some family inside, with the adults arguing, wasn't sure if it was the ogre's house or not, but I heard what I think was a baby crying.
Then, there was the scene where DAVID RAPPAPORT "The Wizard" threatens to beat one of the other time bandits with a human skull and of course JOHN CLEESE the evil sorcerer turning one of the guys' upper halves into a pig, and causing a column to fall and kill one of the guys. He also turned a stupid guard of his into a sheep dog and later zapped and disintegrated him. He was really creepy too, blowing up like a pincushion and turning into a rock and blowing up by the weird guy who was supposed to be God.
At the end there's a piece of him in the microwave after the boy wakes up with the house burning down, and if I remember correctly, the boy tells his parents not to touch it and they both reached over to touch it anyway and disappear and die? Then at the very end, the boy's looking around looking around like "mom, dad," when suddenly joyful music plays and the credits roll. The disgusting scene where one of the little guys bites off a rat's head saying eat up because that's all they would have to eat, while hanging in the cage kept running through my head and I don't like it.
Well, as I was thinking about this, for some odd reason I began thinking about the ‘89 version of LORD OF THE FLIES. The kids eating raw pig and the boy getting speared, and poor Piggie! I think that the main 'protagonist' kid tried dissociating himself from Piggie to save his own skin. The scene where Piggie gets the rock pushed on his head while trying to reason with them was really disturbing. I saw bits and pieces of it on a cable channel, and that still disturbs me.
After that my mind wandered to FULL METAL JACKET, which I saw when I was 7. So that whole scene where the VINCENT D'ONOFRIO character has the gun in the toilets shooting the drill sergeant and himself disturbed me, especially since the sergeant's treatment of him was presented as comical before the soap beating scene, since the VINCENT D'ONOFRIO character was selfish. After that it went to that "I love you long time" scene in Vietnam and I was like "Is this the same movie?" I didn't watch the rest of it.
On another subject, there's this scene that I know existed, but nobody seems to know what it was from. There were these blond children, a teenage girl and some boy, and it involved Cyborgs or androids. I think some woman figured out that they were evil androids, or something to that effect, and the girl chases her out into a parking lot or barn. The boy gets into a tractor and runs his sister over. It was in black and white.
Thanks!
Name That Trauma :: Reader Baron Exu on a Bloody Bathroom
Greetings Kindertrauma!
O.K., I have searched out and found nearly every horror film I vaguely remembered from my childhood, except one. One that actually scared me into leaving the drive-in when I was about 12; the year I saw it would have been sometime in the mid-to-late seventies. It had a very gothic atmosphere to it and may have been a dubbed Italian movie.
Anyways here is all I can remember since I didn't see the whole movie:
- It starts off with a woman arriving at night during a storm to a big scary mansion/castle.
- There is a very vicious dog barking and a malevolent atmosphere.
- Later there is a scene where the young woman finds her doll (ragdoll?) in her bed with a knife stuck in its stomach.
- And the last scene I can recall is the woman going into the bathroom where blood is pouring out of the bathtub faucet and someone slowly rises covered in blood from the blood filled bathtub.
Now I realize the last scene is very much like THE TINGLER, but that is not it.
I really hope some out there can help me figure out this movie's title, it has driven me crazy for a long time.
Thanks in advance,
Baron Exu
Name That Trauma :: Reader Colin on Maligned Machinery
Hi,
When I was in elementary school, I remember our teacher playing a movie (or T.V. special?) for the class. I'm pretty sure this was 1991-92. The movie wasn't quite scary, but it was bizarre and a little eerie. I also remember being confused, because it seemed to be totally unrelated to anything we were studying in class at the time. My memory of this is very vague, but I can recall some elements of the plot:
Some people live in a town near a swamp or pond, and they seem to be aware of a monster that lives in the water. It is later revealed that the "monster" was merely an old piece of construction equipment with moss and other vegetation covering it. (It might have been an excavator, since the boom and bucket might have appeared to the characters as a large animal's neck and head.) I also recall that the phrase "dance with the devil on a Saturday night" (or some variation on that) was spoken a number of times during the movie.
Any idea what this might have been?
–Colin
UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to Mitch of Vitamin Burger for nailing it with THE QUEST (aka FROG DREAMING aka THE GO-KIDS!)
A Nightmare on Elmzzzzzzzz (2010)
I'm not crying. These are not tears in my eyes. I have allergies. Um, so the new NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET…what's going on here people? Are we going to take this lying down? Oh, you used up all your torches and ammunition last summer on ROB ZOMBIE's lively H2? That's just great. Thanks kids, you ran all the pussy cats out of town and now giant rats roam the streets. Great.
O.K. so here's the thing, I know 1984's NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET had some dubious acting and some of the effects don't hold up too good but I just watched it recently and I can tell you that I still find myself BELIEVING in its story. There's a sense of place, I get who the characters are (even if their acting is questionable) and I'm compelled to want to see what happens to them next. It's just good storytelling.
I don't BELIEVE this new polished and skinned version. I don't believe that girl is in high school, I don't believe she dresses and wears her hair like that, I don't believe that's her house, her mom, her friends. I REALLY don't believe that a preschool would hire a creepy guy like Fred Krueger to be their live-in gardener (?) and to room in the school's basement (?) and that he would have private access to the children. This is a universe that doesn't play by any of reality's rules and yet the entire plot hinges on the destruction of such rules but yet they don't even exist in the first place…
Oh boy, I should try to keep this brief because I'm really beginning to worry about my blood pressure, does my face look red? Let's try this from another angle. I just watched THE ENTIRE ELM STREET series back to back and never once did I feel bored. I may have laughed at how crappy some of the later ones now seem but I never wanted to take a nap instead of finishing one. I've never fallen asleep in a theater either, I think that's an insane thing to do but while watching this recent redo of N.O.E.S. I actually felt sleepy and BORED.
Me, BORED! I thought the frickin' HOUSE OF MIRTH was riveting for Christ's sake. I've seen A PASSAGE TO INDIA like 4 times! Do you get what I'm saying here? Someone was able to make a NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movie that bored me. (NO LIE: I watched an ant carry a dandelion seed across my back yard yesterday, THAT didn't bore me!) How were you able to bore me new NIGHTMARE? How?
PLATINUM DUNES, do you need help? I mean just tell me if you need help writing your screenplays, don't be embarrassed. I don't have much experience but I do have an actual interest in the material. I think I could write at least one memorable line for Freddy to say. I bet I could do that. I'd even do it for free, you don't have to pay me. You know what? Forget about me. Just open your office door and go outside and grab the first person you see and ask them to do it. I think a random person off the street might be able to give you an original concept or two and has a general idea about how people act and how the world functions.
O.K., forget the script. Who cares right? Things don't have to make sense as long as Freddy is around. Do you mean to tell me that nobody tried to stop you from making Freddy look and sound like the turtle from the TOOTSIE POP COMMERCIAL!?!
Hundreds of people must have witnessed scenes being filmed with this abysmal make up and nobody said anything? No producer stopped by for an hour and just came to the conclusion that it should all be trashed and that you'd have to start all over again? You mean to tell me that everyone working on this movie thought that Freddy looked good? You're just eff'ing with me, I know it. There's no way.
God, remember Freddy's first big appearance in the original where he's chasing Tina, his arms are all spaghetti noodles waving and there's that crazy lurching frisky dash? Freddy is a trickster, a harlequin, a gremlin with a crooked smile. He's a witch, a gnarly twisted chaos demon. Do you get that he's not a whiny turtle? Do you get that much? Please don't tell me that this look is more "realistic" and more accurate to what a burn victim's face looks like because I could give a crap, I could Google images of burn victims if that's what I was after. I want to see Freddy! I know the idea was to make Freddy darker and more serious but no, you just ripped him of all his character. You made Freddy mundane. You made FRAUD-y Krueger!
If I had a time machine I would first kill baby Hitler and then I'd kill baby DAVID FINCHER. I know SE7EN is a decent flick but it has somehow single handedly ruined the lion's share of modern horror. I hate the drab, monotone, faux-gritty, phony baloney bullshit look of this movie. You mean to tell me you're going to depict scenes in a preschool and you can't even make THAT look creepy? All you'd have to do is turn a camera on in a preschool and it would be creepy but Nooooooo, we get gray rooms filled with charcoal black stick figure drawings hanging on the wall. How are we even supposed to feel awed by the nightmare scenes when EVERYTHING, nightmare or not, is filmed the exact same way? Oh my god, I gotta stop, I gotta stop, Elizabeth, I'm coming to join you Elizabeth!!!!
Name That Trauma :: Reader Melissa on Freaky Family Planning
I have asked this question on every message board that I can remember. No one has been able to answer. I am assuming the movie is from the ‘70s. All I can remember is there was a lady that was pregnant, she wanted an abortion or to not be pregnant anymore so her people (I can't remember if they were cannibals or a tribe or what) had her lie down under a cliff and they threw a huge boulder over onto her. It disturbed me as a kid and I was born in ‘78. Thank you so much in advance.
Melissa