kindertrauma

Month: June 2010

Name That Trauma :: Reader Geri S. on Vicious Village People

Posted on By aunt john

Howdy!

First off, I've been a visitor for a while now and all I can say is awesome site. I have finally decided to write in seeking help in attempting to figure out the title of a bizarre movie from my childhood. For years, I've been trying to track it down. From what I remember, I watched it one afternoon on the Sci-Fi channel back in late ‘90s (the movie had to of been from the 1980s though) and it really disturbed me. I think it could have been from an anthology movie, but I'm not sure.

From what I can recall, it starts out with two middle aged guys driving, they drive through a thick fog or a mist and they end up in some weird village where they're treated with hostility. I think the villagers want to or plan on eating them, and I think they kill the one guy while the other is more or less the hero of the story. The main guy meets some girl who tries to help him escape. Near the end he tries to escape but can't make it out from the fog. The setting and atmosphere makes me think it might be British but I don't remember British accents.

I'd like to find out what it was as it really scared me back when I was a kid and would love to watch it again only to realize actually how terrible it was, as what happens with most movies from my childhood.

Thanks,

Geri

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Kudos to craig for knowing that this trauma stemmed from THE MONSTER CLUB!

Kinder-News :: SPLICE Sequel Scrapped!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Regardless of its mostly positive critical reception it looks like plans for a SPLICE sequel are now being put on hold due to its lackluster box office receipts. The project tentatively titled SPLICE 2: DREN IN THE CITY was, until recently, on the fast track for a summer 2011 release. Insiders say the shutdown is for the best as early scripts, which involved genetic hybrid "Dren" traveling to Abu Dhabi to shop for shoes, were deemed by many to be in bad taste. One scene in particular, which found the celebrated chimera escorted to safety from an angry mob by a group of Muslim women, was deemed particularly objectionable. In the unfilmed scene, the sexy genetic mutation was to thank her rescuers profusely with chirps only to have the group of women lift up their burqas to expose mutant legs identical to those of Dren. How audiences would have reacted to such a controversial display is perhaps best left to the imagination. SPLICE fans may be confused as to how Dren, who not only changed sexes but also died in the first film, could shop for shoes anywhere much less Abu Dhabi. When asked to explain the inconsistency scriptwriter DYLAN McDILLWEED spelt "time machine" with Scrabble chips and then sprouted wings and flew away.

Traumafessions :: Reader Jodi on House (1986)

Posted on By aunt john

Being a kid is both wonderful and crappy, because, whether it's horror movies or Santa Claus, kids invest way too much emotion into a lot of smoke and mirrors!

A few days ago, my husband coaxed me into finally watching a movie that, in my youth, I had never been able to sit through. The film came out when I was in 2nd grade, and going by the advertisement (the gnarly severed hand ringing the doorbell over the tag line "Ding Dong, You're Dead") along with the scariest looking witch I'd ever seen, I was certain that it had to be the most terrifying horror movie ever made. That movie is 1986's HOUSE starring WILLIAM "believe it or not, I'm walking on air" KATT as a recently divorced writer who inherits the mind-f*cking house in which his crazy Aunt hung herself. And believe it or not, hilarity ensues!

Growing up, I thought the movie was simply about a guy in a house full of ghouls trying to kill him. Every time I came upon it on any film channel, once the witch showed up, :::click!::: I'm out! For a 7-year-old, that bitch was scary! After doing a search, I was surprised that Kindertrauma didn't seem to have much of anything on the film. And when I finally sat down to watch the entire thing; I just knew I was in for an intensely frightening gore fest.

Is there a contest for the most misleading poster EVER? Because I think I found the winner. Damn that corpsy hand! I'm not saying it was a bad movie (flawed script, but otherwise awesome), I'm just a little pissed off I was freaked out for 25 years by a creepy drawing and a dude in a rubber witch suit.

-Jodi

Name That Trauma :: Reader Carol McM. on a Name That Trauma Within a Name That Trauma!

Posted on By aunt john

Hello again,

I was just wandering aimlessly through the halls of kindertrauma this morning and landed upon a Name-That-Trauma of no real importance to me. It was determined that the movie in question was THE HORROR STAR. I had never heard of it and found it mildly interesting and decide to watch the attached video and – lo and behold – I believe one of my very own Name-That-Traumas may be part of the intro to that clip!!!!!!! In the clip – after the blood red title – are 3 old black and white stills of old "horror stars" – Frankenstein, Dracula and ???? Maybe Dr. Jeckyl? I don't know.

When I was very very young, maybe 5 or 6, in the ‘70s, I was already kind of weirdly obsessed with horror movies and with being scared. I remember one day I was playing with my sister in our bedroom and my grandma was watching T.V. in the living room and a commercial came on with the music for one of those day of the week movies (Monday Night Movie, etc. – if you lived through it you know what I'm talking about) and – for some reason – even as a wee tyke – I knew that it was probably a scary movie and I RAN out to the living room to see what it was and all I remember was it was various shots of a "man about town" in a tall hat and a scary face – and in the last shot it was his full face looking right at the camera and it scared me so bad that I started sobbing and my grandma had to bring me some water to calm me down. Since then the only movie I have seen that even comes close to the creepy feel of that guy is CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG – the child stealer guy – and, while he is really creepy, it's not him.

So, when I saw that photo on that clip it stopped me dead in my tracks. Could that be the guy? Could that be the movie? Does anyone know what that still is from?

An interesting side note that has no particular relevance to anything – but something I find really odd. I clearly remember when I was in first grade having this friend named Robin. She had long, scraggly dark hair and was sort of a loner type – even in first grade. One time she told me that she had a TV Guide that was only for this one channel that only played horror movies (and I think she might have even told me that her and her mom were witches.) I was so excited when she told me that that I became obsessed with finding that channel and that TV Guide. At some point she eventually told me that that wasn't true and I was so disappointed. But how odd is that – two little first graders chatting about a horror channel and a horror TV Guide.

Thank you so much! This site is my horror dream come true!

Carol

UNK SEZ: Carol, thanks for the fascinating NAME THAT TRAUMA! The third still in the trailer for HORROR STAR (AKA FRIGHTMARE) is LON CHANEY, Sr. from TOD BROWNING's 1927 silent film LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT. If you saw the clip you're looking for in the seventies than the likelihood that it was, in fact, LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT is zero because the last known copy of that famous lost flick died in a fire back in 1967!

So what did you see? Was your grandma watching that phantom horror channel your witch friend conjured? Could it have been a documentary on LON CHANEY? LONDON was remade in 1935 as MARK OF THE VAMPIRE with BELA LUGOSI but his get up was completely different. I think we're going to have to take it to our readers. Can anyone think of a figure that could be mistaken for LON CHANEY, Sr's horrifying creation from LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT?

AUNT JOHN thought maybe it could MR. SARDONICUS and I thought possibly VINCENT PRICE from MADHOUSE. Any other ideas out there?

Black Water (2007)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

When I was little my brothers and I used to play a game we called "hot lava." To play the game, you simply pretend that your orange wall-to-wall shag carpeting is hot lava. You can climb and walk on the couch, the coffee table or any bureau or shelf you can reach but you can't let your feet touch the floor. If you're feeling adventurous you can throw books or sofa cushions down to make a path/walkway but if you should ever touch the ground with your feet, that's it…you're ash. Obviously this is the funnest, most challenging game ever invented so if you don't have orange shag wall-to-wall carpet, maybe you should invest in some today and check it out.

Wait a minute, my spell-check thingy is trying to tell me that "funnest" isn't a word. Are you serious? Would someone please make that a word already? It's frickin' 2010.

Where was I? Oh yea, so I was thinking about the game "hot lava" the whole time I was watching the lil' Aussie movie with a heart of gold called BLACK WATER! BLACK WATER (2007) is the story of some folks whose boat gets tipped over by a crocodile in the mangrove swamps of Australia and they end up clinging for their lives in some trees. Every time one of the survivors tries to climb down from said trees they more often than not get chomped to shreds by the cranky croc. I know that doesn't sound like much of a plot but trust me, this movie delivers the goods and it does so in a respectable way.

Rather than "hot lava" this movie will probably remind normal viewers of the same year's ROUGE, another Aussie swamp croc flick from the guy who did WOLF CREEK. Now, I liked ROGUE so I'm not going to rag on it but BLACK WATER handles similar material with a fraction of the budget and with no help from the ever persuasive RADHA MITCHELL. The biggest distinction though is that BLACK WATER actually uses real crocs rather than CGI beasts and what a difference that makes.

Don't tell the SYFI channel (it'll break its heart!) but Mother Nature made some creatures (crocodiles for instance) so scary that they need no embellishment. Your garden variety crocodile is covered with slimy dragon scales, has piercing demon eyes and a large snarly mouth which is host to about a zillion razor sharp teeth. It really doesn't have to guzzle radioactive waste and grow seventy feet tall to kick your ass. If you've only seen the depressed kind in your local concentration camp, I mean zoo, let me tell ya it's a different story on their own turf. BLACK WATER makes use of the whole "home team advantage" thing.

I hate to make broad generalizations but since this is a positive one, indulge me. Australian horror movies tend to have a genuine connection to their land that I admire. Films as varied as THE LONG WEEKEND(1978), WOLF CREEK and especially NICOLAS ROEG's borderline horror flick WALKABOUT(1971) have such a readable reverent awe towards nature that it just feeds into your primitive primal fears about how unblinkingly arbitrary survival is. Good for you, Australia! I swear to God as soon as they invent a teleporting device I'm going to come visit you! (There's really no way I could ever spend the 14 hours on an airplane it would take to visit you from where I am now.) By the way scientists, what the hell is the hold up with teleportation? I feel like if I was a scientist I would have figured that shit out by now. Do you guys already have teleportation and you're just not sharing it?

BLACK WATER is a tight little nature hates you thriller that's unlikely to inspire fanaticism but is, all and all, a guilt free satisfying experience. You get to know the characters, you care when they die and you empathize with their shitty day from hell that destroys all their pie in the sky dreams for the future in one fatal swoop. The biggest compliment I can give this movie is the simplest one; after it was done I checked IMDb to see if the directors (DAVID NERLICH & ANDREW TRAUCKI) had done anything else. Turns out TRAUCKI has just completed a shark movie called REEF, and if someone out there only had the foresight to invent a time machine (like it would be that hard), I could be watching it right now.

Traumafessions :: Thu Tran of FOOD PARTY on Bedrooms, Action Flicks & Ninja Scroll

Posted on By aunt john

UNK SEZ: "Let's Party!" If reading that sentence makes you want to throw confetti, spread peanut butter all over your face or strangle a baguette, then you are probably one of the super lucky people familiar with the supernova of creativity known as FOOD PARTY. Hosted by the at turns adorable and diabolical THU TRAN, FOOD PARTY celebrates culinary madness and imagination (think BETTY CROCKER drop kicked by PEE WEE HERMAN or the live action version of the PLAY-DOH FUN FACTORY) and it just might be the very last vestige of brain tickling awesomeness on television. Hilarious and mind blowing, both giggle and nausea inducing, FOOD PARTY is the best invention since sliced head cheese and can be viewed Tuesdays at 10pm EST on my now favorite place on Earth, the IFC channel.

Recently while roving reporter AUNT JOHN was out shopping for "fantasy potion" and ingredients to make ham and spaghetti pancakes with pineapple sauce he bumped into the she-wizard of culinary kookery herself THU TRAN! Ever on his toes AUNT JOHN offered a trade to the joyous genius of grub; a hand full of soon to expire coupons for one super fresh traumafession. THU recognized that many of the coupons were for goose blood and happily agreed, this is what she whispered in his ear…

Many things scared me as a child

I was scared of having my feet exposed while I was sleeping. I was compulsive about having my feet entirely covered. I was scared that monsters under my bed would drag me down into hell by my ankles. Under the bed was the portal to hell.

Upon watching AMERICA'S MOST WANTED, UNSOLVED MYSTERIES, and many action movies such as anything in the DIE HARD series, ROBOCOP series, TERMINATOR series, and any JEAN CLAUDE VAN DAMME movie, I was horrified of my bedroom in general. My bedroom was on the ground floor in the front of the house, with a huge window facing the street with venetian blinds. There were street lamps, and any late night cars passing by, which would shine VERY brightly through the blinds. During nights of insomnia, I would stare at the window, and be terrified of villains smashing through the window double fisted with AK's or uzis. Neither ever happened.

I also developed a HUGE phobia of small holes clustered in concentrated areas. This was developed shortly after watching NINJA SCROLL and being genuinely terrified of the wasp monster that attacks Jubei.

Specifically, I remember waiting at the bus stop going to 2nd grade and there being a huge smooth hill of snow that someone had casually scattered some salt on to. It created these holes that I was so terrified of swarming bugs coming out of. Even seeing tree bark with ant holes in it freaks me the fuck out.

I'll stop at three.

Thanks THU TRAN for sharing your childhood memories with our beloved readers, you are a sport and an inspiration! You also back up my theory that the more scared you are as a kid the more imaginative you'll be as an adult! Remember traumatots to watch FOOD PARTY on IFC every week. You will gain weight, wisdom and happiness and you'll get to spend some quality time with your new friend THU TRAN!

NOTE: Visit Kinderpals BUZZ and KATE for even more FOOD PARTY love and the official FOOD PARTY blog right over HERE and at IFC HERE!

Name That Trauma :: Reader rock_hardplace on a Trapped Town & a Battle Bug

Posted on By aunt john

Hello all, I have faint memories of two separate T.V. episodes I saw during my youth and hopefully my description is enough for someone here to decipher what they are.

The first is of a SciFi T.V. episode/movie around the late ‘70s, in which people are in a town but they can't escape because there is a giant glass wall all around. I think one group of people in a truck tried to ram the wall and the truck exploded, however the glass wall remained intact. Another scene had this white chair which looked oval like an egg, and when people sat on it they dreamed or hallucinated, or something to that effect. I remember one guy grabbed the chair and ripped it open and revealed the inside of the chair to be organic (I think it starts spewing out blood or fluids or something.)

Also, every so often when people would be walking around town minding their own business, a giant shadow would appear around them as if something was flying above – I don't think they ever showed what it was, only the shadow it cast. Everyone in the vicinity of the shadow would immediately try to grab onto something anchored to the ground, like a tree, as to not get sucked up by the thing floating above. Finally, near the end I remember that one guy was excavating next to the glass and finally found the bottom of it but I don't remember if he escaped.

The second memory I have is a very short clip but also on T.V. and about the same timeframe – late ‘70s, it is of this man holding some sort of huge mutant insect/bug about the size and shape of a turtle, and he is arguing with some other guy. Then the bug man drops the bug on the ground and the bug slowly crawls toward the other guy and catches up with him and attacks (I think the bug's wings extended during the attack.)

That's about all I can remember. Ring any bells?

Thanks,

rock_hardplace

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to Derek Obrien for knowing that the first one is THE FANTASTIC INVASION OF PLANET EARTH (aka THE BUBBLE) & additional kudos to Brother Bill for getting the second one with THE OUTER LIMITS episode "The Invisibles."

Splice

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Full disclosure: I adore SARAH POLLEY. If you read this here blog you're probably well aware of all my isms, schemas and bugaboos about modern cinema; my hatred of gaudy bombastic formulae and my passionate, quiet love for the idiosyncratic. It's easy to damn the movie gods and shake your fist at the sky without a solution or example of a preferred route but I happen to have an example of the preferred route and her name is SARAH POLLEY. Here is a successful, intelligent and proficient artist who takes risks and explores the fringe without catering to spectacle or vanity. She's so damn dignified, in tune and self possessed, that I just want to buy her an ice cream cone; I almost feel that she'd let me. That's a real human face you're seeing on screen, those are real human teeth, real person eyes and real human emotions. Something about SARAH POLLEY makes every other film star look like a garish vaudeville cartoon. POLLEY is the last human on Earth in a world of vampires. I AM LEGEND is based on her life. Did I mention that I LOVE SARAH POLLEY with all that is left of my charcoal heart?

SPLICE is a great fit for POLLEY, its shell might distract you into thinking it's another sexy alien rampage dud like SPECIES but beneath the CGI shenanigans, primal, monumental emotions are stirred. This movie hit me on a level that I really wasn't prepared for. I'm going to try to explain how it made me feel and in the process I may also reveal that I have severe mental problems. Please do not call the guys with the nets to come and get me. This is between just you and I…

I have near constant nightmares that my cat is in danger and needs help and I can't help him. This has been going on forever.

(Also: Have you seen the footage of the pelican covered in oil? It means we're all going to burn in hell.)

Here's the thing people, and they won't teach you this in school, the bravest thing you can ever do in life is take on the responsibility of caring about some other creature's well being. I don't care if it's your dumb baby, your smooch partner or a goldfish, you're putting yourself in the position of being hurt and torn apart. SPLICE may pretend it's all about creating FRANKENSTEIN monsters that cannot be controlled but its real power comes from the HORROR of caring. As soon as POLLEY starts to care about the being she has created, she is screwed. There is no way things are going to work out well, she has very unscientifically opened her heart and her heart is doomed. The universe sees her heart as a dartboard.

There's a bunch of stuff in this movie about playing God (somebody's got to), gender identity and hipster apartment hunting but I really don't care about that stuff. I really loved how SPLICE makes you care and then makes you pay for it. I'm not sure if that was its intention or if I just need a vacation but I was really impressed by how it rakes maternal/paternal feelings and then just shoots them down without ever being too obvious about it. (There's also something here about POLLEY's character trying to correct her own upbringing and finding what a dead end that is that I found interesting as well.) Oh yeah, and I almost forgot, this is a horror movie and the ending really does deliver some tense scares. As you can tell this isn't so much a review as some random associations, if it was a review I'd give it a seriously high rating. On the surface it may seem like the standard mish-mash but there's something very special and different here kicking and screeching and determined to break through. In other words if you're like me and have spent the last year bitching about the government cheese that masquerades as cinema, go see SPLICE, it may cure your ills. As for me, I'm going to take a nap and inevitably dream of my poor cat covered in oil.

P.S. I think ADRIAN BRODY is in this movie too.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Corvid on an Anime Wedding

Posted on By aunt john

Hello to you good folks at Kindertrauma!

When I was young and glued to every T.V. cartoon I could find (this would be the early ‘90s), I saw an anime fantasy film that stuck in my brain. I have never been able to identify it, and I was hoping that you or your readers might be able to help me. Unfortunately I am not sure when the anime itself was made – it may have been from the ‘80s or early ‘90s, probably not earlier than the early ‘80s.

I am also not sure what American channel it aired on (I watched Disney, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network, among others). The protagonists were two kids, a boy and a girl, and I believe both were blond. The girl gets kidnapped by a witch and her son (?, or a prince-like character that the witch creates). Actually, it may have been an evil sorcerer, I can't remember the gender! Anyway, there are two scenes that I remember:

1.) The evil prince hypnotizes the young girl into a zombie-like state in order to force her to marry him. In the middle of the wedding ceremony, the boy hero bursts in to stop it. The church doors open to reveal that all the pews are filled with paper cut-outs instead of people, and even the priest is a paper cut-out. When the boy yells at the girl to snap out of it, all the paper cut-outs crumple and flutter to the floor. The boy still can't get the girl to snap out of it – he even grabs her and shakes her.

2.) At the end, the boy hero faces the evil witch/sorcerer. They are on opposite corners of a huge, floating chessboard way up in the air, and the chessboard tips and rocks like a ship. I think the girl is still hypnotized, but once the boy defeats the witch, she wakes up.

I hope someone out there can help me figure this out! By the way, people have suggested the UNICO series as a possible candidate, but it is definitely not from any UNICO film I've seen (despite the giant chessboard and evil witch/sorcerer).

Thanks,

— Corvid

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! SENSKI is back y'all and he is in on F-I-R-E! Kudos to him for realizing that Corvid was referring to the 1974 Japanese version of JACK & THE BEANSTALK.