Year: 2010
Traumafessions :: Bjarke"Eshbaal" J. of Horrible Horror on Freaky Fred from Courage the Cowardly Dog
Hello once again Unk and Aunt and all you wonderful Traumatots out there who continue to brighten my journeys on the internet with your delightful Traumafessions and Name-That-Traumas that keep me constantly on the prowl for the gems you manage to dig up. It's nice to once again be writing to you.
Ever since I sent you my traumafession about the Groke way back in…I think it was October or September… I have tried to think of something else from my childhood that had frightened me… but either I was a more hardcore kid than I thought, or my parents were just too protective of what I saw, or I am a forgetful ninny, since absolutely nothing came to me at all, both to my relief and my disappointment.
That is, until one day, searching for various nostalgic stuff on pages like Youtube, I stumbled across one of my favorite cartoons from a young age… COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG (I was 9 when this show was on. Bear with me – I am well aware that I am in the younger end of the Kindertrauma guests).
Anyway, I loved Courage. For one, the dog was a delightful character, second, even back then I had my delvings in the macabre with the writings of J.K. Rowling and Danish author Dennis Jürgensen and third, it was absolutely hilarious and wild.
For those who do not know the show's premise, it is quite simple: Courage is a pink dog who lives in the middle of Nowhere (literally) with farmer couple Eustace and Muriel. Every day, something strange and creepy would happen, and it would be the cowardly dog's job to save his owners even though he was scared out of his mind. The show was often just as creepy as it was funny, and is probably the straightest played horror I have seen for children in cartoon form.
I loved every single minute of it, but as I sat rewatching my childhood and laughing twice as much since I now understood ALL the jokes rather than just half, I would soon know fear… in the shape of the most frightening "monster of the week" from this fantastic show… Freaky Fred!
The episode was a nightmare unlike the others – the premise was basically that Muriel's nephew Fred was coming to visit… but it turns out he is a loony barber with quite a strange fetish for cutting people's hair. During some mishap, Courage ends up locked up with Freaky Fred in the bathroom while Eustace go to find something to fix the door with… and Freaky Fred just ADORES our dear little puppy's hair and continues to shave him with childish glee.
And that childish glee was the frightening part. The entire episode were told in a rhyming, sing-song tone of voice with creepy children's singing as background music. During these musings, he would tell of the various people he had shaved and described it as an urge that made him act…. "NAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHHTYYYYYYY."
That "Naughty" was the single scariest word in existence for me – it was said in a completely different tone of voice, a malicious growl from the very darkest pits of his throat. While I watched this in English on Youtube, I still distinctly remember his Danish voice… which was even happier and gigglier, just making everything worse.
Don't get me wrong, it was as funny as every other episode… but Freaky Fred sure as hell freaked me right the frig out!
Today I recognize it as a delightful Sweeney Todd parody… but back then… good Lord, it was terrifying. Especially since you can hardly say Courage even wins, as he winds up completely shaven before Fred is taken back to the Looney Bin.
And thus ends my tale of the freaky barber that scarred my fragile psyche. I hope you enjoyed it.
Play nice, or I might get…. "NAAAAUUUUUGHHHTYYYYYYY."
Name That Trauma :: Reader Karen on an Artistic Killer Teen
I have a real stumper – just a few flashes of memory. An unpopular teenage guy is walking home and is taunted by a younger girl on the way. He throws a rock at her – maybe he hits her with a rock – anyway, she dies. His mother's solution is to move him into the basement and conceal the entrance to the basement. His mother dies, and another family moves in. I remember he steals food from them at night.
The final scene I can recall shows him stabbing one of his paintings/ drawings/ murals in the subject's eye and blood coming out. Saw it on T.V. in the mid-‘70s. I don't know if it was made-for-T.V. or if there'd been a cinematic release.
Cheers,
Karen
UNK SEZ: Karen, that one's a cinch, you're talking about the made-for-television classic BAD RONALD from 1974. It starred SCOTT JACOBY and was based on a novel by JOHN HOLBROOK VANCE. If you'd like to know what we here at Kindertrauma think about that movie, just buy the DVD (there's a link right down there on the right) and check out its back…we're proud to have a laudatory blurb posted there for all to see!
Hospital Massacre
There's one last Valentine chocolate in the box and it's called HOSPITAL MASSACRE, known in some parts as X-RAY; it's working title was the sublime BE MY VALENTINE…OR ElSE! Directed by BOAZ DAVIDSON (by the way, I'm still broken hearted by the conclusion to BOAZ's THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN…how could you, DIANE FRANKLIN !?!), this early eighties shocker has somehow avoided DVD capture though its giant silver MGM VHS box can be spotted hiding out in the back alleys of Amazon.
Kids, we're talking a 1982 slasher that takes place in a hospital, is centered around a second rate holiday and kicks off with a prologue revealing a unsettled grudge from the past! Sounds like it can't fail right? Sure it can! HOSPITAL MASSACRE puts the "ail" in fail but it's just so screwy and peculiar that I can almost forgive it for cutting into my valuable PS3 time. Let's take a look at the symptoms, shall we?
BARBI BENTON
As if sashaying her way through HEE-HAW and FANTASY ISLAND wasn't enough to enrapture me, BARBI BENTON (born Barbara Klien) also starred in the uber-incredible DEATHSTALKER. Plus, the gal's got….er….PIPES!
TWO OF THE THREE BLOODY BIRTHDAY KIDS!
In H.M.'s opening we learn that when BARBI's character Suzy was a child, a spurned admirer killed her brother on Valentine's Day. I thought it fortuitous enough to find BLOODY BIRTHDAY's super creepy SUSAN HOY playing young Suzy when suddenly up pops the ever-brilliant BILLY JACOBY as the crazed, can't take a hint psycho. Horror-synchronicity at its finest!
MY BLOODY VALENTINE NOD
Early in the film an elevator ride is cut short when the doors slide open to show three men in HARRY WARDEN gas masks, a nice playful jab at that other earlier released Valentine horror film!
LET ME OUT!
Poor Suzy just stopped by the hospital to pick up some routine test results but because her stalker switched her X-rays, the doctors, along with their seven foot tall nurses, won't let her leave! H.M. may think it's a slasher but it's really a SNAKE PIT movie at heart. Which is good because SNAKE PIT movies are as campy as they want to be and that's why I love them. (Slap me five 1985's HELLHOLE with JUDY LANDERS and RAY SHARKEY and 1990's COMMITTED with JENNIFER O'NEIL and RON PALILLO!!!)
THE FREAKS SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH!
So what if the surgeon killer is more goofy than scary, the chanting occult soundtrack is wildly inappropriate and the pacing, on occasion gets slower than an IV drip. HOSPITAL MASSACRE has a kooky KAFKA on Quaaludes vibe that should carry lovers of cult film straight on through to the other side. I was a doubter myself until BARBI stumbled into a room with three patients bandaged head to toe that just start convulsing like break dancing marionettes. Like most of the film, it's surreal, funny and not meant to be taken too seriously. Plus, in HOSPITAL MASSACRE you get a decapitated head in a hat box, that's a pretty good Valentine gift, right?
"A Happy Valentine's Day Horror"
This tender valentine comes courtesy of Kindertrauma crush DREW DAYWALT who knows that the quickest way into the hearts of your Unkle Lancifer & Aunt John is a shout-out in the end credits.
The Wolfman (2010)
There are two movies I can always count on to put me in the proper spooked-out, gleefully morose mood I crave. They are both seriously flawed yet provide the comfiest old fashioned creep quilt you'd ever want to bask beneath. BRAM STOKER's DRACULA(1992) is lush and sweeping, though famously marred by dingbat acting and TIM BURTONS SLEEPY HOLLOW(1999) is brisk and haunting, though convoluted and scarred by numerous doofus moments. Well, I'm happy as hell to add THE WOLFMAN to my short list of beautiful losers; it is a relentlessly gorgeous visual stun-athon that hits the ground running but ends up stumbling and falling on its face like a damsel in knotted woods. The good news is that this wolf's room emptying flatulence takes place so late in the party that you can only shake your head and chuckle at it as you push it out the door.
Does anyone else think that BENICIO DEL TORRO resembles DEAN STOCKWELL mixed with BRAD PITT's way hotter brother? There is inspired casting everywhere you look here folks and although ANTHONY HOPKINS is a ham and cheese hot pocket, that's what he's paid for. I know that I'm a sucker for all things pasty and raven haired, but EMILY BLUNT and her ice shard eyes are almost too much for me to bare. I've had a mild case of stalker love for her ever since WIND CHILL but now I think it's time to start cutting out letters from magazines and assembling a message for her eyes only. Man oh man this movie with its lantern lit caravans, leather bound libraries, silver canes and whiskey drinks, gnarled branches and autumnal fervor is just plain ravishing. I seriously just wanted to walk into the screen and stay there forever; y'all know what you can do with your iPads and GA-GA's (No offense, fame monster!)
So how's the story (or the wolf's tale?) well for the most part great. It all pretty nicely moves up to an incredible peak at a mental institution where our pal Larry gets the FRANCES FARMER treatment. In fact, the psychological spine of this flick is sort of a reverse FRANCES that replaces mommy issues with daddy ones. Maybe a subtler approach would have worked better here (we are basically dunked into an icy bath of HOPKINS' Freudian faux-pas) but it's an undeniable super blast watching the inevitable head shredding of numerous head shrinkers.
Now I don't want to get too spoiley here but things do go downhill eventually. The films climax borders on cartoon ridiculous and the father /son conflict becomes a tiresome diversion from what's really interesting about THE WOLFMAN, the subjugation of our animal impulses. The final battle we are shown doesn't even visually mesh properly with the rest of the picture. Whereas before we were shown awesome half-man/half-wolf hybrids suddenly there are fuzzy super hero creatures bouncing around. Any CGI subtly you may have been hoping for is (literally at one point) thrown out the window.
I bet you dollars to dog biscuits that this BATTLE OF THE GARGANTUANS looking ending (I'm not exaggerating by the way) was part of the film's notorious reshoots. The only thing that scares me more than the idea that Hollywood thinks audiences are so dumb that they need this type of crap to enjoy a film is the idea that Hollywood may be right. THE WOLFMAN was doing quite fine without the adolescent action figure shit and a more somber conclusion was called for.
The fact that THE WOLFMAN revealed its desperation and lap dog subservience in the end does not spoil the fact that me and the old boy had an excellent run. I'm sure that future viewings will smooth my distaste for the third act but I'm sending out a prayer for an alternate director's cut of some sort anyway. THE WOLFMAN is mostly just too goth-glorious to miss, my eyeballs are still writing home about it as we speak. It's sad though that certain people could not trust the tale enough to allow it to take its natural course. As usual, somebody somewhere confused setting the beast free with pulling in the reigns.
Name That Trauma :: Reader JLP on a Fire Saftey Short
Trying to find the name of a fire safety film that scared the crap out of me in the ‘70s.
When I was about 13, around 1977, they put us in the school auditorium and showed us a fire safety filmed that haunted me for years.
Here's the setup: there's a family of 4, Mom, Dad, and two red-haired kids, one boy and one girl. You spend the first part of the movie following them through the nice summer day: the dad goes and sits in an office, the mom cleans things and maybe goes shopping, and the kids walk over to some pond and go fishing. The narrator remarks on what a lovely day it's been.
Then, after dinner, the dad is sitting on the couch smoking and drops some ash behind the couch. Then in the middle of the night the couch catches on fire, and then the house, and everyone dies. The son dies because he's sleeping in the top bunk and smoke inhalation gets him without him waking up. The daughter wakes up, but tries to leave by the bedroom door instead of the window and the smoke gets her. The mom dies because she tries to get the kids instead of leaving the house. I forget how the dad dies.
Pretty horrible, huh? Thank goodness home smoke detectors came out around then or I wouldn't have gotten any sleep for years. I have Googled around for old fire safety films but nothing seems to match. I don't think it looked particularly dated when I saw it, but it could have been filmed in the ‘60s and I probably wouldn't have noticed in '77. It was definitely in color.
Any ideas?
– JLP
Name That Trauma :: Reader Ryan on a Strict School Teacher's Comeuppance
Hi, I love your site. Here's one I don't know the title of:
I remember this as a horror anthology that was shown on ELVIRA's TV show in the mid 80s, but I checked a list of the films she played and it did not match any of those. The part I remember was about a strict schoolteacher who is mean to her students. Eventually the children attack her in her home. I think they were wearing Halloween masks, which may have been removed to reveal actual facial deformities.
This scared the crap out of me as a kid, and I've never seen it mentioned in discussions about horror anthology films. Maybe you can help.
Thanks,
Ryan
UNK SEZ:: So there I was grabbing my magnifying glass and galoshes, prepping up to sleuth the Googles when I get another email from Ryan saying:
Actually I just found it. It was a segment of the film HOUSE OF THE DEAD, and was indeed shown on ELVIRA.
UNK SEZ: So Ryan solved his own "Name That Trauma" and I got to learn about a movie I never heard of. Thanks Ryan, I'm always interested to hear about any horror movies that I may have missed especially if they happen to be an anthology. HOUSE OF THE DEAD aka ALIEN ZONE is from 1978 and any interested folks can watch it HERE.
