kindertrauma

Month: May 2011

The Rapture (1991)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Is the world over yet? Is it okay if I am disappointed either way? I don't mind being left behind and unchosen as long as I get some answers. I'm used to being picked last and if God turns out to be some giant bully in the sky collecting belief and love like lunch money, I'm fine with that. Honestly if I were God, I wouldn't care if anyone believed in me at all, I'd stomp out the human race as a failed experiment regardless and leave the Earth to the plants and animals. I wouldn't stand for modern culture mucking up my terrarium. I'd ferment all the fruit in the trees and let the monkeys and elephants get wasted! It's not like they have to drive home or anything. If God created drunk caterpillars, willow trees and fish tacos then I certainly do love him but am I really expected to worship an entity who is more passive-aggressive than me? It's difficult.

1991's MICHAEL TOLKIN film THE RAPTURE is simply unforgettable which makes it all the more strange that it is mostly forgotten; I guess asking questions and not saying exactly what people want to hear isn't the best way to be popular-who knew? MIMI ROGERS brings new meaning to the word revelation as Sharon, a woman bored out of her skull by her stupid job who has a bunch of random sex because it's almost like not feeling bored anymore. One day she notices that folks who have found God are even happier than folks who have foursomes that include DAVID DUCHOVNY and so she decides to get born again. God's love has a price though and soon the invisible taskmaster is forcing her to jump through many a hoop. I've watched enough Oprah to identify a toxic relationship when I see one. Face it Sharon, he's just not that into you.

When I first saw THE RAPTURE it shook me like a shake weight. No matter what your personal beliefs are it is sure to challenge them. Rather than painting Sharon as a loon waiting for a ship that never comes in, it pushes her smack dab into the middle of the apocalypse, trumpets blaring and all. Yes, the end of the world does arrive as predicted but not before Sharon has lost everything that made the world's destruction worth giving a crap about. I think Sharon's spiritual journey is rather an admirable one. What's infinitely less admirable is the fact that once she has a child, she drags her offspring along for the ride too. She's not a bad person, it's just that her belief system has painted her into a corner where critical thinking is no longer an option. To even question God is an act of treachery. Her faith is strong just not strong enough to withstand a moments scrutiny.

Because it concerns religion, THE RAPTURE is sure to offend some folks but writer/director TOLKIN is hardly being provocative for the sake of being provocative. The film takes its subject matter seriously and has a sincere curiosity about exactly what the unequivocal existence of God would mean. THE RAPTURE bypasses the usual stalemate of belief vs. non-belief and jumps ahead to the next ladder rung. God exists alright but he has some serious explaining to do. Judgment Day arrives but, in a crazy switch-a-roo, it is God who is judged. It may seem blasphemous to some but if the act of wondering and questioning is a sin then damn me now. I don't know what God you believe in, but mine can handle some constructive criticism without a hissy fit.

You really do not have to believe in anything to enjoy THE RAPTURE besides good storytelling and the power of film. Somehow its low-budget makeshift end of the world is emotionally devastating on an epic scale. TOLKIN's insistence that the demolition of one spirit be accountable for, coupled with ROGER's undaunted performance is ultimately as moving as any hymn. If THE MIST got you hot under the collar than you might want to take a rain check but if you welcome an investigation into the spiritual without the usual cowardly boundaries I say step forward, there's no reason to linger in limbo.

Pazuzu Funhouse

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Damn it! That nogoodnik Pazuzu is up to his old shenanigans again! The bastard has gone and messed up little Regan's basement craft corner! Can you help Father Karras find the 10 things that are different in the room? No pressure, it's only your eternal soul at stake! (click to enlarge!)

Traumafessions :: Reader Cousin Id on Yellow Submarine

Posted on By aunt john

I remember when YELLOW SUBMARINE was aired on national television in the early-to-mid 1970s. When they were in the Sea of Monsters and the vacuum-nosed monster started to suck everything up it's nose, I hid behind a big chair because I didn't want it to suck me up too. All was better when it sucked itself into oblivion.

— Cousin Id

Traumafesions/Name That Trauma :: Reader Chanter on Sesame Street Fires and Worrying Words

Posted on By aunt john

Hi Kindertrauma!

I recently stumbled across your site via another reader's link, and now I easily lose time poking through the assorted archives. I never knew records of this type of thing existed! I've got a couple traumafessions of my own, and one hard-to-identify snippet that I'm sincerely hoping I didn't dream… but almost equally hoping I never see again!

Silly as it may sound, all three of these are SESAME STREET sketches. I was an impressionable tiny geek with a gigantic imagination and a definite twitchy side – still am, too! I saw all these on Wisconsin Public Television in the late '80's or very early '90's, though they could easily have been recorded earlier and rerun. Both my clearly-remembered sketches had what was to me some seriously terrifying background music; intense, menacing minor key piano playing, brrrrr!

One featured a group of kids shouting in unison 'Go to the exit!' while an on-screen a someone or someones tried to find the way out of a house or building. I'm not sure, but the sketch itself might have been black and white. The off-screen kids repeated 'go to the exit!' at least a couple of times, and I distinctly remember one of them speaking up solo to warn 'oh no, that's a closet.' Someone else might've murmured 'wrong way dummies' somewhere in there, but it didn't much detract from the overall scariness of the thing! At the end, everyone apparently did get out, as the unison kids all yelled 'yaaaaay!' just before the scene changed. Didn't help me feel any less creeped out, though!

The other began with a lower-voiced woman yelling 'Help!' at the top of her lungs, which was extremely jarring and terrifying if you weren't expecting it! To this day, remembering that yell makes me shiver. I believe she yelled 'help!' a second time, though very slightly less in-your-face obviously do to the background music that had started up. The sketch itself had to do with a person getting rescued from what was very likely a burning building, because the woman narrator said something like 'It looks like she needs some help', and then later on 'he's a real swinger', referencing the firefighter assisting whoever was trapped. I'm assuming everyone got out, but again, the sketch was plenty scary despite everyone being safe in the end!

Those are closer to traumafessions, but here's the one I'm not sure whether or not I dreamed. I almost hope I did, although I remember sitting on the living room carpet in front of the T.V. and watching it on a warm morning. This one had to do with a specific sound rather than the meaning of a word. There's odd, spare staccato trumpet and drum music in the background, and I'm not clear on the setting, but there may have been a desert on screen? A male narrator is repeating first the sound, and then short words all featuring -ut. 'Hut' comes to mind as one of them. At one point, he says something to the effect of 'let's try tut.' A few seconds and a little of that same strange music later, he yells 'tuuuuuut!' This was the point where I ran into the other room and did my best to forget what I'd seen.

I have no idea what made the narrator yell like that, as my vision was crummy and my comprehension of what little I was seeing was even more so. I've just now realized that saying 'tut' may have invoked King Tut somehow, if it was truly a sketch set in a desert, and maybe brought a mummy walking out of the woodwork – stonework? That's a true guess, though. Whatever it was, it scared and severely unnerved tiny!me, as did the other two. Brrrr!

— Chanter

Book Report: Not Bad For a Human

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I have three brothers and their names are David, John and Tom. I have no idea why my parents suddenly decided to get all fancy and name me Lance but I do know that I got some serious crap for it growing up. Luckily fate softened the blow of my awkward teen years by making me skinny, mangling my teeth and throwing a frizzy red bozo wig on my head. Funny I should be so nostalgic for the eighties when my actual first tour through the decade was a living hell on Earth. Lance was not a cool name. Nobody cool was named Lance. That's what I believed until the summer of 1986 when I saw ALIENS. I've mentioned before (HERE) that I felt a real connection with the character of Bishop and that connection only strengthened as I read the films closing credits as they rolled by.

Don't poke fun at me but I used to entertain the idea of being an actor. That particular dream evaporated the moment I stood on stage in front of strangers at an audition and felt as if my finger was stuck in an electrical socket for the duration. During that time period I read many an actor bio, Dean, Brando, Clift and Frances Farmer to name a few. This was before the Internet and these books were my only access to a world beyond the stifling suburbia I felt trapped in. My parents and teachers seemed committed to keeping the adult world a shrouded secret but these books gave me private access to a place beyond my poster covered bedroom walls. Reading NOT BAD FOR A HUMAN the LANCE HENRIKSEN autobiography by HENRIKSEN and JOSEPH MADDREY brought back memories of these books that seemed to have more influence on me than anything I learned in school or at home. MADDREY steers the ship, but it's LANCE's own words that fuel the journey. This is a guy who has been everywhere and back and is never less than generous about giving directions.

Legend has it that once upon a time, before youth was worshipped over experience, one could seek guidance and advice from those who have traveled the world longer than they have. Plunging into this bio is rather like be granted audience with an elder statesman, one who has navigated the fascinating depths of B-film (too many to mention), the heights of sci-fi perfection (ALIENS) and the sometimes grueling chain gang of episodic television (MILLENIUM). This is not the autobiography of a careerist bent on popularity and fortune but an artist attempting to cram as much life experience in his satchel as humanly possible.

HENRICKSEN's resume is so extensive and seemingly random that one might wonder "Is there anything he would say ‘No' to?" and the answers is "Yes, boring himself." He has a true artist's wiring, if the end result of his work is ten duds for every applauded work that's for somebody else to judge, he learns just as much from each endeavor. The way he approaches the art of pottery says much of his approach to acting and life in general. "Honestly, I've learned more from some of the pots that I've fucked up than from pots where I knew what the outcome would be. I've learned more from the bad ones in a lot of ways." The reader gleans that it's the process of working itself that seems to appeal to the actor and I think that is what makes this book such a pleasure to read. It's nice to know there are other reasons for an actor to accept a role besides elevating their Q quotient.

HENRIKSEN may be well known for playing bad guys or creepy weirdoes but in films like ALIENS, NEAR DARK and PUMPKINHEAD, a stronger vibe always came across to me and that is of a grounded paternal caretaker. This book backs up my intuition on nearly every page. Bounced around orphanages and raised without any real structure, he has molded himself as if from clay into the solid figure that was absent in his youth. If that's not a hero's journey then I don't know what is. Truly, he's as down to earth as anyone who has starred in three Bigfoot movies could possibly be. There's a reason the man fits into westerns just as smoothly as he does horror or sci-fi, he's a throwback to a time when people rather than stick to the pavement made their own trails.

I'm not very good at meeting celebrities, they kind of make me nervous. I'm not one for butting into a conversation and jumping in somebody's space either. Once at a horror convention though I found HENRIKSEN chatting with a group and possessed, I slid myself right into their circle, his approachability trumping my timidity. I told him my name was Lance and he said, "You're parents saddled you with that name too?" Obviously he understood. I said, "Thanks for being the first person to make my name seem cool." And he replied "Glad I could help." Smiling, he shook my hand. That was a big full circle moment in my life and I was genuinely grateful to give thanks to someone who took a machete to the brush before me. I wish we could have talked longer but this book does the trick; it's a privilege to ride alongside someone whose knowledge comes from keen observance rather than hand me down platitudes. HENRIKSEN obviously evaluates his life experiences on his own terms rather than external opinion and that's exactly the lesson I needed to learn from a guy named Lance.

NOTE: You can order NOT BAD FOR A HUMAN right over HERE!

A Reflection of Fear (1973)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Have I ever started a review with "Where has such and such a movie been all my life?' because I shoulda and coulda done it here. I'm not entirely sure how I would have responded to A REFLECTION OF FEAR if I had seen it at a younger age but I do know that it currently has all the markings and behavior of a pet movie I'd like to wrap in a blanket and deliver a saucer of milk. A cluttered mansion, a barely tolerable protagonist, psycho-sexual family skeletons falling out of the woodwork, a shadow faced killer on a rampage and a malevolent talking doll. It's like THE ATTIC and PIN had a baby out of wedlock and I get to adopt it! REFLECTION is based on a novel by (DELORIS) STANTON FORBES and yes, I already ordered a copy and made sure it was plenty used and lived in a library. Hopefully it will be so moldy that I nearly suffocate while enjoying it.

Ethereally yet confidently directed by WILLIAM A. FRAKER the cinematographer of ROSEMARY'S BABY (!), REFLECTION introduces us to an unsung psycho sister of Norman Bates named Marguerite. Koo-koo, microscope-obsessed doll collecting Marguerite is played by SONDRA LOCKE and wholly crap is it a performance. Pale and fluttering like a sun-bleached sheet on a clothesline, she still manages to dominate anyone in her vicinity. No small feat when ROBERT SHAW is on the guest list. Young Marguerite has led a sheltered existence that has given birth to an intricate universe within her head. She barely exists at all but struts like a deity before her menagerie of dolls and the amoeba caught beneath her owl gaze. When Marguerite's long lost father (SHAW) bounces into town with fiancée SALLY KELLERMAN on his arm, folks start getting beaten to death by a killer who wields a wooden plank like a possessed Punch puppet. The actual reveal of the mystery killer will hardly leave you doing a spit take but the way the material is handled is seriously haunting regardless.

I've always thought the scariest part of 1973's DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK was the eerie conspiratorial bookend whispers. REFLECTION carries a similar unearthly vocal element when dealing with Marguerite's once treasured now vanquished doll Aaron (voiced by GORDON ANDERSON whose lone other voicing credit is that of the titular RATBOY in LOCKE's directorial debut). REFLECTION's PG rating, which it apparently endured many cuts to achieve, may leave it relatively dry in the flowing blood department but it continues to gush with the steady flow of genuine creeps. Really, this film, which sat on the shelf for two years, is a perfect example of the type of fear derived not from violence or bloodshed but from the unease that something generally wrong and unnatural is about to take place. I wasn't shocked by its ending (man, do I want to ruin it) but I was genuinely disturbed and left with a feeling of unbalance. There are few choppy holes and the action jumps around in a way that left me unclear a few times but the one-two punch of LOCKE's performance and FRAKER's sometimes placid and dreamy, sometimes rabid and unruly direction overpowers all. Everybody who knew about this movie and didn't tell me about it, I am now officially mad at you.

Streaming Alert! :: Harper's Island

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Just one recommendation today but since it runs 13 episodes, it should keep you busy for a while. HARPER'S ISLAND you might recall was a season long slasher mystery that ran on CBS not too long ago. It didn't make much of a wave at the time but that may be partially blamed on audience impatience and inconsistent scheduling. Watching it on Netflix streaming sans commercials and with the ability to jump to the next episode at leisure can only smoothen the viewing experience.

HARPER'S has a lot characters to take in at first and there may be some rough patches and needless padding here and there, but once the cast gets whittled down and things start rolling it's a dark humored addictive pleasure. Some of it may be borderline hokey but its lamer qualities tend to add to the enjoyment level if you're watching with mouthy friends. You may even find yourself, as I did, jeering a character one minute and then lamenting his or her untimely death the next. The longer running time allows you get to know some of these victims a bit better than you would in a traditional slasher/mystery and with at least one person guaranteed to die each episode, the horror dry spells are few. The murders themselves are surprisingly gruesome for broadcast T.V. and the titles of the episodes are even morbidly named after the sound that is made when a death on the show occurs.

This show may have not have been the smash success it needed to be to continue on CBS but I hope somebody (are ya listening channels FEARNET, CHILLER, SYFI?) is wise enough to give the innovative format/structure another go sometime soon.

For now, I suggest giving this underrated and misunderstood series a chance.
It's got some good surprises up its sleeve and I can think of many worse locations to spend your summer vacation. Don't feel bad if you're not entirely convinced at first, I think I spent most of the run of the show dubious and cynical but now that it's over all I want to do is return! We're basically talking about a soap opera in which nearly everybody dies horribly at regular intervals, how can that not taste like a milkshake?

Traumafessions :: Writer/Director Chris Moore on Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Posted on By unkle lancifer

WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE had just come out when I was around 4 or 5 years old. The T.V. spots were saturating the airwaves and all I remembered from them were a little boy, a furnace, and a "witch" with razor hands and a mouth that could expand and swallow children whole. At the time, I thought it was a version of Hansel and Gretel. I was not a fan of scary things. I remember going to see THE SWAN PRINCESS at my local multiplex and almost having a panic attack when I discovered MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN was playing right next door. Somewhere in my tiny little mind, I thought my parents might get confused and walk into that auditorium instead.

The video soon came out and its presence was unavoidable. It was everywhere! I'd sneak a peek at the back of the box and wonder how terrifying this film must be with images like that, so proudly displayed. My local Party City even got a huge, cardboard standup of this razor fingered witch and that made shopping for Halloween costumes awfully difficult. They positioned it right by the exit. Smart move!

I had the worst dreams about this witch. I dreamt that I'd come home from school on a nice, sunny day, walk into my room and there she'd be, smiling and tapping at my rather large window. It got so bad that, in real life, I'd come home from school, jump on my bed, praying that if I jumped quick enough, the witch wouldn't be able to grab me under my bed. I'd hope every day this wouldn't be the day the dream became a reality.

I went off to a summer day camp a few months later and this group of older boys (couldn't have been more than 9 or 10 years old) kept talking about all these scary stories. They told me about a burnt child murderer with razors for fingers, a masked madman who only comes out on Halloween, and a little boy who drowned…in the lake around the camp, who will return and kill those who don't follow the rules.

Keep in mind that this was the summer before SCREAM was released, so slashers had been dead for awhile at this point. I never saw ads for such films, except NEW NIGHTMARE. This was all new to me. I started scouring the newspaper and TV Guide, hoping to find these films. I loved the simple, terse descriptions they gave of each film "Halloween- Babysitters stalked by a killer on All Hallows Eve!" SOLD!

My late father and I would watch these films every Friday and Saturday night together. Looking back, it's some of the best memories I have of my Dad. He'd lead me into darkness, we'd face my fears together, and discuss them the next morning over breakfast at Waffle House.

I remember seeing FRIDAY THE 13TH 7 & 8, THE FLY ('86), A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2 & 5, and HALLOWEEN 1 & 2 during this time. Since then, I rarely have nightmares. Who knew horror films could be such great therapy?

UNK SEZ: Thanks for the traumafession Chris! Multi-talented Chris Moore is the writer, director and star of the slasher inspired flick PERVERSION. You can check out the trailer below, find ordering info HERE and jump on over to our pal Pax's pad BILLY LOVE STU for a review over HERE!

Psycho Funhouse: Norman Needs Your Help!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Is Norman going mad again or has someone been switching things around in Mother's room? Help Norman prove he's still on the sane-train by finding the 12 differences in Momma Bates HQ! Make yourself a toasted cheese sandwich and take a good long look. Leave your answers in the comments section and we will shower you with the correct discrepancies later today! (click to enlarge!)

Name That Trauma :: Reader Lenamachina on a Stalker Sewing Machine & a Creepy Clock

Posted on By aunt john

I remember my older sister telling me about a movie that scared her years ago. All she can recall is a weird old sewing machine chasing some girl down a hallway(??) and an eerie voice saying "Jennifer."

The second movie had something to do with an evil nurse and a clock that struck 13:00??

Late '60s or early '70s guessing?

Have been searching for along time.


UPDATE: Per a message from Lena, the sewing machine movie is JENNIFER (1953) starring IDA LUPINO.

UNK SEZ: Wha? A killer sewing machine that chases people?! I 've never heard of that one and I can't find any evidence of it anywhere! When I googled "killer sewing machine" all I got was a video of this crazy lady totally freaking out about her sewing machine. Can anyone help Lenamachina?