kindertrauma

Month: July 2011

Name That Trauma :: Kinderpal Brother Bill of The Haunted Closet on a Creepy Crack

Posted on By aunt john

After lurking at Kindertrauma for several years, I FINALLY have a Name That Trauma request worthy of the site. I've had a run of good luck tracking down spooky books and films that haunted me as a child, from the haunted house oral hygiene film I saw in 2nd grade (The Haunted Mouth), to the pair of creepy anthology books I used to check out from the school library (Roger Elwood's Monster Tales and Horror Tales), the classroom vandalism film that never let go of my soul (The Boy Who Liked Deer) and the disturbing image of an exotic dancer biting off the head of a live snake that I needed to exorcise from my subconscious (Stanley!)

But there is one fragment of a memory from early childhood that I've never been able to locate. A short animated piece (I remember sparse black-and-white line drawings) where a little girl or boy is in the bedroom and a crack on the wall starts moving, talking, and forming different shapes. I remember it finally formed a monstrous, scary face, before freezing and becoming just a crack in the wall again. I want to say this was on SESAME STREET or ELECTRIC COMPANY, but not sure. This would have been in the early-to-mid '70s.

In my own search on-line, I find reference to this film in talkbalk conversations by other people also desperate to identify it (the consensus seems to be it was from SESAME STREET, possibly called "Crack Master") but no one is 100% sure, nor does anyone have a screen capture or video clip of the film… any help?

Thanks, Kindertrauma!

— Brother Bill

The Haunted Closet

Traumafessions :: Reader "doihaveto" on Ratboy

Posted on By aunt john

I don't know that I have found anything about this horrid little gem on your website. It's a 1986 movie called RATBOY directed by SONDRA LOCKE. Now, it may not be a horror movie, but there were elements that really rang true to one in my seven year old mind. My father took immense pleasure in watching the horrified looks on my brother's and my face when he found a particularly good kindertrauma-esque movie. RATBOY was one of the over the top ones for me.

It's harmless enough, but it begins with a scene that has COURTNEY GAINS in it. After seeing CHILDREN OF THE CORN, that guy scared the bejesus out of me. That is a whole different traumafession that has already been touched on by many here.

Needless to say, that was the beginning of the horror for me. I think I might have peed a little, but I don't remember this movie all that clearly. At 31, I am still too scared to watch it again. Anyhow, when we first find Ratboy, there is an old '50s style box type record player that has Lloyd Price's "Personality" playing on it. I distinctly remember this song being prominent throughout the movie. I still think of the movie every time I hear the song, but the memories are still very fuzzy for me. I think the director really wanted it to be a life lesson sort of the thing, but it was surreal and strange. More of a dark comedy than a horror flick. It had all of the wholesomeness of an Afterschool Special and most of the camp of a Late Night Screamer. I think there was some kind of underlying morality message and you were to be saddened by the plight of Ratboy, but honestly, with Malachai in the opening scene and the makeup job, that was phenomenal for its day, I just couldn't see it. I think I need to man up and give this one another watch, but I am home alone right now and don't think I could do it.

I am interested to see if any of you guys remember this one. I would hate to think that I am the only one who was terrorized by this movie.

— "doihaveto"

New reader!!

I love your site by the way!!

Razorback (1984)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Okay, now I'm all obsessed with RUSSELL MULCAHY's giant pig movie RAZORBACK from 1984. I did catch this one back in the day on cable and I remember being struck by the visuals and left with at least one strong scene trapped in my head, but why has it taken me so long to return to this handsome misfit flick? In my defense, copies don't exactly grow on trees in my neck of the woods but I'm still ashamed of not putting forth a bit more effort. We're talking a killer pig movie from the director of the "Total Eclipse of the Heart" video after all. How is that not going to work for me?

GREGORY HARRISON stars as vanilla urbanite Carl Winters who hits the gritty Aussie outback in search of his missing reporter wife. While in the Land of Oz he encounters obstinate man of the land Jake Cullen (BILL KERR) whose grandson did a similar vanishing act. Locals accuse Jake of the tot's disappearance not believing his account of a tusked boar or "razorback" the size of a rhino snatching the kid away (I thought only dingoes did that!) The two are helped by a beautiful piggy expert (the late ARKIE WHITELEY of THE ROAD WARRIOR) and hindered by two nutzo brothers (CHRIS HAYWOOD & DAVID ARGUE) so twisted they'd feel right at home at the family dinner table from THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE.

I'm not going to lie, not everything is firing on all cylinders in RAZORBACK. Much like the previous year's THE KEEP, the visuals tend to bully if not suffocate the narrative. Unlike THE KEEP though, RAZORBACK provides us with at least enough information to know what's going down. It may not always tell its story in the most coherent way possible but there is never any doubt that we are watching a man vs. beast tale not unlike JAWS or even ALIEN. MULCAHY's effort may not be the smooth running machine those two examples are but give him a break; there are easier tasks in life than constructing and convincingly displaying on film, a monster pig. I don't think the title creature looks that bad myself but the effort to keep the questionably convincing porker under wraps tends to render some of the action overtly obtuse.

Various shortcomings aside, RAZORBACK is gonzo gorgeous nearly all of the time and the decades have only made it more dazzlingly esoteric. MULCAHY has brought along his bag of video tricks: light beams, reflections and flares bounce off of everything but what is really astonishing is how other-worldly he presents his homeland. I swear it looks more like another planet than another continent on multiple occasions. That's never more so the case then when mid-way through the film, Carl's exhaustion leads to hallucinations and we're gifted acid-flashback eye candy, perfectly doused in an IVA DAVIES' (of the Aussie band ICEHOUSE) score. I'd say this film is only a proper DVD/Blu-ray release away from having its cult status explode triple fold.

RAZORBACK was MULCAHY's first theatrical film and although not a financial victory, he, along with cinematographer DEAN SEMLER (THE ROAD WARRIOR), delivered something vibrantly cutting edge and trash chic unique that looks like science fiction, feels like horror and struts like an action-adventure/western. The story loudly argues with the semi-slacking special effects but the overall dynamic look of this batty opus is the ultimate peacekeeper.

Things may have fared better with a leading man who could possibly compete with the surroundings and supporting players but GREGORY HARRISON can at least be said to sufficiently convince us that he's in over his head. One could argue that HAYWOOD & ARGUE as the rat-like brothers Benny & Dicko Baker slyly swipe some of the titular beast's thunder but my personal favorite scene involves the porcine powerhouse dragging off the side of a home, with blasting TV included, away from an in-shock couch potato. That'll do pig!

Name That Trauma :: Reader Dane on a Killer Cuckold

Posted on By aunt john

Hi there! Dig the website!

Anyway, I have a vague recollection of either a T.V. show or a movie…all I remember is a man bursting into a hotel room to find his wife having an affair. The man shoots both his wife and her lover. In one of the next scenes, he's shown filling the dead guy's chest cavity with bricks, and has decorated the woman's coffin with icing or something of that sort. Very vague, but it freaked me out majorly as a kid and I'd love to know what the hell it's from after all these years!

Thanks and happy traumatizing,

— Dane

Traumafessions :: wellyousaythat© on Automatonophobia & Other Side Effects of Watching Dead of Night

Posted on By aunt john

You want trauma? I've got trauma; 1945's DEAD OF NIGHT. Known for its segment starring MICHAEL REDGRAVE as an unhinged ventriloquist this portmanteau of terror was, it's fair to say, my childhood nemesis.

Dissected

It's got the lot: a ventriloquist dummy (never a scarier artifact in the light entertainment business), premonitions of death, a psychiatrist, Victorian ghosts, haunting, a sinister undertaker, a supernatural mirror, murder, horror at a children's party, fatal accidents and a twist at the ending.

The children's party is a harsh reminder of the dangers of wandering off as a child; even in the comparative safety of a sedate Christmas party. The Dorian Gray-esque segment is creepy in the extreme in its portrayal of vanity, and the Grim Reaper taps on an unsuspecting chap's shoulder to chilling effect. There is some light relief in a story about death and golf, but this is just false hope that things may lighten up.

Truly horrifying prison sequence

The ventriloquist story is, in itself, a clear example of the evil that lurks inside these pint-sized plaster and paint artificial humans.

The film was responsible for many a sleepless night and is a major factor in my aversion to all things ventriloquy. I also would be averse to any type of wandering in other people's houses, and think twice before getting on the local bus.

DEAD OF NIGHT was absolutely bowel opening in its eerie and terrifying atmosphere and content. A childhood memory revived by a recent viewing. And guess what? It's still scary!

The awful truth

— wellyousaythat©

Name That Trauma :: Reader Ashley R. on a Hoovered Hamster

Posted on By aunt john

Hey there, I adore your website. I was wondering if maybe somebody could shed some light on something that has bothered me for years. I used to watch NICK AT NIGHT back in the '90s/early '00s when I was a little kid, and used to be a big fan of the sitcoms (which all sort of run together in my mind now). I remember I saw something on that network on one of the sitcoms (a rerun, not sure of the original air date), and then refused to turn on nick at night for maybe about a year after because it upset me so badly.

I don't remember what show it was, but I remember that a young boy got some sort of small rodent (either a hamster or mouse or something) and a bully (I have a feeling that it was his older brother, but I could be wrong) murdered it by sucking it into a vacuum cleaner. I was really shocked by it, because I didn't realize that the older boy had killed the cute little animal until the two younger boys are shown having a funeral for their pet, which I clearly remember was in a brown paper bag. I ran out of the room crying, and never finished it, but I remember that it bothered me for weeks.

Does anybody know what show this was?

— Ashley R.

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to Facebook kinderpal Heather S. for knowing this trauma comes from the Season 2 WONDER YEARS episode "Hiroshima, Mon Frere."

How To End Things With John Carpenter

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Recently I was expressing my disappointment in the ending of JOHN CARPENTER's THE WARD. My chagrin was inspired not only by the film's not so clever "surprise" revelation but also in the cheapy jump-scare that was to be THE WARD's final note. The more I gnawed the bone in my head the more I realized that I had every reason to find a weak closing from CARPENTER somewhat surprising; the guy has delivered some of the strongest film endings I can think of. In an effort to help me process my disgruntlement, let's say we take a look at a handful of my favorites. Please don't make me tell you there will be spoilers.

HALLOWEEN (1978)

"The Shape" is shot several times and falls off a second story balcony. Laurie Strode is all, "It was the Bogeyman?" and Loomis is all, "Yep." His confirmation is made all the more convincing when he looks to see where the maniac has landed and notices only a blank space where there should rightly be a dead bogeyman. Yikes! But this is not even the good part! CARPENTER, because he is so brilliant, takes us on a little tour of everyplace we've been that night. It's as if he's going to show us where Myers is hiding but he doesn't. We see the homes that moments ago were filled with horror standing quietly. We check out the living room where Laurie battled for her life and it looks like an empty stage. We hear Myers breathing and it's as if he has become a part of everything. To me, it's not so much the mystique of Myers that rattles the nerves but the way CARPENTER injects him into the once mundane settings. He expertly desecrates the everyday with darkness and brings evil (as the tagline warns) home. At the end of HALLOWEEN, "The Shape" whether you can visibly see him or not is everywhere.

THE FOG (1980)

Oh good, that betrayed leper ghost Blake has gotten his precious gold back and now everything is settled. Hold a grudge much? Now the scenic town of Antonio Bay can get back to normal. Hmmm, those ghosts kept saying they wanted to kill six people but I guess not. Looks like five people and a gold cross will suffice. At the end of THE FOG Father Malone (HAL HOLBROOK), rather than thanking his lucky stars and skipping town, decides to hang around church wondering aloud about why his life was spared. Blake and company are only too happy to quell his curiosity by backing their haunted boat up and tying up loose ends by decapitating his head. I think I can sum up THE FOG's ending by labeling it the coolest thing that I have ever seen in my life. CARPENTER gives us a worrying heads up then diverts our attention one way and then slams us from another. We're not even granted a moment to focus on Blake as he pulls back for the final blow. As his sword connects with Malone it lops off our view too. The screen turns black, we hear the squishy cut and then as if the saber had sliced through a pop tent during a storm, CARPENTER's rainfall score begins to pour down all over the closing credits. The timing is clockwork-precise and it's one flipping fantastic curtain drop.

THE THING (1982)

MacReady (KURT RUSSELL)'s feelings toward the slippery amorphous space visitor in THE THING are made abundantly clear when he says, "Yea, fuck you too!" and chucks a lit stick of dynamite in its direction. The shape-shifting creature is not an easy critter to dispose of and since its escape will mean the global annihilation of mankind, blowing up the entirety of Outpost 31 and hoping for the best is not a bad way to go. As the camp burns, Mac discovers another survivor in Childs (KEITH DAVID). Neither man can completely trust that the other is not hosting the entity and so they share a quiet suspicion-filled stand off. Take special note of this ending because the likelihood that you ever encounter something like it again in a studio picture is minimal. Rather than hand the audience a cathartic pacifier jump scare to send them on their satiated way, CARPENTER insists that viewers be kept in a state of unknowing just like the characters on screen. Over the years fans have sought concrete confirmations of the stalemate's eventual outcome. Is the bottle that Mac hands Childs contaminated? How come you can't see Child's breath in the cold? There is no answer and the paranoia of not being able to identify friend or foe is exactly what this film is concerned with underneath the goop and lobster legs. There lies the true horror, none of us can ever fully know one another; does it get any colder than that?

PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987)

There's no question about whether the end of PRINCE OF DARKNESS left a mark, Kindertrauma has received enough traumafessions and "Name That Traumas!" about this movie's final moments to state, without a doubt, that it has. I can even tell you first hand that my little brother was treated to disturbing nightmares inspired by this film's close. There is something spectacularly eerie about it and it certainly brings new meaning to the phrase "ahead of its time." Last we saw Catherine Danforth (LISA BLOUNT) she was doing mankind a solid and jumping into a mirror/dimensional doorway in order to keep the devil at bay. Throughout the film characters have been receiving static filled shaky-cam dream transmissions from the future warning of cataclysmic events including, but not limited to, the rise of an anti-God. The dreams alter subtly each time they occur but they always show a dark figure emerging from a church and they always look like a fifth generation bootleg. The film ends with one last exposure to the dream and now we find that Catherine has replaced the demonoid figure in the future. We're in the "open to interpetation" zone here but one thing that's set in stone is the alarming power of the hard to pin down visual and the ominous voice and message that accompanies it. The transmission's repeated insistence that what we are seeing is real begins to have an effect and, at some point, it becomes somewhat hard to distinguish if the communication is trying to break through a dream within the film or the film itself. Seriously haunting.

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994)

We know that John Trent's (SAM NEIL) investigation into the disappearance of horror novelist Sutter Cane did not end well because he fills us in on his experiences from a padded room in an insane asylum. I suppose that spending time in a fictional town that shouldn't exist fighting off ancient dimension-stomping beasties straight out of LOVECRAFT would leave anyone feeling twitchy. How do you top the horror of discovering that the line between fiction and reality is one big joke? How about learning the punchline is you. Trent's stint in the loony bin is cut short by the technicality of the world falling to ruin. He stumbles down debris-strewn streets that lead him to a movie theater. Now playing is IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS starring himself and directed by JOHN CARPENTER. He watches what we have watched. He laughs, he cries, he goes insane.

This might be a good place for me to end things myself. IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS sums up nicely what the best JOHN CARPENTER films do. Whether he is placing the mask on our faces in HALLOWEEN; opening THE FOG with a POE quote asking, "Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?"; leaving us with the same dilemma as Mac and Child's in THE THING; invading our nightmares with THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS; or simply suggesting, as he does with IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, that reality is fast becoming fiction and vice versa, good CARPENTER tends to blur the line between onscreen and off and assimilate the viewer into the proceedings.

Perhaps the strongest thing about CARPENTER's most brilliant film endings is the implication that there is no ending. The deep vastness and over abundance of darkness in his premium work insures that every viewer receives a Tupperware container of angst to take home. Go ahead and try to lull yourself to sleep repeating, "It's only a movie, it's only a movie." The jig is up, CARPENTER knows that we know that it's not.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Ken J. on a Child Killer Anthology

Posted on By aunt john

Hi,

Probably early-mid '70s anthology horror T.V. movie/special, not part of a series, which means it could be ABC.

Male child killer, possible family member, kills child, and then in the mansion where it took place, is tormented seemingly by the dead child.

At the end, child killer is on long winding stairs leading to ground floor, at wits end. I'm not sure who says this, but he is told that the dead child couldn't be here, but he sent us to etc, etc. Screams, black out.

Scared the shit out of me. Don't remember anything about the rest of the anthology, but I think there may have total three stories. But I was too traumatized to remember the other two parts!

Thanks Kindertrauma!

— Ken J.

UNK SEZ: My bet Ken J. is that you were rightfully terrified by the last segment of DAN CURTIS' 1977 anthology DEAD OF NIGHT entitled "Bobby." Check out the clip below and my review from long ago HERE! Wow, I just watched the scene again myself and it just never stops being scary does it? BTW, "Bobby" was remade by CURTIS in 1996 and appeared as the second segment of TRILOGY OF TERROR 2!

Name That Trauma :: Reader Patrick J. D. on Darth Vader Rides the Subway

Posted on By aunt john

use the metro card force!

Hey there —

So, back in the '80s we had a show in Chicago on PBS called IMAGE UNION. A fantastic show that played independent films and videos. This was serious avant-garde stuff – some narrative, some abstract – but always interesting. Especially if you were obsessed with film making as I was during my childhood.

So, one of the shows played this really crazy film. It had a funky, 16mm, New York, whimsical tone.

It tells the story of little boy sitting at the front of a subway train (I'm guessing in NYC.) He's staring out into the moving darkness in front of him as lights whiz by. And then the film starts to cut in quick shots of Darth Vader. As the train gets faster and faster, the images of Darth Vader come more rapidly. The train stops and the little boy gets off on the platform. He starts to run because….Darth Vader is now chasing him through the crowd in the train station. As Vader closes in on him, he grabs him. The boy turns to realize… it's just his mother. Apparently, she was waiting to pick him up in the platform.

I swear, I'm not making this up. And doing a Google search for "Darth Vader + independent films" comes up with a bazillion fan films, but not this one. It has to be late '70s, early '80s.

Maybe someone in Traumaland has a lead.

Thanks!

Patrick J. D.

P.S. – A quick Metafilter search came up with another person asking for a similar video.

use the metro card force!

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Thanks for the traumafession Patrick J.D.! Sadly, I have no idea as to what the short film is you are referring to; however, I did pilfer the above images from the below ImprovEverywhere short. (Hey, it was either that or this BLONDIE video and I.E. won out.) Does anyone remember the source of Patrick's trauma? Use the force and sound off in the comments!