kindertrauma

Month: July 2011

Streaming Alert:: Deadly Blessing (1981)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I gotta thank good ol' Mickster for sending me over to Hulu the other day because I wasn't there more than a couple minutes before I bumped into DEADLY BLESSING (1981). Why does DEADLY BLESSING think that it can hide from me when it can't? It looks pretty good as far as the picture goes, less grainy than my rusty VHS but it needs some work done for sure. The fact that it's horribly cropped is made apparent during the opening credits as every other name that appears has portions lopped off. Poor DEADLY BLESSING has never found its way onto DVD somehow (at least not in my neck of the woods.) You'd think a movie directed by WES CRAVEN would garner a little more interest and respect. It's not his best work of course but it's far from his worst. If you look really closely, I think you can see little idea seedlings that will come into fruition on Elm Street.

Luscious MAREN JENSEN (of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA fame) is Martha Schmidt. She and her hubby Jim (DOUG BARR of the often seen by me THE UNSEEN) are enjoying the country life and expecting their first child. The fly in their buttermilk is Jim's estranged family members who do not approve of the marriage, wear creepy hats and chatter about demons and damnation all day. They look like the Amish but are called "Hittites" and I refuse to judge them because they revere ERNEST BORGNINE and are apposed to the wearing of short pants just like me. One day Jim dies in a mysterious tractor accident and Martha can only be cheered out of her mourning by the likes of SHARON STONE (of the legendary classic thriller SCISSORS) and SUSAN BUCKNER (who played Patty Simcox in GREASE.) Things get scary when MICHAEL BERRYMAN starts snooping about and people start swallowing spiders in their dreams, taking baths with snakes and receiving unsolicited egg deliveries from LISA HARTMAN (of the smash hit BEWITCHED spin-off TABITHA).

DEADLY BLESSING is loopy, semi-spooky fun albeit a little overstuffed. For a horror film released in 1981, it certainly marches to it own drummer (that reminds me, the nifty score comes care of JAMES HORNER the dude who did HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP, ALIENS & SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES.) The story may not hold up to much close scrutiny but somehow the near constant shifts in direction and focus work in its favor. The setting allows for some rich atmosphere and you can tell CRAVEN had some fun playing around with the expansive openness of the location. In fact, I'd say there's almost always eye candy on this table, whether it be the easy to look at cast, the rife with personality homestead or the weird off kilter paintings provided by HARTMAN's engagingly oddball character.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for a movie that mixes slasher elements with a heavy occult vibe and you can just take out the "maybe" I started this sentence with. Not that it matters much, but I'm also madly in love with the poster art for DEADLY BLESSING. It's just really cool and that's coming from somebody with a generally indifferent attitude toward boobage.

Many feel, WES CRAVEN included, that DEADLY BLESSING's tacked-on, producer-insisted ending betrays the film but I strangely don't mind it at all. It's just one more crazy wrinkle in a film full of many, so it hardly breaks the tone. Blaming the ending scene for making this movie bonkers is like having a heard of bulls trash your china shop and only getting mad at the last one out the door as they leave. I say that as a fan. I am soooo biased when it comes to this picture because I saw it at a certain age and it was one of the early R-rated horrors I caught in the theater. I still remember my wonderment and how mysterious and forbidden it all felt. It seemed that anybody in this movie could be murdered or take a bath wearing their underwear at any moment. This is a message movie really and the message is, "Look out for the incubus!" It is a message that is heartbreakingly still relevant today. I still don't understand my attraction fully. I still don't understand a lot of things, but I do understand that you can watch it for free HERE.

Kinder-Link :: X-Mas in July at Christmas TV Companion

Posted on By aunt john

Check it out!

Kinderpal Joanna Wilson is living in a '90s kind of X-Mas world over at Christmas TV Companion where Unkle Lancifer stopped by earlier this week to chat about the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE episode "Amends."

Today, you dear old Aunt John turns an eggnog eye towards the yuletide episode of '90s urban sit-com staple LIVING SINGLE where QUEEN LATIFAH's character (Flavor Magazine editor Khadijah James) methodically stalks and kills her housemates because they make fun of her Christmas vest.

OK, not really, but you should still check, check, check it out!

Streaming Alert! :: Kinderpal Mickster on Jack's Back (1988)

Posted on By kinderpal mickster

UNK SEZ: Aunt John and I have gone fishing but don't worry, as I was able to coax everybody's Kinderpal Mickster into recommending one of her faves for you. Thanks Mickster!

MICKSTER SEZ: Netflix isn't the only place that offers obscure horror movies instantly. Hulu.com is another good source for instant streaming. The best part is that Hulu.com is free. The only caveat is that you have to watch commercials every ten to fifteen minutes; however, it is worth it when you come across a movie that has not been released on DVD. This brings me to my recommendation for the week, JACK'S BACK (1988). I first discovered this little known gem on USA's UP ALL NIGHT during the early '90s.

It is one hundred years after the original Jack the Ripper murders in London, and a serial killer in Los Angeles is meticulously recreating the killings. If you like Jack the Ripper-themed movies, you should enjoy this one. It does not hurt that JAMES SPADER is so damn hot in this. He plays twins John and Rick Wesford. John being the straight-laced med student and Rick being the "bad-boy" shoe store manager. The supporting cast includes ROBERT PICARO (THE HOWLING) , ROD LOOMIS (aka Sigmund Freud from BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE) and CYNTHIA GIBB.

Mickster's Special Moments:

  • "Red Harvest" playing, as the Polaroid develops to reveal a dead prostitute.
  • The Ripper enjoys singing "My Way" in the shower to prepare for killing hookers.
  • John's unfortunate demise after being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
  • Rick wakes from a nightmare (about John's death) and rolls around on the bed in his underwear… Yay!
  • Rick teams up with the John's cute and spunky co-worker Chris to catch Jack the Ripper.
  • The porn theater sells guns but not bullets
  • Rick knocks "Red-Herring Jack" on his ass.
  • The final showdown with Jack the Ripper.

Name That Trauma :: Reader /stu on a Forest Freakazoid

Posted on By aunt john

Hey there,

I love your site…now onto my very vague clue. An '80s horror movie which involved people (friends/couples/family… I can't recall) who go into a wooded, forestry area and are terrorized and killed by a humanoid, animal-like creature. At the end of the movie the characters set up an elaborate trap to try and capture the beast. I recall the beast using the tree tops to get around as well…I realize this doesn't offer much but it's been killing me for years to try and recall this movie I saw one Saturday afternoon in my youth. (I'm guessing it appeared on the good ole Saturday Shocker creature feature which aired from a Detroit-based station in the '80s).

Hope you can help out!

/stu

UNK SEZ: This is a tough one /stu! It could be so many movies! I hope I'm not barking up the wrong tree but three films popped into my head immediately: HUMONGOUS, MADMAN and THE FINAL TERROR. I posted the trailers below for you to take a gander at and because they're sure to be fun to watch anyway. Do any of our readers know of any other movies this might be? Throw your bets in the comments section and if nothing else, we'll end up with a nice collection of woodsy horror titles!

John Carpenter's The Ward

Posted on By unkle lancifer

It's safe to say that JOHN CARPENTER is my favorite director of all time. I may have been more fascinated by CRONENBERG for a wee while, but that was only during my artsy phase. CARPENTER has made the majority of my favorite films and I have returned to and watched his movies over again a zillion times. So really, I came to this conclusion using simple math. I admit I was a bit cautious approaching his latest, THE WARD but considering I count myself among the few who appreciated GHOSTS OF MARS, I figured my chances of being outraged enough to throw a trash can through a pizza shop window were slim. I wasn't expecting a tour de force, just a competent work with a few adornments that high-fived his previous films. So what if he lost some zing and vitality? I wasn't feeling too hot myself. In other words, my expectations were not too high or too low. I've already gotten so much from this filmmaker that demanding much more felt like being an ungracious turd.

No need for plot details, it's basically GIRL INTERRUPTED…BY A GHOST! Most of the film runs smooth as silk and desperation free. It looks crispy clean in general and J.C.'s lovely signature is present and clearly legible. The atmosphere is not especially strong for ghostly subject matter but select moments hit the right uncanny nerve. The man has an eye and that eye still impresses; there's a bounty of wonderful shots all filled with his exquisite affection for lines and angles. I will assume that the film would have benefited some from a score by CARPENTER himself but a CARPENTER-approved score will have to suffice. (Did I hear a nod toward SUSPIRIA?)

I also really dig the cast, AMBER HEARD is all types of engaging, both beautiful and convincingly staunch. MAMIE GUMMER, as a quirky inmate, reminds me of a young MERYL STREEP and that I'm blaming on her mom, MERYL STREEP. JARED HARRIS is outstanding as a Loomis-y shrink leaning on nuts himself. I'd love to see him become a recurring CARPENTER player as PLEASENCE and ATKINS have done before him. I think this is a fantastic movie up to a point…

The problem is the script and more precisely, the end of the script. The film follows familiar paths and that is fine and dandy but then all the sudden it tramps things up big time with a highly irritating, borderline excruciating twist. I had such a good time with the HALLOWEEN II-ish setting, the FOG-zombie ghost, THE THING-esque group dynamics and CARPENTER's overall swoopy snug as a straightjacket style that I thought I could forgive the insulting "reveal" but then something worse happened, something that I'm still trying to reconcile.

The film ends with (and you can't spoil the already rotten) a goddamn medicine cabinet scare! Have you ever gone on a perfect date and then at the end of the evening the so and so bends to kiss you and their breath smells like roadkill? It's not a good way to leave things. I can't be too hard on a movie that is mostly good. I suppose if it was released twenty years ago, it would have curled my toes and buttered my English muffin. The good news is that CARPENTER still has the serious chops and honestly I'll take this movie before many a recent offering from some of his peers. Now, somebody please get this poor guy a script with an ending that doesn't make me sneeze. I'm allergic to mold!

Kinder-link:: Kevin Maher's Interview with Max Kalmanowicz Director of The Children (1980)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

UNK SEZ:: One last heads up that tomorrow is the big date for the EVIL KIDS double feature that includes THE CHILDREN (1980) and DON'T GO TO SLEEP (1982)! To get you in the mood our buddy KEVIN MAHER has snagged an interview with THE CHILDREN's director MAX KALMANOWICZ which you can read HERE! It's a superlative piece and you'll notice that KEVIN was able to get both a traumafession and a "Name That Trauma!" out of MAX! How cool is that? Tickets to the show can be found YONDER! Hope those of you who are in that neck of the woods can make it!

ALSO:: Special thanks to our other pal JOHN KENNETH MUIR for supplying the cool publicity stills you see before you. You can read JKM's insightful review of THE CHILDREN over HERE!

Traumafessions :: Eric Weber of Yedi Hideout on Swamp Thing

Posted on By aunt john

There is only one instance in the history of my movie-going experiences where I had to leave the theater.

When I was seven, my dad took me to see SWAMP THING (1982). I can recall sitting there enjoying all of the action and adventure when, slowly, I began feeling deeply disturbed. A moment comes late in the film where, during a semi-swank party at his mansion, the villain (played by LOUIS JOURDAN) tests a secret potion on his henchman, Bruno, (played by the lovable and adorable NICHOLAS WORTH.) Bruno starts twitching and convulsing as his face begins to bubble up and deform while all of the party guests start flipping out. I remember becoming super-agitated and nervous and told my dad that we needed to leave, "RIGHT NOW!"

Even when the movie began airing on HBO, I found myself totally and completely terrified when this scene started. I would literally hide behind the couch and peek out every now and then. Little did I realize that an even more disturbing scene was awaiting me! After Bruno is turned into a kind of sweet-looking, pint-sized rat creature, LOUIS JOURDAN takes the potion himself and begins transforming into this creature in a truly disturbing and gory sequence with lots of gooey special effects. I went absolutely out of my mind and remember racing upstairs to the safety of my bedroom.

I don't think I watched the movie in its entirety until my teenage years when stuff like SWAMP THING was old hat and I had already moved on to the works of JOHN CARPENTER, GEORGE ROMERO, TOBE HOOPER, etc.

Actually, I lied – there was one other instance where I walked out of a film but that was THE MATRIX RELOADED for completely different reasons.

— Eric Weber at yetihideout.blogspot.com

Name That Trauma :: Reader Sara Queen on an Anti-Smoking P.S.A.

Posted on By aunt john

Hello,

I am new to your site, and was intrigued with how many of its visitors had the same reactions I did to random things from television. My biggest one had to be a commercial that ran throughout the ‘90s (not sure of the dates) that was an anti-smoking campaign for teens.

It started off with a bubbly type of music, and some girl sitting in front of a mirror. If I remember correctly, there were actual creepy bubbles flying around. Everything seems normal, then she opens her mouth and it's full of ashes and cigarette butts.

Well, as a kid, I had no idea that it was supposed to be cigarettes and I would run and hide as soon as I heard the music start playing. It still makes me shiver when I think of it!! I looked around on YouTube a little, but had no luck.

Do you think you can help me find this terror?

Thanks,

Sarah Queen

Traumafessions :: Geofree Capodanno of The Man Cave on Vincent Price

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Vincent Price. One of the all-time great horror icons. Some call him a master. Others call him an innovator. Most call him a god of the horror genre. All of which I agree on by all accounts, but for my Traumafession, I will refer to him as a someone who cost me hours of sleep between 1983-1984. When the Michael Jackson Thriller video was first released, it scared the crap out of me when I was a kid, so everything related to that video activated anxiety in my fragile, little mind. Since Vincent Price did the rap at the beginning and his signature laughter was used during my scariest moment of the video, during the "Cat's Eyes" sequence at the end, Price simply horrified me. Just when I found peace with Thriller, as it became my all-time favorite music video instead of my most feared, Vincent Price struck once again!

Around late 1984, I remember staying up very late to watch some R-rated raunchy comedy on HBO. Once that was over, I accidentally switched over to a local channel when I tried to shut the TV off. Once the channel changed, it was a close-up of Vincent Price's face as his eyes glowed green and he executed his famous evil laugh!! It lasted about 8 seconds but felt like 8 years to me. Frozen in terror, I did not sleep properly over the course of the next two days. It had to be at least 2am when this happened, and I was only about 7 or 8 at the time, so this was all my fault for sneaking to stay up so late on a school night in the first place. Come to find out later on the following week, it was a commercial for a Time-Life horror book series they released, for which Price was the face of the promotional ad. As the weeks went on, every time the commercial started playing on the channel I was watching, and it happened A LOT, I'd feverishly run to switch the channel in a panic.

In retrospect, this is all very embarrassing to admit, but I can laugh at myself. Not to mention that this happened before I learned how to do long division, so I'm not going to be too hard on myself. I read someone's Traumafession the other day and somehow the memory of this commercial (thanks Kindertrauma!) just popped back into my mind. Better yet, I actually found the commercial on YouTube, which unfortunately really cuts out a lot of the ending that scared the bejesus out of me. You can grab a glimpse of it though. Looking at it now for the first time in 7 years, the commercial is extremely corny and cheesy. It is silly to look back at this TV spot and think about how it affected me so much back then, but this is Traumafession and all, right?

UNK SEZ:: Thanks for the excellent traumafession Geofree! All you fine folks out there make sure you moonwalk over to Geofree's top-notch joint, THE MAN CAVE!