Long time lurker, first time poster. It's truly amazing how much stuff you guys have made me remember from my own childhood that I thought I had forgotten. Keep up the good work!
So anyway, I've been hearing a lot about the new STEPHEN KING book, Under the Dome. The thing is, KING's new door-stopper of a novel sounds like a movie that scared the crap out of me as a child. It was about a small town that had what looked like a Plexiglas dome placed over it by aliens. The townspeople all behave semi hypnotized for a good chunk of the film, just like the THE STEPFORD WIVES. Turns out there is this building in the town that has an entirely black room with only a plastic chair in it. One of the main character's friends sits in this chair and ALL KINDS OF '60s BAD ACID TRIP HAPPENS!
The guy starts mumbling and a theremin starts playing. Then all sorts of bad latex Halloween masks start flying around. But what really got me as a kid were the disembodied leprous hands waving around in the camera frame. After a few minutes of this trauma the guy snaps out of it and is now acting just like the townsfolk.
For the life of me I can't remember the title of this flick that fueled many of my childhood nightmares. I leave it to you and the mighty readers of Kindertrauma to help me place a name on this fear factory.
UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to Reader MercurialM for being the first to chime in with THE BUBBLE (a.k.a. THE FANTASTIC INVASION OF PLANET EARTH.)
That sounds an awful lot like a movie I saw several years ago on TV as "The Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth". A little digging reveals that it was also called "The Bubble", and it was directed and written by Arch Oboler. I can't find any video for it, but I definitely remember the crazy rubber mask freakout chair sequence.
Pretty sure that this is The Bubble from 1966. It's from Arch Oboler, who caused many a nightmare with his early radio plays.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060396/
Â
You gotta love this trailer – it doesn't show you a damn thing, but hey…the picture floats right off the screen !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfHx9RbJfVU
Â
Yep, that would be The Bubble, which was rereleased in the mid 70s in 3-D as The Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth.
Hot damn! I definitely remember seeing this as a kid and being pretty freaked out, athough I'll bet it would seem laughable by today's standards. I never knew that Arch Oboler made films – I loved listening to episodes of "Lights Out Everybody" on tape.
The movie itself, alas, is largely nonsensical and boring. I saw it a couple of years ago and really, really wanted to like it…but ended up relegating it to the "well, at least I've seen it" files. Bonus points for the presence of "Third Gidget" Deborah Walley, though.