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
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
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?
Hi Kindertrauma,
SESAME STREET had a sequence about the letter H augmented with animation from a Scanimate (an early analog computer animation system) that COMPLETELY. EFFING. TERRIFIED me. You'd be hanging out, minding your own business watching Big Bird and whatever, and all of a sudden this droning, existential, solarized, hypnotic meditation on the letter H came on. That first stoned animal growl of "Riiiiight . . ." from Luis was the call announcing that we had left the safe world of SESAME STREET and were going to enter a frightening Interzone parallel universe. I called it "Electric H", in the same tones of "He Who Must Not Be Named."
The worst was that it was a clip that wasn't in heavy rotation, so you never knew when it would come on. It got to the point where I would check to see what the letter of the day was and wouldn't watch any shows that said they were "sponsored by the letter H." My parents knew I was terrified of this and were very sympathetic about me running to turn the T.V. off as soon as it came on, but I remember one day in the kitchen when it came on, right after a Bert and Ernie sketch (and it wasn't even an H day!) and there I was, trapped, because our old black and white T.V. was on top of the refrigerator and I wasn't tall enough to reach it. Electric H, beaming its satanic bizarreness from little me from on high, for what seemed like eternity. I screamed and screamed until one of my parents came to rescue me. (Electric H is even scarier in black and white, btw. It's like ERASERHEAD.)
The irony is, I grew up to be quite fascinated with the computer animation and video art of this era (Nam Jun Paik, for example), so even though this was a traumatic experience maybe it horrified and fascinated me in equal measure? In any case, after finding "Electric H" on YouTube I'm not going to sleep tonight.
Thanks,
V.
OK, I'm a newby on your site, but I have a Name that Trauma. I don't have very much info. to go on, and I have searched for a long time for this movie. I thought I would see if any of you can offer any help on this one.
The movie is one of the infamous "Crawling Hand" movies. I was pretty young when I saw this movie on a hotel room T.V. while we were vacationing, must be late '70s, to very early '80s when I saw it, but what I remember was – it had an Egyptian feel to it. I remember the hand had a large ring on one finger, possibly with a large ruby setting. I remember it crawling across the floor, I guess going after someone, with the usual finger crawl bad effects you see in these movies. Seems like it would be a HAMMER or AMICUS-style movie to me nowadays, but not any that I have found as of yet.
I know it is not much to go on and they have done a ton of these type movies, after all, what's worse than crawling body parts? I have searched the web for crawling hand movie lists, and have actively sought the ones out that sound promising.
Well that's about it folks. Any more ideas would be appreciated.
— RedDevil
When it came to selecting the Trauma-Momma of the Year, there was really no competition. Let's take a lookie-loo at this mother's impressive resume:
Kindertrauma,
Love the site and am a frequent browser. You provide a true service by bringing to light so many obscure films, particularly T.V. movies from the '70s.
I have a 'Name That Trauma' from a friend that's baffled me for a couple of years now. Though possibly best never revealed since it was truly traumatic to him, this is all that I have:
The film takes place in the grasslands, with an AMERICAN GOTHIC feel. A fetus in a jar is discovered in a barn and a young, pale, dark-haired boy believes that the bottled fetus is an angel that fell to Earth. Craziness. Any tips would be much-appreciated.
I wish I had a good trauma-fession that wasn't already discussed on the site. This is the only unspoken one that I can contribute: I remember a scene from an After School Special, where a group of teenage kids walk into a movie theater. The camera zooms in on the poster for the movie they are about to go see and it's the lower half of the classic poster for THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD, with the skull-faced woman holding the head on the platter. Took awhile to shake that image from my adolescent nightmares.
Thanks again,
AUNT JOHN SEZ: Anton, based on your pal's recollection, I strongly suspect the fermented fetus in question comes from the 1972 UTA HAGEN-helmed flick THE OTHER. Having been wrong about Name That Traumas in the past, I would recommend your pal peep the trailer HERE. (NOTE: The baby in the bottle in curiously missing from said trailer, but perhaps your friend will recognize the UDVARNOKY twins or even the UTA.)
Say, does anyone remember which AFTER SCHOOL SPECIAL the second one stems from? If so, please sound off in the comments.
That said, your Aunt John recommends that everyone visit Anton's site to see all of his stellar short films and animations, especially the kindertraumatic "Death by Dying":
UPDATE: FIRST NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Yep, your Aunt John was wrong with THE OTHER. Special thanks to reader Mark J. Hansen for being the first to recognize the baby in the bottle in the barn from THE REFLECTING SKIN.
I was reading a post this morning about the episode of THE WALTONS called "The Changeling," which I personally don't remember but now want to see, badly. Seeing the name of the episode immediately took me back to a scene in the movie THE CHANGELING with GEORGE C. SCOTT that scared the pants off of me as a kid and still elicits creepy memories and an avoidance of dark stairways.
The scene is when GEORGE is sitting in the study reading and a red ball comes bouncing down the stairs in the foyer. Perplexed, he picks it up and looks toward the top of the stairs, which are dark and foreboding. He picks up the ball and drives to a bridge, tosses the ball into the river below and returns home. As soon as he gets back to the house and takes off his coat the red ball comes bouncing back down the stairs. I was frightened enough the first time the ball bounced down from some unseen force's hand, but when it happened a second time I was nearly pissing myself. The feeling of dread and the question of, "Would I dare go up there to see who tossed it?" stuck with me. Living at my grandparent's house at the time they had an old stairway that led to the basement, with open slats between the stairs. I had spent many days frightened that some monster was living under the stairs waiting to reach through and grab my feet as I walked down. After watching THE CHANGELING I now added the rubber ball fear to my stairway phobia.
The entire film is creepy and frightening; really one of my favorites. It's really well-made and worth a viewing if you haven't done so. I've watched it numerous times since childhood and still don't like seeing that red rubber ball, or any red ball I come across.
— David
Hello KinderTrauma!
I read the LITTLE NEMO: ADVENTURES IN SLUMBERLAND submission and have another Ray Bradbury kindertrauma: THE HALLOWEEN TREE (1993)!
I didn't find this movie in your archives, although if I missed it and it is, I apologize. I don't remember all that much about the movie (I only watched it once and was terrified) but the thing that I remember (which helped me Google and then Wikipedia it) was that there was a sick boy with freckles (Pip) who had a doppelganger pumpkin. I hated that pumpkin face. In the movie, Pip had to be rushed to the hospital on Halloween, but he appeared to his friends as a sort of ghost and they, thinking he was playing a prank on them, chased this apparition through some woods throughout the movie, and at some point, Ghost Pip acquired a pumpkin with his face.
After reading the description on Wikipedia, it's supposed to be a really nice film about the origins of Halloween. Too bad I could only think of SLEEPY HOLLOW and the pumpkin head and relate this film to that scary story.
— Celeste
Growing up in the early '80s could be very traumatizing. The threat of nuclear war and the Russians invading us RED DAWN-style kept me in a state of worry, but that worry was nothing compared to the possibility of going to hell! The threat of Satan seemed very real to me back in those days. My grandmother was very religious and the church we attended was filled with fire and brimstone sermons warning us against the satanic evils of rock music, especially the Devil's favorite conduit "Heavy Metal."
I was astounded to find out that my new stepdad loved rock music and owned an extensive collection of albums. I would spend hours looking through his albums and he would put on his favorites and I would enjoy them as much as a kid destined for hell could. The artwork of Black Sabbath's debut album was nearly as traumatizing as the music. I can still see a woman with a yellowish pallor dressed in black standing near some trees and a pond in front of a very dilapidated medieval looking house. This scared that crap out of me! She had to be a witch or some succubus with ill intentions. All the songs were either about the running away from the devil or being the devil's chosen bride or about scary wizards walking by. This was as enticing as it was scary.
By the time my small town got MTV and a decent record store it seemed like the satanic panic was in full swing. I would keep my fingers at the ready to change the cable box to Nickelodeon as I waited for "Looks that Kill" by Motley Crue of "Flight of Icarus" by Iron Maiden to come on. I would have to wait through hours of Men at Work and Pat Benatar videos, but eventually I would be thrilled at the sight of "Bark at the Moon" and it would all be worthwhile.
In the age of digital downloads, album cover art has taken a back seat. I would sneak around the rock section of my local record store and freak out while looking at Iron Maiden covers and their skeletal mascot "Eddie." "Holy Diver" by Dio was particularly troublesome. I felt that if I were to pick up the album and hold it, the earth would crack open and I would be pulled to hell right in the middle of Kmart. The scarier the album cover was the more I wanted to hear the music.
A funny thing happened as I began to listen to more metal music. I realized that it wasn't a gateway to hell; rather it was a gateway to all sorts of subjects that would fascinate me all the more. It would have taken me several more years to discover Frank Herbert and Dune if it wasn't for Iron Maiden. I would have missed out on Stephen King's short stories if it wasn't for Anthrax. Heavy Metal wasn't about wearing your sunglasses at night or feeling the rhythm of the night, it was about life and death, and good and evil.
By the time it was 1987 and I was 13 years old a new brand strain of harder and scarier heavy metal arrived on the scene. "Reign in Blood" by Slayer made any output by Dio and Motley Crue seem silly and juvenile. Metallica and Megadeth touched on the evils of war and drug addiction. This more tangible and realistic metal stripped away the hokey mysticism and faux Satanism.
The Satanic Panic of the ‘80s finally reached its apex with a much-ballyhooed Geraldo Rivera special on Satanism in 1987. It was the talk of the school the next day. I imagine every town claimed to be the secret satanic capital of the United States much like mine supposedly was. Every pentagram on a school notebook and jean jacket was taken very seriously by the faculty of my school. Listening to metal was an act of rebellion and feeling rebellious was awesome and dangerous. It all looks so silly today, but it touched a primal chord of fear and excitement in me and many of my friends.
