Hi there,
When I was growing up nothing terrified quite so much as WAYLAND FLOWERS and MADAME. In the late 1970's, she was on T.V. all the time and I just could not bear to watch her. Ventriloquist dummies are creepy at their best, but with her huge pointy chin and gaping mouth, she looked like she was going to devour WAYLAND FLOWERS' head. My wife hated her just as much as I did … you can see why we were destined to marry.
Here's a clip of her in the REDD FOXX movie NORMAN, IS THAT YOU?:
Hi there,
While my movie is not ghost or witches scary, it creeped the hell out of me as a kid. But I cannot find it anywhere. All I can remember is a young boy on a space ship kind of thing and there is a giant blob type being that looks like a Jabba the Hut, that either the boy or another blob boy keep calling "Uncle" in a really creepy voice!
Thanks!
— Eli
I too was traumatized by THE WORLD BEYOND (THE MUD MONSTER movie) when it aired on television, my Dad forced me to watch it. I was scared to death after that of mud – which was a problem because we had a cabin with a long MUDDY path that went to my Uncle's cabin. I had nightmares for years. In fact, I recently had another mud monster nightmare… and I'm now 36 years old. I purchased a copy of THE MUD MONSTER movie a year ago with the intention to watch it — I'll get to it some day.
This one has been bugging me since I was very young and I haven't managed to track it down. If anyone can help it's the Kindertrauma readers. I first saw this movie on T.V. in the early '70s. It was black and white, possibly British, or maybe it just had British actors, and involved a large, scary statue that came to life and killed people. I remember it being a really ugly statue, possibly part-man, part-something else. I seem to recall that the statue killed one man by shoving an umbrella down his throat (creative, I must say). There was the usual police investigation, etc. etc. and it seems that the statue would be near the murdered person, but of course no one thought twice about it.
God I hope I didn't dream this…
— David
AUNTIE SEZ: After receiving Dave's initial email, he followed up with this:
I actually found my own answer! The movie is called IT! and it's from 1966, starring RODDY McDOWALL. The killer statue is a golem, and I'm starting to doubt that the umbrella death ever happened as I can't find evidence of such a brilliant demise. Perhaps my perverse little mind created that part…
Thanks all the same!!!
Hi guys, I love this site! OK, here is my traumafession…
When I was a kid, I went to my friend Michelle's sleepover birthday party. At the party, we watched CARRIE (also traumatic!), and this other movie called DOLLS. This movie was from 1987, and the plot went something like…. Strangers get stranded because of a storm or something, and all end up at the house of a creepy dollmaker. Once they all go to bed, the dolls come to life and kill them one by one. Terrifying, but it got worse!
That night at the sleepover I was lying awake, scared out of my mind that I was going to be chopped to bits by dolls, when I heard what sounded like little, high-pitched voices. I also died right then, but then I remembered…Michelle has cats! Phew. The next morning, when I recounted this to my friends, Michelle said, "But the cats were outside!"
As if this wasn't enough to cement my life-long terror of dolls, a week or so later I was asleep in my own bed, when I suddenly woke up because something had fallen on my pillow. I opened my eyes and…it was my SPANISH DANCING DOLL, which had fallen off the shelf above my bed. I hurled that sucker across the room, and the next day, I begged my mother to box up all the dolls in my bedroom and put them away.
I'm an adult with my own little girls now, and even THEIR dolls creep me out!
Thanks for letting me get this off my chest, Kindertrauma!
— Laura from Michigan
Hi! I have one for 'ya. It was the mid-'80s and I was with my parents visiting some of their friends. Not sure who they were or even what state we were in. My parents' friends turned this video on and from what I recall, it was a short film that they said was filmed in the very house we were visiting. I remember my parents' friends saying they had to leave their house for three days so the film could be made. So this leaves me wondering if it was somebody's project in school or if it was a short film for T.V., or what?? Everyone was very impressed, that's all remember.
The basic plot is there is this statue of a totem, or a god or demon something, maybe about a foot high. Someone brings it in the house and now the house is cursed. No one suspects the statue. Strange things start happening. The only thing I remember is something like THE BLOB, where this green or black gunk starts sliming and oozing its way down the carpeted stairs, freaking everyone out, getting stuck on everything, causing horror. This stuff is evil! Eventually they figure out the statue has cursed the house, but only after much damage was done. Perhaps the inhabitants all die or they move away or something. The last shot is of garbage day. You see the garbage from the cursed house on the side of the road waiting to be picked up – INCLUDING THE EVIL STATUE! The garbage man comes by and throws the obvious junk into the truck but picks up the statue and makes an expression like he thinks it's pretty cool and he puts it in the cab with him so he can take it home. The end.
Did I dream this up? Anyone?
Thanks,
— Cathy
Hey there,
Okay, here is the thing: I saw a film when I was about 9 or 10 that a cousin of mine found at the local video store. It's about a killer in the desert that goes after a group of youngsters (what killer doesn't?!?) but at one point the killer chains this guy to a tree and then places the other end of the chain on the tow of his truck. He then starts revving the engine furiously – to build suspense no doubt – until finally he roars away and of course rips the guy limb from limb.
Now, if I could explain to you sufficiently exactly how I felt when that camera focused on a ripped off leg (still covered in jeans) but with a nice shiny bone sticking out the one end, perhaps then you'd understand how greatly this scene upset me. In fact, it upset me so much that I spent the rest of my day worrying about one day becoming like that killer JUST because I had watched something like that!
Oh, the mind of a child!
My belief was such that if I saw something horrific then I might perhaps be just as screwed up as that psycho onscreen who did things like that to people! I don't know why I thought like that but it truly had me worried for a long time afterward.
Anyway, the problem is now (and I'm wondering if the team over at Kindertrauma can help me out?) because it scared me so much, I've obviously deleted as much about that movie from my memory as humanly possible… including the TITLE!!
Anyone know what this movie is called?
This movie (whatever it may be called!) is my childhood traumafession.
— David F.
UNK SEZ: Thanks David F. for delivering my favorite kind of traumafession, the kind that introduces me to a horror movie that I've never heard of before! I'm pretty sure that the movie you are looking for is called MIRAGE because I just watched a scene that fits your description precisely on YouTube (about 5 min. into this segment HERE!) From what I can tell this DUEL-esque, desert-set Australian slasher/thriller from 1990 is ultra rare so thanks a zillion for bringing it to all of our attention (even if by some chance it's not the right one!)
Hi there,
Just found your site a few day ago and LOVE it! I was inspired to look up something that disturbed me as a child. A SESAME STREET shorty called "Disco Frog." I ran screaming out of the room when this came on, and even asked the TV repair man if he could remove it from our T.V.!
Guys,
While it's true that many classic cartoon series of yesteryear are considered too violent, disturbing, politically incorrect, etc. by today's standards, none traumatized me more than the TOM & JERRY short "Heavenly Puss."
To summarize: While chasing Jerry, Tom gets killed by an upright piano, goes to Heaven, and is told by a feline St. Peter (here a reservations taker for the "Heavenly Express") that Tom can't get into Heaven because he spent all his time tormenting Jerry.
However, if Tom can get Jerry to sign a "Certificate of Forgiveness" before the Heavenly Express departs in one hour, he'll be let in. Otherwise, he'll BURN IN HELL and suffer the torments of Satan (in the form of a grimacing, cackling bulldog).
More than 30 years after first seeing this, I still get tense as Tom's time is running out and he can't convince Jerry to sign the paper. Oh God…the scene where the train's departing and Tom's frantically trying to explain to Jerry what he needs…then the pen doesn't work!…then as Tom runs up the stairs at the very last second, the stairs disappear and he plummets into Hell, directly into the bubbling cauldron of Beelze-Bulldog, who laughs maniacally at his new guest as he prods him with his pitchfork.
Oh yeah, and near the beginning of the cartoon, the St. Peter cat admits three kittens who were drowned in a bag. Sheesh.
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Hey folks, I'm stumped as to what the heck I saw 16 years ago…
I was about 10, so in 1995 I was over a friend's house (the kind your mom never wanted you to go to, cuz they swore and watched crass films) and the friend was all 'Oh man, you've got to watch this film, 'Scuzzbucket!'. I only saw a few minutes of it, somewhere near the beginning.
This kid has an 'imaginary friend' or something, that looks like a cross between a beaver and a ghoulie. It would materialize layer by layer out of a bucket. So like, bones, then organs, tissue, etc (in that stop motion where they melt down wax then play it backwards sorta way). I remember that it was a practical joker, and smelled terrible by the reaction people got when it was 'lurking' around, and it would melt into the bucket before people would see it, so the kid got in trouble a lot. There was a lot of fart and burp gags for comic relief.
I think maybe the first time you see it 'gather up' it was in the kid's closet… I remember it being chanted it into existence or something?
Something tells me it was a feature film, as oppose to an episode in a series, but I could be wrong.
Other details; they had it on VHS, I don't think the official title was 'Scuzzbucket' – it was the name of the creature, and I live in Canada.
Please help, if my pals hear me talk about 'Scuzzbucket, the movie only Alison saw' one more time… I'll soon be drinking alone!
Thanks in advance,
UNK SEZ: Alison, it's time to surprise your friends with the news that you are not insane! The creature you are looking for is FUZZBUCKET, the title character of a 1986 TV production directed by MICK GARRIS (SLEEPWALKERS, THE STAND)! FUZZBUCKET was shown on THE DISNEY SUNDAY MOVIE and was a potential pilot for a series which never materialized. Something tells me that DISNEY may be trying to distance themselves from poor FUZZBUCKET as he was never made available for home viewing and was rarely rebroadcast. Check out the video below before it's buried in the vault forever by the information police! FUZZBUCKET lives!
Read More on FUZZBUCKET at the super great CAMP MOVIE CAMP!
