kindertrauma

Author: aunt john

Name That Trauma :: Reader Carol McM. on a Name That Trauma Within a Name That Trauma!

Posted on By aunt john

Hello again,

I was just wandering aimlessly through the halls of kindertrauma this morning and landed upon a Name-That-Trauma of no real importance to me. It was determined that the movie in question was THE HORROR STAR. I had never heard of it and found it mildly interesting and decide to watch the attached video and – lo and behold – I believe one of my very own Name-That-Traumas may be part of the intro to that clip!!!!!!! In the clip – after the blood red title – are 3 old black and white stills of old "horror stars" – Frankenstein, Dracula and ???? Maybe Dr. Jeckyl? I don't know.

When I was very very young, maybe 5 or 6, in the ‘70s, I was already kind of weirdly obsessed with horror movies and with being scared. I remember one day I was playing with my sister in our bedroom and my grandma was watching T.V. in the living room and a commercial came on with the music for one of those day of the week movies (Monday Night Movie, etc. – if you lived through it you know what I'm talking about) and – for some reason – even as a wee tyke – I knew that it was probably a scary movie and I RAN out to the living room to see what it was and all I remember was it was various shots of a "man about town" in a tall hat and a scary face – and in the last shot it was his full face looking right at the camera and it scared me so bad that I started sobbing and my grandma had to bring me some water to calm me down. Since then the only movie I have seen that even comes close to the creepy feel of that guy is CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG – the child stealer guy – and, while he is really creepy, it's not him.

So, when I saw that photo on that clip it stopped me dead in my tracks. Could that be the guy? Could that be the movie? Does anyone know what that still is from?

An interesting side note that has no particular relevance to anything – but something I find really odd. I clearly remember when I was in first grade having this friend named Robin. She had long, scraggly dark hair and was sort of a loner type – even in first grade. One time she told me that she had a TV Guide that was only for this one channel that only played horror movies (and I think she might have even told me that her and her mom were witches.) I was so excited when she told me that that I became obsessed with finding that channel and that TV Guide. At some point she eventually told me that that wasn't true and I was so disappointed. But how odd is that – two little first graders chatting about a horror channel and a horror TV Guide.

Thank you so much! This site is my horror dream come true!

Carol

UNK SEZ: Carol, thanks for the fascinating NAME THAT TRAUMA! The third still in the trailer for HORROR STAR (AKA FRIGHTMARE) is LON CHANEY, Sr. from TOD BROWNING's 1927 silent film LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT. If you saw the clip you're looking for in the seventies than the likelihood that it was, in fact, LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT is zero because the last known copy of that famous lost flick died in a fire back in 1967!

So what did you see? Was your grandma watching that phantom horror channel your witch friend conjured? Could it have been a documentary on LON CHANEY? LONDON was remade in 1935 as MARK OF THE VAMPIRE with BELA LUGOSI but his get up was completely different. I think we're going to have to take it to our readers. Can anyone think of a figure that could be mistaken for LON CHANEY, Sr's horrifying creation from LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT?

AUNT JOHN thought maybe it could MR. SARDONICUS and I thought possibly VINCENT PRICE from MADHOUSE. Any other ideas out there?

Traumafessions :: Thu Tran of FOOD PARTY on Bedrooms, Action Flicks & Ninja Scroll

Posted on By aunt john

UNK SEZ: "Let's Party!" If reading that sentence makes you want to throw confetti, spread peanut butter all over your face or strangle a baguette, then you are probably one of the super lucky people familiar with the supernova of creativity known as FOOD PARTY. Hosted by the at turns adorable and diabolical THU TRAN, FOOD PARTY celebrates culinary madness and imagination (think BETTY CROCKER drop kicked by PEE WEE HERMAN or the live action version of the PLAY-DOH FUN FACTORY) and it just might be the very last vestige of brain tickling awesomeness on television. Hilarious and mind blowing, both giggle and nausea inducing, FOOD PARTY is the best invention since sliced head cheese and can be viewed Tuesdays at 10pm EST on my now favorite place on Earth, the IFC channel.

Recently while roving reporter AUNT JOHN was out shopping for "fantasy potion" and ingredients to make ham and spaghetti pancakes with pineapple sauce he bumped into the she-wizard of culinary kookery herself THU TRAN! Ever on his toes AUNT JOHN offered a trade to the joyous genius of grub; a hand full of soon to expire coupons for one super fresh traumafession. THU recognized that many of the coupons were for goose blood and happily agreed, this is what she whispered in his ear…

Many things scared me as a child

I was scared of having my feet exposed while I was sleeping. I was compulsive about having my feet entirely covered. I was scared that monsters under my bed would drag me down into hell by my ankles. Under the bed was the portal to hell.

Upon watching AMERICA'S MOST WANTED, UNSOLVED MYSTERIES, and many action movies such as anything in the DIE HARD series, ROBOCOP series, TERMINATOR series, and any JEAN CLAUDE VAN DAMME movie, I was horrified of my bedroom in general. My bedroom was on the ground floor in the front of the house, with a huge window facing the street with venetian blinds. There were street lamps, and any late night cars passing by, which would shine VERY brightly through the blinds. During nights of insomnia, I would stare at the window, and be terrified of villains smashing through the window double fisted with AK's or uzis. Neither ever happened.

I also developed a HUGE phobia of small holes clustered in concentrated areas. This was developed shortly after watching NINJA SCROLL and being genuinely terrified of the wasp monster that attacks Jubei.

Specifically, I remember waiting at the bus stop going to 2nd grade and there being a huge smooth hill of snow that someone had casually scattered some salt on to. It created these holes that I was so terrified of swarming bugs coming out of. Even seeing tree bark with ant holes in it freaks me the fuck out.

I'll stop at three.

Thanks THU TRAN for sharing your childhood memories with our beloved readers, you are a sport and an inspiration! You also back up my theory that the more scared you are as a kid the more imaginative you'll be as an adult! Remember traumatots to watch FOOD PARTY on IFC every week. You will gain weight, wisdom and happiness and you'll get to spend some quality time with your new friend THU TRAN!

NOTE: Visit Kinderpals BUZZ and KATE for even more FOOD PARTY love and the official FOOD PARTY blog right over HERE and at IFC HERE!

Name That Trauma :: Reader rock_hardplace on a Trapped Town & a Battle Bug

Posted on By aunt john

Hello all, I have faint memories of two separate T.V. episodes I saw during my youth and hopefully my description is enough for someone here to decipher what they are.

The first is of a SciFi T.V. episode/movie around the late ‘70s, in which people are in a town but they can't escape because there is a giant glass wall all around. I think one group of people in a truck tried to ram the wall and the truck exploded, however the glass wall remained intact. Another scene had this white chair which looked oval like an egg, and when people sat on it they dreamed or hallucinated, or something to that effect. I remember one guy grabbed the chair and ripped it open and revealed the inside of the chair to be organic (I think it starts spewing out blood or fluids or something.)

Also, every so often when people would be walking around town minding their own business, a giant shadow would appear around them as if something was flying above – I don't think they ever showed what it was, only the shadow it cast. Everyone in the vicinity of the shadow would immediately try to grab onto something anchored to the ground, like a tree, as to not get sucked up by the thing floating above. Finally, near the end I remember that one guy was excavating next to the glass and finally found the bottom of it but I don't remember if he escaped.

The second memory I have is a very short clip but also on T.V. and about the same timeframe – late ‘70s, it is of this man holding some sort of huge mutant insect/bug about the size and shape of a turtle, and he is arguing with some other guy. Then the bug man drops the bug on the ground and the bug slowly crawls toward the other guy and catches up with him and attacks (I think the bug's wings extended during the attack.)

That's about all I can remember. Ring any bells?

Thanks,

rock_hardplace

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to Derek Obrien for knowing that the first one is THE FANTASTIC INVASION OF PLANET EARTH (aka THE BUBBLE) & additional kudos to Brother Bill for getting the second one with THE OUTER LIMITS episode "The Invisibles."

Name That Trauma :: Reader Corvid on an Anime Wedding

Posted on By aunt john

Hello to you good folks at Kindertrauma!

When I was young and glued to every T.V. cartoon I could find (this would be the early ‘90s), I saw an anime fantasy film that stuck in my brain. I have never been able to identify it, and I was hoping that you or your readers might be able to help me. Unfortunately I am not sure when the anime itself was made – it may have been from the ‘80s or early ‘90s, probably not earlier than the early ‘80s.

I am also not sure what American channel it aired on (I watched Disney, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network, among others). The protagonists were two kids, a boy and a girl, and I believe both were blond. The girl gets kidnapped by a witch and her son (?, or a prince-like character that the witch creates). Actually, it may have been an evil sorcerer, I can't remember the gender! Anyway, there are two scenes that I remember:

1.) The evil prince hypnotizes the young girl into a zombie-like state in order to force her to marry him. In the middle of the wedding ceremony, the boy hero bursts in to stop it. The church doors open to reveal that all the pews are filled with paper cut-outs instead of people, and even the priest is a paper cut-out. When the boy yells at the girl to snap out of it, all the paper cut-outs crumple and flutter to the floor. The boy still can't get the girl to snap out of it – he even grabs her and shakes her.

2.) At the end, the boy hero faces the evil witch/sorcerer. They are on opposite corners of a huge, floating chessboard way up in the air, and the chessboard tips and rocks like a ship. I think the girl is still hypnotized, but once the boy defeats the witch, she wakes up.

I hope someone out there can help me figure this out! By the way, people have suggested the UNICO series as a possible candidate, but it is definitely not from any UNICO film I've seen (despite the giant chessboard and evil witch/sorcerer).

Thanks,

— Corvid

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! SENSKI is back y'all and he is in on F-I-R-E! Kudos to him for realizing that Corvid was referring to the 1974 Japanese version of JACK & THE BEANSTALK.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Annie R. on "NOT THE EXORCIST!"

Posted on By aunt john

I've got one for you. This has been bugging the shit out of me for years. Back in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, I caught the ass-end of a movie on T.V. Its plot – as far as I was able to tell – concerned a young girl, around the age of twelve. I only remember two scenes. The first depicted said young girl sitting in front of a television, watching what seemed to be a vintage Atari game and talking to her mother. At one point, she asks her mother for a hug. Her back has been turned against both her mother and the viewer throughout the entire scene, but when she turns for her hug she suddenly and quite violently launches herself at her mom, her face now demonic and ugly.

The second scene was the films end and featured the same young girl – her head now shaved and her face back to normal – hugging a guy who looked like Jesus (no I'm not kidding) whilst someone can be heard saying: "She thought we were going to hurt her" or something to that effect.

The film admittedly had an EXORCIST-rip-off feel to it, but was definitely NOT THE EXORCIST. It seemed to have a sci-fi slant to it, although I could be wrong – it was thirty some years ago, after all.

Any idea what the hell it was I saw?

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to reader Billy V for putting a toe tag on this one with THE VISITOR!

Name That Trauma :: Reader Dylan Donnie-Duke Dali Lama on a Hit & Run Hound

Posted on By aunt john

Kinderpals,

I have a Name That Trauma and if anyone can help me to find the title I can promise him/her riches beyond imagining! (Which is tragic as they will need to imagine them as I am broke.)

Okay, a possibly made-for-T.V. movie with a GIL GERARD-ish-type male lead. Said male lead gets into a pissing match with a gang of untamed youth.

Traumatic scene:

Untamed youth lure the guy's St. Bernard out into the street and play catch with him while one of their friends plows pell-mell towards the dog in a car. They leave the dog's crumpled corpse on the male lead's front porch where he finds it and cries into its fur.

I had forgotten this until we adopted Homer, a St. Bernard, then it all came flooding back. He was most distressed when I told him about, but said that he felt strangely compelled to see it. So, to satisfy his want for canine horror, I really need to figure this out.

Thanks,

Dylan Donnie-Duke Dali Lama

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Let's all give a big KINDERTRAUMA salute and welcome back hug to SENSKI who came out of hibernation today and solved this one with 1973's OUTRAGE! (We love you SENSKI!)

Traumafessions :: Reader Bluegrasslass on Sapphire & Steel

Posted on By aunt john

Growing up in England the ‘70s-‘80s I was very (un?)lucky to witness many scary moments on TV, but one that always comes up in discussions is SAPPHIRE & STEEL starring DAVID McCALLUM as Steel and JOANNA LUMLEY as Sapphire – a pair of psychic-sci-fi detectives, who would turn up in odd places where strange things had happened. They were usually shown in 2 or 3 parts, and always left you on a creepy cliffhanger – after which I would be sent to bed to terrify myself wondering WHAT was going on!

The two that stuck in my mind were: A couple are downstairs whilst a little baby is in its crib, something happens and the baby turns into grown man! That part ended with a bare leg stepping over the side of the crib and the foot standing on the rug in close-up (I know it doesn't sound that scary, but the atmosphere was so WEIRD and I had no clue as to what it was all about); the second one that freaked me out involved a man walking down a staircase who turns to camera to show he has no face!! Brrrrr … that one still gives me the chills.

Luckily for me, the entire set of series 1 and 2 is available on DVD (Region 1, but fortunately I have a universal DVD player). And as my husband and I sat down to watch the first episode (he having equally scary memories about different parts of the show), Assignment 1, I was gratified to find that it STILL creeps me out and I STILL have no idea what's going on – even the theme tune scares me!

Watch the opening of Assignment 1 HERE (nursery rhymes will never be the same again)!

Traumafessions :: Reader Jay R. on Pet Sematary, IT, Silver Bullet & Sleepwalkers

Posted on By aunt john

My first traumafession was a shining example of what would ultimately lay the groundwork for my lifelong affair with the macabre and grotesque side of cinema. RAWHEAD REX was an obscure/ridiculous example of irrational fears that ultimately does not stand the test of time, however the works of STEPHEN KING namely PET SEMATARY, IT, SILVER BULLET and, to a lesser extent, SLEEPWALKERS.

Shall we begin?

First off the one thing we all must take into account is this I saw all of these movies before I hit the ripe old age of eight (it amazes me how liberal my parents were), but I still contend that for the most part these movies still retain their scare factor. The reason why I believe these movies were so effective is that in some way shape or form they all share in common either young people as heroes or villains and the fact that they flesh out the characters and how they react to the circumstances surrounding a paranormal circumstance, which adds to the believability of the events taking place. And they all share in common this; for the most part the antagonist is/was viewed as a trusted or loved pillar of the community.

STEPHEN KING is undoubtedly a master of horror however I would say he has cornered the market on what I would call dramatic horror, wherein the protagonist are not simply meat puppets being dangled over a flame until the inevitable flame roast them for our amusement no they are much more than that and that is what makes these films stand the test of time.

These movies all scared the hell out of me as a child because of the monsters involved, but as a 23-year-old adult they unnerve me because of the realization that, for the most part, the evil often takes the form of an individual that we take great trust in (i.e., a minister, that cute guy next door, your child, or a very creepy clown.) Yes, in their true form these monstrosities are sure to turn the driest pair of pajamas into something resembling the Mississippi River after a recent down pour. These movies play on the one assumption that we all like to hold onto and that is we can trust the people who are closest to us, and they all flip that notion on its head.

The funny thing is my parents who have been the best parents ever, probably watched most of these movies with me and I thank them for that because these movies taught me that yes love the ones who are closest to us, but never forget that sometimes even they may be the ones we should watch the closest (especially if they can turn into giant demonic spiders, werewolves, cat monsters or come back to life after being buried in an Indian burial ground.)

On a final note I would say that my childhood was a blur for the most part, but these movies and other film adaptations definitely stood as pillars amongst many good and bad childhood memories.

UNK SEZ: Awesome images above were found HERE and HERE!

Name That Trauma/Traumafessions :: Reader Ashley M. on a Scary Sheep & Spencer's Gifts

Posted on By aunt john

Okay, today I had a total flashback of a childhood terror. It was a commercial involving a scary, beat-up looking sheep. At first I thought it was one of those mattress commercials, but the sheep was totally different. It was (as I remember) the size of a grown man, walked on two legs, and looked really injured and beaten up (I'm not sure if it was bloody, but it may have been). All that I remember is that it terrified me to no end, and I ran crying from the room.

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! The sheep in question stems from this Spyro the Dragon spot:

My other great trauma came in the form of a shopping mall store. That store would be Spencer's (a place that many in my gang of friends, including myself, refer to as "the holy land" due to the fact that you can go into the store and by a bong, facial piercings, sexual paraphernalia, and CDs without walking more than ten steps in any direction), but before it was "the holy land" it was the "area of sudden bowel evacuation."

The Spencer's in our mall was (and still is) located directly across from Build-a-Bear workshop. In my childhood, Spencer's was known for one thing; the huge Crypt Keeper display in the front window. Now, this stupid statue was about a hundred times scarier than the Crypt Keeper from T.V. It had the single most pants-shittingly terrifying expression on its face. It wasn't cartoonish or even menacing. It simply scowled at you, disgusted, as if you sickened it. It was the same look that you were given by every adult in the vicinity when you did something unacceptable. I've even managed to locate a picture.

I didn't enter an entire wing of that mall with my eyes open until I was almost ten years old, when they finally decided that displaying a horror icon across from a children's store probably wasn't the best of ideas.

Name That Trauma :: Reader J.A.H., Jr. on an Invisible Woman & a Head in a Box

Posted on By aunt john

O.K., the first one may be easy. When I was about five, I was at my grandparent's house and saw a black and white movie where a tights and leotard wearing invisible woman was walking up a staircase. Then the tights I think fell away and it was just a leotard walking up the steps. It freaked me out so bad. I "think" it may have been an ABBOTT & COSTELLO movie but am not sure.

The second one is very vague and I don't expect an answer but I vaguely recall some kids had a box and in the box was a face or a head that could talk and I think its name was Chico. I could have that all wrong but that's what I seem to recall. Wondering if it was the INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS from the ‘70s… The Chico name really seems to stick with me though.

Any help???