kindertrauma

Author: aunt john

Traumafessions :: Reader Greg V. on Homey the Clown

Posted on By aunt john

Hey Kindertrauma team–

I came across your website in a search for the Rag Man of the NUTCRACKER FANTASY movie, and I loved your reader's treatment of it. Thought I'd contribute a snippet:

As kids growing up on the North Side of Chicago in the early ‘90s, my friends and I were enthralled (that child's mix of abject terror and insatiable fascination) by stories of a child abductor dressed as Homey the Clown, DAMON WAYANS' character from IN LIVING COLOR. This was a bona fide news story on local Chicago networks, not just a product of our own twisted imaginations.

The guy apparently drove around in a van and attracted kids to the van, upon which he would abduct them and molest them. This was in the heyday of child abduction scares, STEPHEN KING's IT, and only a few decades after John Wayne Gacy in the Chicago area.

Anyway, Homey was reportedly at large in the neighborhood of my grammar school, and so for the better part of a school year (maybe third grade), whenever we'd see a yellow van (I think that was the alleged color of Homey's ride), we would all rush to the school fence, sometimes with rocks or baseball bats in hand, and start to yell, "Homey, it's Homey." Again, who knows the veracity or the extent of the original news item, but it certainly caught our imagination!

NOTE: Last Supper clown painting courtesy of HERE.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Liam on a Haunting Hall of Portraits & a Maniacally Morphing Daddy

Posted on By aunt john

Hi Kindertrauma,

I sent a trauma last month, but alas it's unsolved so far. However, I have total faith in Kindertrauma to identify these two trash-movie-memories that came back to me last night.

Both are horror movies, probably ‘70s – ‘80s, and maybe Italian.

One has a scene near the beginning; a character walks through a dark passage with expressionistic paintings covering the walls. Later it is revealed that one of the portraits was actually a living person hiding among the paintings. The face was "witchy," I think. The trick must've been well executed because we rewound the video to inspect the original scene and, sure enough, the live actor (or actress) was there. We just hadn't noticed the first time around.

The other movie had a final act which owed more than a passing debt to THE SHINING. Dad's gone berserk, mother's traumatised, and her attempts to protect her young son are frustrated by whacked-out shape-shifting highjinks. I think there's a scene where she approaches what appears to be her son, only for "him" to reveal his face as a grotesque monster (shades of DON'T LOOK NOW, although the face here was more of a supernatural-rubber-prosthetics-fest). I know there was a scene with a surprisingly successful "effect," whereby the son appears to the mother at the end of a corridor, rushes toward her, and on arrival, morphs into the maniacal father. This was achieved by positioning the camera so that the boy drops out of shot as he is arriving at the mother's feet, at which point the actor playing the father springs up in front of her.

Keeping my fingers crossed that one of these will ring a bell with someone.

Thank you!

Liam

UNK SEZ:: Liam, so sorry that your last "Name That Trauma" still stands unanswered, don't give up though! As for these two new queries I am glad to say that one is already solved. That second movie you mentioned, the one with the boy morphing into his crazed dad, is one of my favorites, MARIO BAVA's SHOCK A.K.A. BEYOND THE DOOR 2 from 1977!

bad daddy!

So that's one down, let's see if any one out there recognizes the first one, it sounds familiar…

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Thanks to Taylor for getting the first one with DARIO ARGENTO's DEEP RED.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Kim on a Skeleton Hitchhiker

Posted on By aunt john

Ok, many years ago, c.1970-72, when I was just a little thing of about 4, maybe 5; I recall a movie that struck terror in me that hung around for years to come. My babysitter was to put me down for an afternoon nap and I begged her to let me stay up and watch the scary black and white movie that happened to be on the T.V. She hemmed and hawed but finally I was able to break her down and she allowed me to watch (this, of course, became something I would wholeheartedly regret.)

There was a scene in the movie that I'm not sure is exact in my memory due to the fact that I was a small child but the images burned themselves into my psyche forever more. The scene seemed to involve a man and a skeleton. The man was carrying this skeleton in his arms. The skeleton's hand just so happened to fall into a standing pail of water as the man tried to maneuver the skeleton to wherever he was heading with it. I believe the water somehow causes the skeleton to grow skin and come alive or something.

Anyhow, this skeleton was now alive due to the hand in the water and he is now wearing a raincoat and actually hitchhiking down the road in the dark of night. There is a rainstorm beginning and you realize that the raindrops are going to continue to infuse this skeleton with even more life. The image of that skeleton in the raincoat, in the dark with his skeleton thumb sticking out hitchhiking, truly horrified me.

For the remainder of my little kid years, I often had dreams involving skeletons somehow coming alive and chasing me. One that I had was so horrible that I remember the dream just as well as I remember that terrible skeleton scene/movie. I haven't ever been able to find this movie or seen it anywhere based on what I know about it.

Can someone help?

Thanks,

Kim



UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to readers Tim Tylor & Craig for solving it with THE CREEPING FLESH!

Traumafessions :: Reader Chuckles on "All About Ghosts"

Posted on By aunt john

it's all about ghosts

Chuckles here. I previously submitted a traumafession concerning my apocalyptic childhood viewing of the film THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. However, reader Carly's post concerning a book called "Horrible Histories" dredged up another horror that I had nearly forgotten. The culprit this time was the slim, heavily illustrated "All About Ghosts", 1977, Maynard, Usborne Publishing. It was sort of a Time-Life book for kids about ghosts and hauntings and presented the topic in a very matter-of-fact fashion, noting the various phenomena associated with ghosts and documenting many ghostly tales.

This amusing and informative kids book scared the sh*t out of me. I really can't remember what it was that freaked me out so much – it must have been some of the illustrations. I also recall a spread showing a bunch of alleged ghost photos – I think that there was one of the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall in there. Here was photographic PROOF that ghosts existed!

In order to rid myself of the accursed book, I "loaned" it to a friend down the block and conveniently forgot to ask for it back. Years later, when I was in my teens, this neighbor moves away but before she does, she comes by and returns the book! Talk about a sense of accountability! I recall that she was a Mormon – are they really good about returning stuff? Anyhow, I immediately went through the book and I simply could not figure out what it was that I had found so terrifying – it all seemed very innocuous.

Anyone else remember this book? Anyone else up all night after reading it when you were a tot?

AUNT JOHN SEZ: For more amazing imagery from "All About Ghosts" be sure to check out our brother from another mother, Brother Bill at THE HAUNTED CLOSET! Now as for books that did an elementary school number on me, I was obsessed with Seymour Simon's "Ghosts," "The Thing at the Foot of the Bed," and anything by Daniel Cohen.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Sarah H. on Sparring Lady Spelunkers

Posted on By aunt john

I ADORE your website, and always seem to spend hours just reading your posts. My favorites are the Name That Trauma! bits, and do I have one for you. As I am probably one of Kindertrauma's youngest readers, this probably occurred late ‘90s or early ‘00s, when I was around 6 or 7. I remember catching two clips on our television that haunted me for the next several years. I would play them over and over in my head lying in my bed at night, and just sit there and shiver.

The first had escaped me over the years, but I clearly remember the second. It was not so much overly creepy as just simply excessively violent and grim. There are two women trapped in a cave and I don't think they can find their way out. They are both scraped up and grimy and the lighting is dark. They begin to fight and one picks up a pickaxe and stands over the other, who is now crying and pleading for her life. The first then swings the pickaxe down into the lower stomach of the second, and there is a gush of blood as the woman screams and cries. I don't know what happens after this, or before, but at the time it scared the living bejezzus out of me!

Anybody have a clue of what this may be?

UNK SEZ:: Sarah, glad to help out a budding horror fan! My guess is that you must be talking about NEIL MARSHALL's modern classic THE DESCENT. The scene you describe sounds like that film's ending. My only misgiving is that THE DESCENT is from 2005, a bit more recent than what you remember. Check out the trailer below and see if it rings any bells and if you haven't already seen the movie, make sure you do!

Name That Trauma:: Reader Annie on Abusive Anime

Posted on By aunt john

Hey all,

You may remember me from when I submitted my Traumafession about the BBC Animated Macbeth. This time I can't remember the name of the movie that scarred me so.

When I was about 7, I had a brief love affair with anime. What this means is that I liked to watch the episodes of SAILOR MOON that were shown on Cartoon Network early in the morning. What can I say; the short skirts drew me in. My mother, thinking that because I liked this particular show I must like every anime, rented this one movie for me that really damaged my psyche.

All I remember is that the main character is a little boy whose mother is very abusive. I don't remember if the abusive is physical but I'm pretty sure she was neglectful. This would have been enough to upset me: the whole tone of the movie was pretty dark and unsettling. What I remember most, though, is a scene with a green monster. I remember that the monster is called "a lost soul." One night, it comes to this family's house, breaks in, and tears shit up. As I recall, it's a pretty bloody scene.

I don't remember much of the movie (if it is a movie at all) but this image stayed with me. Maybe some of you anime experts out there can help me find it so I can watch it again and reassure myself that it's not as terrible as I remember.

–Annie

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Extra special thanks to Va of Va's The Cinema Experience for emailing us MERMAID'S SCAR.

Traumafessions :: Reader Carly on Dr. Suess & Horrible Histories

Posted on By aunt john

I was quite a bookworm as a kid, so it's no surprise that a lot of my Kindertrauma came from books. There are three that come immediately to mind – Two of them were from Dr. Seuss books; one was a short story – I think it was in the same book as "The Sneetches" – that involved this pair of sentient green pants with nobody inside them that followed the narrator around, basically stalking him! I read that book in the dentist's office and it scared me for weeks afterward.

The other Dr. Seuss culprit was a single page in the middle of "There's a Wocket in My Pocket," which is basically a book that existed so Dr. Seuss could draw a bunch of fun creatures and name them, I think. Anyway, the page in question was a double-page spread that had this picture of just a giant lump under a rug in a darkened room, with the narrator peeking in very nervously. This was the Vug under the rug, and the worst part of this was that at that age, the usual response to being scared at night was to hide under the covers – but I wasn't safe there! The Vug hid under rugs; what if it was hiding under the blanket WITH ME?

As for the other thing that jumps immediately to mind – when I was in the first grade, my family lived in Wales for a couple of months. In the U.K. they have this series of kids' history books called "Horrible Histories" that basically give a bunch of weird and gruesome facts about different periods in history. I loved those books and devoured them; nothing in them fazed me in the least, except for this one ghost story.

It was a story about a guy who was staying as a guest in some palace, and he's told he's going to be put in the Brown Room. People apparently expect him to react to this, and he doesn't understand what all the fuss is about, until he sees a ghost. You know the drill. It was a really formulaic ghost story but supposedly true, and the illustration was really creepy to me at the time. (I can't find it anywhere online, but I still have the book.) I remember that night not being able to sleep, and not even being able to MOVE for fear the ghost would get me.

I foresee several more of these submissions in my future!

Carly

Traumafessions :: Kris of Coal Black Filly on "Where the Woodbine Twineth"

Posted on By aunt john

Obsessed with Kindertrauma – thank you for cataloging so many memories. Once upon a time I was starting to think I actually imagined that poltergeist episode of THE WALTONS!

Anyway, thought you might enjoy this one if you haven't posted about it already:

"Where the Woodbine Twineth" by Davis Grubb is one of my favorite stories of all time (originally titled "You Never Believe Me"). The HITCHCOCK episode haunted me for years since childhood and I could never locate a copy, until I eventually found a bootleg… but now it can be easily watched in full here.

Classic creepy doll story, complete with imaginary friends living like Mr. Peppercorn who live under the davenport.

-Kris

P.S.: I originally posted about this on my blog a while back, along with the text to the short story HERE.

UNK SEZ:: Kris, I have to thank you so much for bringing this episode of THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR to my attention, I watched it last night and was floored by it. It's really very creepy and the ending is a real haunting jaw-dropper. Thanks too for mentioning the DAVIS GRUBB short story "You Never Believe Me" on which it is based. It makes perfect sense to me that this tale came from the same mind who brought us the excellent THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. I recommend that every one who has the time take a gander at "Where The Woodbine Twineth" on HULU below, as for me I got some reading to catch up on!

Traumafessions :: Reader Bill P. on the Warner Brothers Logo

Posted on By aunt john

Over the space of three of five years, I associated the Warner Brothers logo from the '70s and early '80s with fear itself. At least three films were to blame for this: SALEM'S LOT, THE SHINING and THE EXORCIST.

On each occasion, when that weirdly abstract logo showed up, my Mom said, "Time for Bed," and that the grown-ups were watching a SCARY MOVIE, and I would have bad dreams if I saw any of it. Of course, by then, I felt I had already seen part of it. And it was BAD. Given the time line and setting, THE SHINING and THE EXORCIST must have been cable broadcasts.