Author: aunt john

Hello! I love your website. I would be surprised if I were the first person to suggest this film scene but I did not find it with the search tool. Here's my story:

I went from being more scared of horror movies than anyone as a kid to a slightly older kid who loved EVIL DEAD 2 and the like. The first 10 minutes of THE TOXIC AVENGER took the piss out of me and made me radically reassess my assumption at age 13 or so that I had because I'd seen CALIGULA and DEAD ALIVE, nothing could shock me; nothing in a cult movie, anyway. THE TOXIC AVENGER is one of the biggest bad-taste, gross-out must-see legends, like PINK FLAMINGOS or THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. So of course I had to see it.. I'd already read a brief description of the scene in Troma Films president and director LLOYD KAUFMAN's book, ""All I Need to Know about Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger."

The group of bullies, which accidentally send a nerd into toxic waste after a prank gone wrong, thus transforming him into THE TOXIC AVENGER, also drive around the little town playing DEATH RACE 2000 where different types of pedestrians are worth different amounts of points. Like most 13-year-olds, I'd already thought of some variations on that joke myself, but had never seen it in a movie outside the ultra campy and sci-fi oriented DEATH RACE 2000. I figured I'd be ready to watch some equivalent.

Boy, was I wrong. This scene is ridiculously effectively disturbing for three big reasons and it's probably the one movie scene I still feel queasy watching to this day – and was almost violently ill when watching as a kid.

Despite THE TOXIC AVENGER being full of bloody slapstick, the hit-and-run scene is not slapstick except for the laughing drunkenness of the killers. The kid they run down doesn't make any wacky sound effects, he gets run over, wounded, and run over again pretty much the way 10-year-old kid on a bicycle would. Child murder is pretty rare in movies period, but playing it for sadistic laughs is something I've never seen anywhere else.

Also disturbing is that this is the first act of violence in the movie. Because of Troma's attempt at a comedy/horror dichotomy, the opening scenes of the film which precede are basically your average 1980s comedy where a nerd is picked on at a health club by goofy jock bullies and their 1980s hairdo bimbo girlfriends. Seeing those same comedy stereotypes mocking and then murdering a child creates a slight mental shock!

In fact, the jovial comedy mood carries over from those scenes so much, there's a catchy tune playing on the soundtrack through the entire scene, making it funnier or more disturbing depending on the viewer.

The ONLY thing I could be grateful for is that I hadn't seen this when I was just a little younger. I'd been spooked when riding around the neighborhood on my bike, a few more years earlier could've been horrific — ESPECIALLY since THE TOXIC AVENGER was turned into a cartoon in the early '90s, and the original movie was there in the video store for the kids to find! Later I met people who'd fallen into that trap, and some Kindertrauma was healed…

Still, this scene remains immortal.

AUNT JOHN SEZ: To read more by Matt, be sure to check out CINEMACHINE!

When I was five, The American Heart Society (Or maybe it was the Cancer Society?) used to run these creepy animated commercials about taking care of your lungs and heart. One was about not smoking cigarettes while shoveling snow (the little cartoon man had over 9000 crammed in his mouth to illustrate, and I think he died) and another listed a bunch of orders about staying healthy: "Don't smoke! Eat right! Keep in shape!" sung in this scary deep voice. Then in the same ad was a silhouette of a human figure, then a bright red heart appeared in its chest, and the figure keels over dead! That used to terrify the crap out of me! Mostly because even at that age, I knew my dad had a stressful job and worked hard and he smoked a lot, too, and I was so afraid I'd lose him…just like the commercials said!

I've searched for these old ads on Youtube but to no avail. I want to see if they still freak me out almost forty years later. Could someone else find them?

UNK SEZ: Ravyn, I didn't have any better luck than you did trying to track down those anti-smoking commercials you mentioned! I did however stumble across this one that stars the late YUL BRYNNER which used to haunt the hell out of me. I bet a lot of smokers put out their butts when this ad aired!

When I was about 11 or 12 (which would've been in the early ‘80s) I got my hands on one of the nastiest pieces of horror fiction my eyes have ever been scorched with, The Cellar. It looked like just another "potboiler" horror paperback you could pick up at any drug store or used book store, and Satan knows I had already plowed through plenty of those in my misspent youth.

But oh no, this was different.

This book was brimming with graphic scenes of violent assault, violent rape, kidnapping, bestiality and sicko perversions. The pièce de résistance however, was toward the end, when the housekeeper of the 'beast house' was getting gang banged….willingly, by a pack of the snarling beasties. Not only that, she was, uh, shall we say… enjoying herself immensely.

My brief synopsis doesn't really do this piece of eye-frigging justice, but it scarred me if not for life, at least for puberty (I still watch and read horror, go figure).

Imagine my horror when I'm cruising the Fantastic Fiction website and run up upon this very book. And not only that, it was a whole series of books. Of course I'm going to read every single one I can get my hands on and probably anything else that sick little twist RICHARD LAYMON has written. If you've never partaken in the "Beast House" series, be warned it's not for the faint of heart, fragile of mind or weak of stomach. Urp.

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Initially, Shannon submitted this entry as a Name That Trauma!:

I've been looking for a book entitled 'Vampire Types' or 'The Vampire Type' but for the life of me can't remember the author's name, and I was hoping maybe you or one of your readers might know it. The book was published around the same time as 'The Vampire Tapestry', and the cover truly gave me horrible dreams when I was a little girl. It had a blue background and a very pale, cadaverous, black haired woman on the cover with a single, very large drop of blood running from one corner of her mouth. My mom borrowed the book from my uncle, and all the way home I was in terror because the book was in a paper grocery bag next to my leg.

Internet searches haven't even been helpful. I'd really appreciate it if anyone can tell me the name of the author.

P.S. – I love your site – it brings back so many memories!

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Thanks to the power of our procrastination, Shannon rolled up her own sleeves and was able to track down not only the name of the book, but also a picture to share with the rest of the class:

After I contacted you last night my son found the book. I had the title wrong – it's 'The Vampire Tapes' (I thought it was 'Types'). We located a copy online. Oddly, it's a bit different from the image I remember but I figure that's because I was so young and terrified of it.

Here is a traumafession of mine. When I was growing up the old TRISTAR, STEPHEN J. CANNELL and UNIVERSAL logos used to scare the living daylights out of me!

I used to think that the TRISTAR horse would charge towards me.

I hated the loud music that came with the S.J.C. logo so I'd always hide during the end credits of THE A-TEAM.

And that UNIVERSAL logo just looked really spooky with all that mist surrounding it! I'm fine with the current COLOMBIA/TRISTAR logo and the current UNIVERSAL logo – it's the old ones that give me the creeps. I still have to skip through them watching UNIVERSAL SOLDIER and DUEL!

UNK SEZ: Don't worry Ally G., you're not ALONE!