kindertrauma

Author: aunt john

Name That Trauma :: Reader Matthew M. on a Homocidal Doll

Posted on By aunt john

I wanted to let you know that I really enjoy your site! It brings back memories to many classic films that I had completely forgotten about. I have a "Name That Trauma!" inquiry that I was hoping you all could help me with. Here goes: It is definitely a short, not a full length film. It Involves a woman in her apartment alone and a doll (I think maybe it was a ventriloquist dummy, but may be wrong) coming to life and attacking her. I also think the film contained no dialogue, but again i could be wrong. Very creepy stuff. Hope you can help and keep up the great work!

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Upon receiving this one, my mind instantly went to the KAREN BLACK classic TRILOGY OF TERROR. There is not too much dialogue, as it is just BLACK versus the killer doll; it is a vignette, so it is pretty short, and most people usually just remember this part of the movie. I asked Matthew if this was the case, and he responded:

All of this sound good except that the imagery that really stuck with me was the doll… sort of how calm and polite he looked. Not tribal or scary at all. Any chance we could run this by your readers?

There you have it kids… we are looking for a non-Zuni, well-composed killer doll. The calm nature also rules out CHUCKY from CHILD'S PLAY, and the old school BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL. If anyone knows the answer, be a doll and sound off in the comments or send us an email.

UPDATE: Name That Trauma! SOLVED. Let's all raise our juice boxes to reader incognitovixen for cracking the case!

Traumafessions :: Reader Kelly G. on Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Posted on By aunt john

The show may be only 18 years old, but it's still very kindertramatic in its own right. The opening theme is particularly spine tingling, still gives me goosebumps.

The episode that has stuck with me to this day would have to be Tale Of The 13th Floor. The ending never ever fails to give me the willies. The story is about two young siblings who like to play in the abandoned 13th floor of their apartment building. One day they receive an invitation to the 13th floor and discover it's been turned into a very strange toy store, run by very strange people. The twist ending is well… you'll have to see for yourself! The good part is about 6:26 in.

Traumafessions :: Fewdio John on Chick Tracts

Posted on By aunt john

Dear Aunt John and Lancifer,

John Crye from Fewdio here!

Not too long ago, the rest of the Fewdio guys and I dropped in and recounted some of the things that scared the bejinkies out of us as kids and, all too likely, influenced our films. It was a highly therapeutic exercise, I must say. We all learned so much about each other… and ourselves….

And I stirred up a doozy of a latent memory. What's more, in retrospect I can see a direct influence of this kindertrauma on my work with Fewdio, specifically on a film that I wrote and directed called THE TAP.

Okay…

I grew up attending a Southern Baptist church, which is a very conservative and certainly fundamentalist faith. At least the congregation my family was part of would fit that description. In the front lobby of the church there was a literature rack that was filled with proselytizing brochures, as well as brochures that teach one how to proselytize. Among them were a line of comic strip-style tracts featuring black and white line art depicting horrifying little morality plays. The work was by a man named Jack Chick.

My favorites include SOMEBODY GOOFED, SOMEBODY LOVES ME, IT'S YOUR LIFE, THE BEAST and TRUST ME. But believe me, each one is a masterwork of emotional terror tactics precisely crafted to inform you that you are a horrible shit-stain of a being, completely unworthy of the love that your God gives you. Failure to return said love is punishable by being thrown into a lake of fire. This last image recurs in most of the tracts and DAMN it's a wig-flipper when you're eight years old.

Once you've digested a few of those wonderful little hate pellets, take a look at THE TAP, a Fewdio film that was banned from You Tube (though it played Fantastic Fest without injuring anyone). I think you'll see the parallels:

Since recovering this lost memory, I have purchased the entire tract collection from www.chick.com so I can fully relive the fear.

Thank you, Kindertrauma, for bringing back a terror from my past and forcing me to re-analyze my present and future. Yeah. Thanks.

Much love,

Fewdio John

UNK SEZ: Thanks for the traumafession John. I remember those books and I think I still have a couple around the castle here somewhere. My favorites are the ones that warn you about the dangers of Halloween and are sometimes handed out to trick-or-treaters. I would much rather get a scary comic than a dreaded Mary Jane candy in my trick-or-treat bag. Thanks too for bringing our attention to your movie THE TAP. I'm not sure Mr.Chick would approve, but I think you Fewdio dudes get scarier all the time.

Traumafessions :: Reader Amy K. on The Crime Book of J.G. Reeder & Ghost Stories Book Covers

Posted on By aunt john

My wonderful parents are ardent antique collectors, and one of their finds scared the liver out of me when I was a child. The cover of Edgar Wallace's THE CRIME BOOK OF J.G. REEDER became one of my first obsessions. I was frightened to look at it, yet I could not look away. Even now, when I visit my parents from across the country, I sneak upstairs and pull it off the shelf just to recapture that sick thrill.

The second book, a hardcover anthology titled simply GHOST STORIES, was a present I received for my ninth birthday. And it was one I specifically requested; I'd seen it at a bookstore a few months previously and could not get that cover out of my mind. The stories inside were a disappointment (with the exception of an excellent little number called "The Sybarite" which featured a terminally ill man being surgically reduced to a brain in a jar), but thirty years later, the cover is still one of my favorites.

Traumafessions :: Reader Jillcs on Lady & the Tramp

Posted on By aunt john

This is one of those traumas that I can't quite explain, but that horrified me to the very core when I was a kid, and still gives me the shivers. LADY AND THE TRAMP gave me more nightmares than any other film before or since. Most people, when I tell them this, agree that it had its disconcerting moments, but it wasn't the feral dogs or the rat with the red eyes that kept me up at night. It was those damn SIAMESE CATS!

Perhaps it was that I couldn't reconcile the cognitive dissonance of MEAN CATS— cats were supposed to be nice animals! Perhaps, as my brother suggests, I just had a natural aversion to negative Asian stereotypes. Or perhaps the tempo of the song was just unlike anything I had ever heard before and struck me as spooky. All I know is that those teeth and eyes and the opening notes of the song used to send me into full-blown panic. Several of my friends had Disney song compilation records that featured the Siamese Cat Song, and every time it came on, I would flee the room. I still shiver a bit if I hear it, especially if I'm not prepared– I had a job at The Disney Store for a while, and one day someone played that song before we opened, causing me to yelp and jump across the store.

Because of the Siamese Cat Song and MICHAEL JACKSON's Thriller, there was definitely a period of my childhood in which I was terrified of all music. There was also definitely a nightmare involving being trapped in PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE while all the furniture and puppets sang the Siamese Cat Song.

Here is the video for your convenience. I'm sure it will amuse you to know that I had to stop it less than 30 seconds in because it's nearly 2 a.m. and my husband isn't home. Better safe than screaming in my sleep.

UNK SEZ: Unfortunately Jillcs, it looks like we can't embed the English version… but no worries, the German one is even scarier! (The curious cats among you can find the English version HERE).