Category: Name That Trauma!

Scott P: Not my trauma, but one of my favorite musicians ( Ginger Wildheart ) was asking about this on Twitter, & I suggested he come here to see if any of the experts can crack it. In case he didn't see that Tweet, I thought I'd send the details he mentioned :

Trying to remember a movie where there are monsters inside of an old house. Some are tall, some are hunched deformed things. It was made in the last decade. The action kicks off in the kitchen, and culminates in a tall creature chasing a woman down the hall, while a hunched over goblin thing sits in the corner.

It was not a found footage film. I think the premise of this horror movie was a house built on top of Hell, or something.

These monsters all looked different from each other. Different shapes, sizes and looks. Some of these monsters weren't remotely human shaped.

It was a small budget movie, not much promotion. I think it was American, but had more of a European horror than a 50's B-movie feel. It was an indie flick, similar vibe to Digging The Marrow, looked fairly expensive too.

Any chance we can figure this out for him? Thanks!

~ Scott P.

Hey, I'm looking for titles from a few movies. I'll try to be as specific as possible. Hope you can help me.

Movie number 1

Horror film from the ‘80s, I think. It's about a troubled boy who has to take his medication on time to make sure he doesn't go crazy. His parents go away for the weekend and his mum insists on taking his medicine. He invites some friends from school to have a party. His ex is also at the party and tries to persuade him to give it another go but he has a new girlfriend now. She is also at the party but she's kinda new so nobody really knows her. One couple goes in the Jacuzzi and the guy goes back inside to get champagne or wine and the girl gets killed in the Jacuzzi. Apparently this 'new girlfriend' is a lot more crazy than the guy poppin' pills. In the end she seems to be the killer.

Movie number 2

Horror/thriller from the ‘90s, I think. A group of people bury some guy with his face down cause he should go straight to hell. The wife of this buried guy is out for revenge and kidnaps the child of one of the relatives of the people that killed him ‘cause apparently she is the last one to still be alive. The child is kept in some kind of dungeon underneath the house. The mother does a neighborhood questioning and ends up with the wife of the buried guy but of course they don't know right away that she has the child locked up.

Movie number 3

Horror film from early 2000s, I think. Some people end up at some kind of farm in the middle of the night, the guy gets out ‘cause he sees someone running around, and pretty much right away he gets shot by a shotgun (it reminded me of the movie PLAGUE TOWN a little bit but that's not the one). Two of the other guys run off since their friend got shot, the killer hunts them down and finally they come across some cabin and hide there. Pretty quickly they find out that the cabin belongs to the killer. I believe it was raining a lot and the killer wore a raincoat.

I hope you can help me in my search, thanks in advance.

Koddie K.

Hello, Kindertrauma!

This must have been the mid-to-late-70's. There was a show on PBS that I actually saw a couple of times–I believe it was broadcast for a few years around Halloween. It was a group of actors with ghoulish makeup on a plain black-box set performing a series of stories in a sort of readers' theatre/oral interp style. I don't remember most of the stories, but I believe one of them was an adaptation of the Grimms' fairy tale about the Boy Who Left Home to Learn Fear. The actors took on most of the narration duties, but there was also an unseen narrator for some parts–a guy with a creepy/soothing voice. The whole thing was accompanied by organ music, and it all ended with a song number by a group of classic monsters about how they found a home together in a haunted house. I've googled every possible descriptor I could come up with, and no dice all around. It's driving me a little crazy!

Love the website!

Best regards,

Richard R.

Hey there, Kindertrauma!

I have a super obscure Name That Trauma that I'm hoping someone out there might be able to help me with. I remember seeing a commercial on TV, probably sometime in the very late 1990s or very early 2000s. It was for what I am pretty sure was a TV movie (though I suppose it may have been a series) that was most likely airing on one of the big networks (CBS, ABC, NBC, or maybe FOX), as that's primarily what I would've been watching at that time. All I can remember is one scene that showed someone (whether a man or a woman, I don't know) seeing an old woman standing a the foot of what looked like a set of stairs to an attic. I even think they may have seen her in the reflection of a mirror, though I can't be positive. I'm quite sure the commercial framed her as a ghost, because it definitely had a spooky context. It may have been the ghost of the protagonist's mother (at least that's how I remember it, but I may have just assumed that at the time). There was nothing outwardly creepy about the woman herself, it was all context. From what I recall, she had her hair pinned back in a bun or braid or something, and was wearing a dress with long-sleeves. I wish I could remember more, but that's the only image that really stuck with me, and has for almost twenty years. Any tips would be appreciated!

– Sebastian L.

A while ago on the TV channel Chiller I watched a short. I can't find it or remember the time I watched it. It was some time in the past 14 years. I think it was about the five senses of fear. It involved a guy looking for love who finds a rather attractive woman and all I remember is that they go to a hotel, the door closes and there is a sound of screaming coming from the room. The camera zooms out to a doctor's bag and the name on the bag is Van Helsing! The name of the short I am thinking of is "(unknown name)"s lament." That is all I can remember. Did I make this up? I can not find this anywhere on the web. Can you help?

Hey Kindertrauma! Dylan Donnie-Duke from The Walter Paisley Movie House here! A TWPMH member asked this question, and I am at a loss, so I am looking to the real experts for help. Thanks in advance! Here's what he asked:

Do any of you Gen Xers remember an animated movie from the early 80s? I think it was on HBO a lot. It was about pirates, brothers who were a pirate and an admiral, and there was this weird Chameleon critter in it as well. I also seem to remember this movie being somewhat lascivious.

Hello Horror Fans!

I am trying to recall the title of either a short story adapted for television, or a television episode that I saw around 1979-1983.

I don't remember much about it. It was on one of those PBS educational shows where they would adapt a youth novel or short story for television. The only scene I remember involved a girl trying to guess what something meant in French (and coming remarkably close, for a guess).

She thought it *sounded like* it might mean "ghost if I can," or "devil if I can.' The translation was something like "diable si je peux," which does indeed translate into "devil if I can." I don't think she was a native speaker, because she was reading it and trying to figure out. She actually said the second part "sounds" like "if I can."

It was a darkened room, possibly a study or library in an old house where she was reading. Suspenseful music was playing, and she may have been reading by candlelight

That's all I remember. Did anyone else see this?

Thanks

Dustin in Minnesota

Hi Kindertrauma, I've just stumbled upon your site after wandering through the web. Most interested in your "name that trauma" section as I have been haunted for many years by a TV show opener. It is in black and white and is animated, one scene morphs into another and another an so on. I cannot remember the order but I think it starts with a boy bouncing a ball which then changes into maybe an eagle then maybe a dark alleyway then maybe a mummy. Each scene turns quickly to the next to create the intro. It is English and dates back to the early seventies and I believe the show told a different story each episode. I found the intro so creepy that it stays with me to this day over forty years later. Please could someone tell me the name of the show.

Many thanks

Stephen B. – a lifelong horror fan.

Hi Kindertrauma!

Love your website and have been enjoying your posts for many years. I'm finally going to submit my Name That Trauma that's been haunting me for 40+ years. I was very young so some details may be inaccurate but I'm open to any suggestions.

A woman returns to her family home after being away for many years. The interior of the house looked vaguely gothic with two or more floors and big rooms. The mother and other family seem very hostile to the returning woman.The family members speak of her brother (or maybe father?) who never leaves his room and is never seen. A tray of food is delivered to his room every day and then picked up outside the door with empty dishes. There's extended build-up and mystery about the never seen brother, climaxing with the woman finally entering his room where she of course finds his skeleton propped up in a chair. The mother (?) comes flying into the room after her discovery screaming "You must die! You must die!" while wielding a knife or ax.

Obviously this sounds like Psycho by way of Burnt Offerings with a touch of Silent Scream but it's none of those. I know several of the plot points sound like Hammer's "Scream of Fear" but it's not that either – though it's entirely possible that I've mixed that one up with another movie or TV show. I saw the movie sometime between 1972 and 1977 (based on where we were living when I saw it) so I was no older than 7 and I'm sure my memory isn't entirely reliable. I think it was in black and white but that might have just been our TV at the time. The "You must die!" part is what has stuck with me over the years. It's so campy and over the top it's hard to believe it's not from some well-known movie.

Appreciate any help or suggestions from you or your readers!

All the best,

Geoff C.

Hey there KinderTrauma,

I hope this is the right way to reach you about a certain program I saw on TV that scarred me early on and I have been trying to uncover for close to 22 years.

So at some point in the mid 90's I was traveling with my dad on business and we were staying at a hotel for one night. He left early in the morning and I had the hotel room all to myself so I preoccupied myself by watching TV.

One of the first things I came upon was a movie/procedural TV show that seemed to be horror in nature, though I was too young at the time to make a clear distinction between horror and mystery thriller.

Anyway, the scene that freaked me out was of a long hallway, possibly a hospital or school building. Wandering the lone halls is a woman. I remember her wearing custodial garb, but I could be wrong. So as she is wandering, at some point, a figure clad in all white passes behind her from one side of the hall to the other. She continues to wander until the thing closes on her and she screams. The next scene is of detectives discussing the found body, noting that many or all internal organs had been removed.

The suddenness of the white clad figure and the grotesque method of killing really disturbed me, and I laid int that hotel room in terror until my dad came back hours later.

If anyone can solve this one, that would be great.

Thanks,

Chris

UNK SEZ: Chris! I'm thoroughly convinced you were exposed at a young age to the infamous night nurse scene from THE EXORCIST III (1990). It's got to be it! You mentioned the white clothes, the hallway and the police investigation afterward. If it makes you feel better, this horrific scene has gotten the better of many a hardened horror fan. No wonder it freaked you out as a kid!