Category: Name That Trauma!

I remember being terribly frightened by a movie in which people went to the center of the earth, only to be inundated with a slimy, white goo coming down from the walls and the ceilings. It's not the 1959 Journey to the Center of the Earth, for I saw that a few years back and there was no slimy goo. Can your readers help me?

Thanks!

UNK SEZ: Thanks for writing, FunkyPhD! If it's not JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, my second guess would be 1976's AT THE EARTH's CORE. Check out the trailer below to see if it rings any bells.

Hmmmm, I just did a quick scan of the DVD and didn't see much in the way of slimy goo so if any of our readers have another idea, please share it!

Hey Kindertrauma!

I need some help finding a crummy slasher movie.

I saw it on TV in the late '80s or early '90s, probably on USA Saturday Nightmares or Commander USA's Groovy Movies.

The only bit that really stuck with me was a stalking chase sequence along a row of bushes or hedges. I think the victim (not sure if it's a boy or a girl) was hiding up against the bush when the killer stabs them with a long pole all the way through both the bush and the victim's body. Then there's a nice closeup of blood dripping out of the pipe – that's the part I REALLY remember.

Sorry I don't have any more to work with. And Thanks!

Hello, once again I have a puzzle for you. My sister is trying to remember a possible French film about a post war world where people are sold in butcher shops. She thinks it may have been a French one and it had subtitles as well. She thinks it may have been called "Delicacies" or possibly something of the sort. Any help would be great thank you.

UNK SEZ: I'll bet the farm that's 1991's DELICATESSEN! I guess it didn't hurt that your sister provided half of the title! Oh well, we now have the perfect excuse to watch the trailer! Thanks, Kristine!

Hello kindertrauma,

I was wondering if I could get some help finding a the title of a book my older sister owned.

She had this big collection of horror/ mystery/ slasher books mostly by Stephen King in her room and when I was a kid I would sneak into her room and skim them. This book wasn't written by Stephen King though. It was entirely different and it kinda freaked me out.

The book itself was about two kids. A boy and a girl I believe. They were living with their grandmother in what I think was a village in Eastern Europe.

I say that only because the grandmother is described as kind of a babushka lady. I'm not exactly sure when it took place but by the description of the grandmother maybe early 20th century because the children remark that she still dressed in old fashioned long skirts. The grandmother is described as disgusting by the boy because she goes to the restroom wherever she stands, but thinks it's okay because she's wearing the long dress.

The other character I remember is called the hair lip girl. She's really mean to the kids but also is really their only friend in the village. She feels that she'll never find love because of the way she looks and has sex with all the boys in the village to fulfill her desire for love and acceptance. I think I remember her admitting this to the kids when they stumble upon her and a village boy going at it behind some bushes.

At this point I skipped to the end because I was really confused about what I was reading.

At the end of the book, soldiers invade their village. The children's grandmother is killed and they go in search of shelter or survivors. When they search for the hairlip girl they find her dead on her bed with a morbid smile on her deformed face. I think the kids gather that she was raped to death by the soldiers.

After that I couldn't read anymore and I high-tailed it out of there! I was probably about 11 or 12 at the time and I'm kind of ashamed to ask my sister what the name of the book was, so I was wondering if anyone out here could give me a hand.

Thanks!

Marcie G.

You were recommended to me by Sound on Sight.

First, there's no kids in this movie I'm looking for.

I believe it was the movie of the week on ABC during the mid-70s.

It's about this woman who's about to be remarried. Her first husband died in Vietnam. She starts getting phone calls apparently from her first husband. All he says is, "Remember the promise." She thinks it's the promise she made to always be faithful to him. There are a couple attempts on her life. A buddy of the dead husband has been around during this time. And the climax is at a lake and the buddy is trying to kill her. Somehow he gets in the water. When he tries to climb out, something grabs his leg. Michael? I believe that was the dead husband's name. The buddy gets dragged back into the water and drowned. After it's over, there's a flashback where the first husband is reminding the woman that he'll always protect her.

For some reason I thought the name of the movie was, "When Michael Calls." But, my research has shown that is another movie.

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

I've got this vague, traumatic memory of a comedy skit from the early '80s. It must've been on some network or cable special. It may have even been a skit on the show "Fridays" for all I know (I just know it wasn't SNL).

It was a pre-taped skit parodying the holiday home movie cliche. Someone with a video camera is walking around, taping family members at a gathering. It's, like, a big, extended Italian family's celebration (maybe a birthday, or Christmas). Parents and uncles and grandmas are all waving to the camera and mugging. But there's this one lady — I think she's an aunt — who isn't into it. She keeps shielding her face whenever the video camera catches her, saying she doesn't want to be filmed. She gets progressively more annoyed as the other family members laugh about it, tell her to relax, etc. Finally, she gets so pissed she storms out of the party. But the next scene cuts to her running down the street, with the POV of the camera chasing her. She's still waving her hands and screaming that she doesn't want to be filmed, but now it's like a slasher movie.

Then gets chased to the beach and runs into the ocean to escape the home movie camera. Then it cuts to her drowned body washing up on shore.

I remember it as being really funny and absurd, but dark enough that I'm still curous about it to this day.

Hello! I have this bizarre memory of watching something when I was super super young, maybe 3 or 4 (1989-90?) and to this day I can't figure out if it was real or not. I remember a small boy going to bed and then all of a sudden all the toys in his room start floating and form together to create a giant, scary robot looking chicken?? No amount of googling turns anything up. Would love to have this mystery solved if it's real!

UNK SEZ: Thanks Kim R.! Hmmm, I guess this trauma happened way too early to have anything to do with the TV show ROBOT CHICKEN so that's out. For some reason I keep thinking of 1985's MAKING CONTACT even though I'm pretty sure there is no robot chicken in that movie. Oh Well, I'm going to put that bonkers flick below just in case somebody wants to watch it and I'll also keep my chicken fingers crossed that one of our fine readers knows the answer you're looking for!

1. In my grandparents' basement in the late-'80s, I watched the end of a movie where two men, one wearing a horrifying clown costume, are holed up in an old farmhouse that is under siege by, I think, the police. The clown guy is hanging out a window shooting a rifle. Before the shootout scene I think these guys had murdered the house's occupants. And, though I can't be at all sure of this, I believe the movie ended with a title card saying that the dramatized events were based on real events that happened in Texas. The clown guy haunted my thoughts for years after.

2. This one was truly traumatic: At a sleepover around the same time I watched a late-night movie set in a juvenile prison for girls. There is a horrible scene where one of the imprisoned is raped with the handle of a toilet plunger by a group of other girl prisoners. Just thinking about it still makes my skin crawl.

Thanks folks!

UNK SEZ: Thanks for the NTT, Tim B! I know the identity of your second one for sure. That has to be the LINDA BLAIR 1974 TV movie BORN INNOCENT. I know because that plunger scene clogged my brain too. The second one I'm less sure of but I'm leaning towards 1976's THE CLOWN MURDERS which featured JOHN CANDY in an early role. It's got clowns, rifles, a farmhouse and cops but does not close with a title card stating it's based on actual events so I may be wrong. If anybody has any other ideas, please let us know! In the meantime both flicks are on YouTube, so I'll place them below…

Hello Kindertrauma, I really hope you guys can help me with this little nightmare inducer.

When I attended primary school the library also functioned as the media centre (which in those days meant a big TV and a VCR player). Depending on her workload the librarian would sometimes plunk us down in front of the TV with a tape. One time we watched an animated flick that still haunts me, although I don't remember a great deal of it. It was the first time I can remember literally being frozen from fear. The scene that has stayed with me is a slow pan down a dark hallway in what I think was a wooden church with a thoroughly awful portrait on the wall and red eyed rats lurking around.

Here are all the other details I can remember or deduce:

The animation style was hardly animation at all, but rather slow pans over dark and heavy hand drawn images of a style you might almost find in a children's book. I'm not certain, but I think I remember narration, not unlike the audiobook recordings with still images that you get now on YouTube.

1995 is the latest year this could possibly have come out, but it was probably made earlier than that, likely in the 80's.

I live in Australia so whatever this was had been released here and was possibly made here.

Finally, this would have been a short film, probably less than an hour long, likely not more than half an hour or so.

For the longest time I thought it was animated adaption of H.P Lovecraft's 'The Rats In The Walls' but I've never been able to find anything that matches up with what I remember. If you know of anything that sounds like this (or of an obscure adaptation of TRITW) please let me know. This has been haunting me for the best part of two decades.

Sincerely

Ben