Category: Name That Trauma!

Hello kindertrauma!

Your website is amazing. I can nose around for hours. I've got one for you that's been really bugging me. I saw this on TV in the early to mid '80s, so I think it was an episode of a TV show or a TV movie (we didn't have any movie channels). I really just remember the end … it was a male serial killer who dressed as a woman and lured a man back to a room (might have been posing as a prostitute, I can't remember, and I think it was a hotel room or the man's apartment). The killer/woman was blonde (aren't they always??). (S)he brings the man (I think he was a business man) back to the room, then excuses herself to the bathroom, where she proceeds to peel off her disguise. This was the part I remember as really creepy! Off comes the wig, the dress, the make-up…. and there stands a man in a dark shirt and pants, with dark hair and small black eyes (a little reminiscent of Anthony Perkins actually). He then pulls out a long knife, that I remember as almost like an ice pick. The killer finally emerges from the bathroom, and somehow manages to sneak up on the victim and stabs him repeatedly with the knife. The details here are hazy …. but a cop (or team of cops) is chasing the killer, and tracks him down … and I think soon after this encounter in the room the killer is cornered in an alley by the cops and is killed. He may have gotten back in disguise at that point.

I just have no idea what this episode or movie is! No familiar actors, and I can't picture the cop or detective who was tracking the killer. I'm pretty sure I'd recognize the actor who plays the killer, but from various googling I can't find it. Any idea?

Thanks!

Suzie

Hey Kindertrauma,

My name is Maddie, I've just turned 18 and I recently discovered your website. I read something online that got me thinking about traumatic experiences from our childhoods that we either can't remember or block out. I'm especially interested in disturbing media/cinema moments from childhood, so I've really enjoyed your website, but I also have a few of my own that I was hoping you could help me with.

I was watching a movie with my family as a kid, and one of the very first scenes (it seems like it was within the first ten minutes of the movie) was one of I guess, torture. There was a man on a table in a fire-lit room, with someone either beating or stabbing him, and his whole body like jerking and convulsing at the same time. I only have a vague memory because it's been like 15 years since I saw the scene, but I clearly remember being disturbed by the visual effects and especially the convulsions that the man on the table (I feel like he was either not wearing a shirt or naked as well) was having.

Anyways, up until today, I had a vague memory of the movie being "Legend" but I found the movie online today and the scene I was so horrified by as a kid was nowhere to be found, and I ended up just watching 90 minutes of Tom Cruise make a horrified face through his long, dirty hair.

I would love your help in finding out what movie it was from, or if it was some sort of alternate scene from "Legend," and if it was possible to find a clip of just that scene, I would be so grateful. I can't give any more details about the movie, or confirm that it was "Legend" since I had to leave the room immediately and never saw it again, although I did see online that there is a torture scene in some versions of the movie, but I can't seem to find it.

Thank you so much!

Hello,

Love your website and I have two different movies that I saw as a kid that I am trying to figure out.

1. Saw this movie with my dad but cannot remember the name and was so traumatized that I didn't watch the whole movie. What I remember is that it is about a mummy, it must be late 70's, early 80's. The scene I recall is that there was a mummy that was uncovered by archeologists and it was taken to a research center or university or something and there was a young student that touched the corpse causing the skin on his fingers to rot like leprosy. I can't find the actual title to the movie to find out what happened to the student!

2. I think I saw this on television, one of those Saturday afternoon horror films. This was probably made around the time of Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter and was in the same style but was not that movie. It looked like the Vampire Barnabas show with the 60's hair and the Technicolor sound stages. The scene I remember is two young boys who follow a female vampire into a forest to a tree ??? or cave and she kills them and the next scene I think they are in coffins with bite marks. It was very creepy but I can't recall a title or anything else about the movie.

Hope you can help, thanks!

Hello, I have a memory of a short that scared me as a kid that I have yet to find hard evidence of online. It aired on Nick Jr. in the early or mid-'90s, and it was an animated retelling of the poem The Duel. It was just the poem said to some simple animation, but the quiet voice and tense atmosphere made it very frightening. I originally thought it must have been on Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics (there's a TV Tropes entry stating it was, that was actually written by me), but researching the show further it did not seem to have short segments in the episodes. If anyone could identify this I would really appreciate it, thank you for your help. – KI Simpson

Hi! Love your website. WOW! I use it as a great reference list for bad movie night films.

Once I saw a movie when I was young that just ruined me. I saw it on TV in the early nineties. It had monster in it that I think lived in a closet, but it wasn't the Paul Walker/Fergie joint. The terrifying monster whistled a creepy sound to lure people over to open the closet in which it hid. When someone came near to investigate the sound, they would discover an unpleasant surprise: A freakish monster! Then out of its jaws emerged another terrible screaming monster head, and out of THAT monster's jaws came a third terrible but rather diminutive monster head. Mind BLOWN.

Did I make this all up in my sick and twisted little kid-mind? Is this a bizarre amalgamation of several horror films I should never have been allowed to watch at that age? Any help is appreciated. I need to face this beast again once and for all. Thanks in advance.

Hello, kindertrauma, and greetings from Romania.
I'm going to get to the subject, since my english is kinda shoddy; I have two movies I'd really like to see again, and despite the fact that I'm a horror movie fanatic, I can't seem to find them anywhere.

What I remember from the first one is two scenes: one with many cats in a room, that attack and kill a middle-aged woman, after that setting the house on fire; the other takes place in a hospital, a young woman is in a hospital bed, and a crucifix upends itself, and the woman levitates. It looked like a TV movie, maybe 90's.

The other movie is an alien abduction one. It was about a young girl, that – as far as I remember – was impregnated by some alien beings. The scene that sticks in my mind is the end of the movie : the girl and her mother are alone in the house, everything seems to be ok, and then the faucet in the kitchen starts pouring water, and bright lights come from the windows. I looked and looked for this one – I mean, how many alien abduction movies are there? – but no luck.

Thank you, and I hope someone will answer my questions.

To many frightful nights

April

I have a Name That Trauma from a film I watched a few years ago – or at least a scene from it? On YouTube, I think, but no matter what I search I can't find anything, the video may have been deleted. My memory is pretty hazy, so it might have been a combination of several different things.

It was probably an older film, '80s or '70s. I don't remember CGI. Basically, a girl or a young woman was running through a gothic building, probably a church but I don't remember any religious imagery, and one of the stained glass windows comes out of the pane and attacks her(!) It moved really oddly, like it was a sheet, even though it was glass. I think it became a circle and rolled on its side at one point like a wheel, and I remember either it yelling at the girl, or somebody else offscreen yelling at her, very insulting and hostile and not really how you'd expect a strange monster to talk. I think the girl ran out onto the balcony of the building at one point and tried to hide from it. This is such a weird, striking scene I'm surprised I can't find it anywhere. I really hope I didn't dream it.

UNK SEZ: Thanks for writing in Zoey G.! When it comes to stained glass monsters, I can only think of one movie and that's 1985's YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES. I can't say that I've met every stained glass monster there is to meet though so if any of our fine readers know of any other such creatures that fit the bill, please let us know!

Dear Kindertrauma,

I'm pleased to come across your site as it's essentially the horror movie database/blog/awesome I've been scouring the internets for. So my little personal traumatic (and enjoyable) anecdote comes from my childhood days of flipping through my old CR TV that only had knobs to switch channels. Saturdays were the best for finding a horror gem on the five channels my rabbit ear antennas received, and one particular film I came across in these weekend escapades is one I hope someone can help me identify. The scene I witnessed concerned a family of ranchers looking over diseased cattle plagued with grotesque cancer-like growths all over their bodies. One particular woman stops to inspect a growth that seems to be pulsing, and as this horror movie mistake is made the woman's consequences are having the growth gorily burst in her face releasing an army of giant flying bugs that engulf her. The details that are a bit hazy is I think this changed her into a zombie-like monster and she tries attacking her family. Also guessing from the time I remember seeing the movie and its' style, it was likely made in the 90's though 80's is a possibility. Thanks again, and I look forward to using your site to relive my most cherished childhood memories of being freaked out!

Dr.Bleed

UNK SEZ: Thanks, Dr. Bleed! I'm not 100% on this but I have a strong feeling you may be thinking of 1987's THE CURSE. According to this old review HERE, that movie does feature an exploding cow! I'm posting the full movie below thinking that even if I'm wrong it'll be fun to watch. If anybody out there has another guess for this NTT, please let us know!

Your website is awesome!

That said … I remember a movie that was probably shown on WLVI 56's Creature Double Feature in the '80s (Boston area). It involved a man who was turned into rock somehow. I remember he was sort of a brown color. At the end, he walks into the ocean and the sea water dissolves him. I could have sworn it was called "The Rock Man," but I can't find any movie similar to that plot and title. Can someone help?

Thanks!

Scott

UNK SEZ: Thanks Scott! I'm probably wrong on this but I keep seeing 1966's IT with RODDY McDOWALL in my mind's eye. It doesn't quite fit your description but it's got a brown rock golem guy in it and I'm pretty sure at the end he takes a dip in the ocean. I'm just guessing so if any of our readers have any other ideas please do let us know! The trailer for IT is below…