Category: Name That Trauma!

Not really a trauma/scary, but I think it had some tongue-in-cheek evil/horror aspect a little like the "Addams Family" and the "Munsters"…

I remember seeing an animated movie on TV years ago (late 70's?) I think with a Victorian setting. It was something odd about a family of bad people and at the end, the ghost of the main character's father (?or grandfather?) who had been condemned originally because he had died a good person, but was "redeemed" in the family tradition because they realized his last act in life (?suicide?) was actually a sin. My memory was that it was standard cartoon animation, not claymation.

I also seem to remember something that the main character and his fiancé would actually be able to marry in the end, but there had some question since he had not followed in the family's evil tradition and wouldn't inherit the fortune until he did something bad enough.

I remember a show on TV: Possibly mid-70's? Made for TV? CBS?

Anyway, the only scene I remember was a father, under the delusion that God told him to sacrifice his son old-book style. The father held the wriggling tyke shouting verse, he might have had a knife or scissors and a frantic wife was trying to stop him. I was pretty young trying to process the whole drama; why would a Daddy try to kill his son? Years later I would do things that would bring me to near death by my father, but it had nothing to do with divine machinations!

Thanks

Okay, since I got my first real horrifying experience off my chest before, I was wondering if anyone could help me identify two things from my childhood that have stayed with me for a while. Both have to do with "monster in disguise" type things.

I'm not sure if it was a movie or TV show, but the scene in question took place on a boat. They were trying to figure out why people have been disappearing on the boat, and one of the guys starts laughing, and a huge pair of fangs appear in his mouth. He confesses to eating the missing people. I switched the channel at this point, because the idea of people being killed and eaten freaked me out. I never found out what it was from, though, and I never saw it again. I do know the people seemed kind of like pirates or adventurers of some kind.

The other one was kind of a medieval sword and sorcery flick, and I think the scene took place in a dungeon. The heroine was trying to seduce her way out of being a prisoner, and she knees her antagonizer in the balls. There's a sound like a piece of wood being struck, and the guy doesn't even flinch. He says something like "Allow me to show you my true form!" in a weird garbled voice, and then he reaches up and splits his face in half. Again, it freaked me out, the channel was changed, and I never saw it again.

Sorry if those are vague, I was like 5 or 6 years-old at the time. But if anyone can help me, it's definitely the kind people at kindertrauma!

Thanks!

Melody M.

UNK SEZ: I wish I knew what that first one was Melody! I'm curious to find out because I dig horror movies that take place on boats! The second one, is most certainly THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER (1982)! I just watched the scene again and your memory is spot on! We were just using images from that one to illustrate a post the other day so maybe that's what dislodged your trauma! Does anybody out there think Melody's vampire on a boat trauma sounds familiar? Make sure you let us know!

I grew up in the '70s and '80s, and watched plenty of filmstrips in school. Although we normally watched them in class, sometimes we would be able to watch a private viewing on a small screen in our media center (what we called our library).

I recall watching one around 1979 or 1980 about vampires. It think it involved a young boy who lived in a town plagued by a vampire, possibly around the turn of the century. At some point in the filmstrip, a panel showed him sitting straight up in bed with a look of horror on his face. I think it was implied that he had realized that he was the vampire. Music then started to play with a stereotypical Bela Lugosi-sounding vampire voiceover, mentioning how vampires had stricken fear into people for over 500 generations.

The part with the boy realizing that he was the vampire scared me the most. That part caused me to lose sleep. I guess no child likes to consider the possibility of the monster within.

Did anyone else see this filmstrip? Can anyone tell me what the title was?

Hi fellas,

I've been trying to figure this one out for a long time. I remember seeing a movie in the late 80s or early 90s that was either set in medieval times or in some medieval fantasy world. It included a scene near the end in which the hero (or one of the good guys) is confronting a magician or sorcerer who creates the illusion that said hero is roasting on a spit turning over a fire. I'm picturing the hero as a young guy in a medieval bowl cut. I don't remember anything else about the move except I used to think it was Sword of the Valiant, but I'm pretty sure that's not it. But that was the feel of the movie. Maybe it was made for TV? It wasn't really scary, but the image stuck with me for years, and I'd love to know where the heck it came from.

I appreciate any ideas you or anyone else here might have. I love the site – it's my favorite thing on the internet.

Thanks,

Mr. Lowdoor

Hello, folks,

This is one I've been tracking down for years. It's in the mid '70s and I was maybe 15 and watching what I thought was a made-for-TV movie. It was a mystery with a detective and a girl sneaks into the house of a suspect one dark night and notices that the moulding along the top of the room didn't match the other 3 walls and realized there was a false wall built in.

They broke through it to find what they thought was hidden evidence (or something hiding behind it), with axes or hammers. But behind the wall they found grandma (?), mummified, wrapped in plastic and apparently buried there decades ago. Actually sitting in a rocking chair, sideways. ("She wanted to be buried here in her own home.") It was a horrific scene and I remember it not being so much a clue as just back story for the eventual suspect. The rest of the film was more a straight forward procedural (I think!). I'm not even sure I watched it to the end so I never got closure that way either!

Certainly influenced by Argento (Deep Red) and Psycho, not even sure if it was an episode of Night Stalker (although I've looked through synopses of those and never discovered a mention of this). I have the feeling it is American rather than an Italian giallo dubbed for TV play.

Does this ring a bell for anyone?

Thanks in advance,

Roger L.

Hi there! I have a Name That Trauma that I'm hoping someone might be able to help me out with.

From what I recall, it was an episode of a TV series that aired around the mid-90's. It was live action, and was about a boy who noticed something strange about the adults at his school. I believe he suspected that they were being abducted by aliens, or being replaced by them, Body-Snatchers-style, and I think he was particularly concerned about his principal. The scene that totally creeped me out was when the boy was summoned to the principal's office. He walked in, and the "principal" started scolding him in this slow, creepy voice. Something to the effect of he shouldn't stick his nose where it doesn't belong. The whole time he was talking, he was holding a newspaper in front of his face, but after a few moments of suspense, he put down the newspaper, revealing a green alien face! Absolutely terrifying (at least, for seven year old me)!

I think it may have been an episode of a kids' anthology horror/fantasy show, like Goosebumps or Are You Afraid of the Dark? Here in Canada, we also had a show called Incredible Story Studio, which was supposedly based on story ideas sent in by kids (disturbingly, they were almost always more unsettling than anything on Goosebumps or Are You Afraid of the Dark). If it is in fact an episode of one of these shows, or one like it, I'm sure it wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it was. But it's the first jump scare I remember…and a pretty effective one at that!

P.S. Your website is brilliant!

– Sebastian

Hello Kindertrauma,

I'm trying to find a movie that I saw as a child. It had two witches in it. The ugly witch was good and the pretty witch was bad. The pretty witch could turn into animals and ended up burning the ugly witch's house down. I'm pretty sure the movie was in black and white. Any help would be appreciated, I've been looking a long time!

I've tried tracking down this New York public access show from the late 70s/80s. I've tried EVERYTHING. Every person I know that resides in NY, a TV oddity collector and even posted on reddit. No luck. This is my last ditch effort. If you can't help me, I totally understand.

In 07' I was visiting a friend who lived in Manhattan. He didn't have cable. Just rabbit ears and a piss poor signal. While he was at work, I came across this public access station. They were showing a marathon of this cable access show. I'd date it around 70s/80s. The host was this rather average built man. Probably 30s. His name was John. Most of it was filmed in what appeared to be his mother's faux wood paneling basement (complete with dead bodies I'm sure). He would go around NY and find these really strange people to interview. One had a doll collection. One read poetry in a park?? I don't know. I was mesmerized. I was terrified. He was so creepy. He was soft spoken but you KNEW he'd cut you in a second. My friend who eventually came home from work, sat on his crappy futon with me..watching this..totally amazed.

I don't know if you can be of any help to me..or even want to. But any suggestions or even a "no dice..we don't help people' is fine. I just really want to find out what the hell I was watching.

Thanks in advance!

Hi Unk – I'm trying to find the the title and author of this horror anthology from the early 80s. I think it was called "Haunts, Haunts, Haunts," but an Amazon and Google search didn't turn up anything. Two of my favorite stories were "Sweets to the Sweet" and "Don't Look Behind You", a first-person narrative from the point of view of the ghost. My sisters and I loved to recite the last sentence "don't look behind you…until you see THE KNIFE," and quickly turn to the illustration of a knife-wielding corpse and scream.

"Sweets to the Sweet" was about an little girl with a voodoo doll who had the power to harm anyone that pissed her off. It may have been from the same anthology, or a different series (Creeps, Creeps, Creeps or something like that). The artwork for the story was black and white photo of one of those creepy old-fashioned porcelain dolls with the glass eyeballs. From my recollection, the story ended with someone's head rolling down the stairs. Barbie dolls with painted on eyes never bothered me, but my 4th grade self developed an aversion to life-sized dolls with glass eyeballs with the potential to walk across the room and kill you ever since.

Thanks for the trauma,

PJ

UNK SEZ: Thanks for sharing your trauma PJ! I'm not sure about the first-person ghost story but ROBERT BLOCH's "Sweets to the sweet" is included in a horror anthology edited by LEONARD WOLF entitled DOUBLES, DUMMIES AND DOLLS. The cover of that book looks just you described and you can see it HERE. I hope that's it! Does anybody out there recognize PJ's knife-wielding ghost story? Let us know!