Category: Name That Trauma!

Hello there, long-time reader here.

Perhaps the readers can help me with this; unfortunately 20+ years have left me wondering how much of this actually happened in what I saw and how much was assumption on my part.

Sometime in the late '80s I walked into the rec room while my father was watching something on TV. I believe the scene involved a group of people that survived a crash in some form of space ship, though it could have easily been a plane. One of the group convinces the others to leave the ship/plane and explore. The next thing that I remember is one of the group, having stayed behind, is crouching down or sitting near some sort of vent or other slim opening and sees what looks like sliced or ground-up meat coming through. He freaks out as he thinks that it is one of the other group members having been murdered or otherwise killed in gruesome fashion. I think the film heavily implied or flat out showed that he was wrong and that whatever was coming through the vent was not the result of someone's gruesome death. It's possible that I decided that on my own, though, I can't remember. I do have this image in my head of someone standing on the other side and may have intentionally been pranking the guy into thinking someone had died by stuffing something through that vent.

Not really a traumatic memory, but it was somewhat unsettling at the time. Does this sound familiar?

— Brad R.

Hi, there –

Becca V. here again. I've got a whole new trauma to request (you've solved my previous four)!

This is the hardest one yet because of how little I remember of it.

All I remember was that there was a scene with a family talking pleasantly, followed by a shot of a pink little girl's room …. only in the pink room there is one of those spinning musical light carousels, and blood splashed across the wall. I don't know if it was a movie or TV movie, but I saw it on TV.

Help?

Sorry to be so vague!

— Becca V.

This has been bugging me forever and I hope you guys can help me solve the mystery. So when I was around 5 or 6 my brothers and I came in from playing outside on a gloomy day. The gloom is just so strong in the memory I don't know why. Anyway I turned on the T.V. and saw the creepiest clip ever. It was a black and white film. There was a little short clown who was tip-toeing across the living room floor, I think. It was the way he was moving that creeped me out the most. He would start walking then stop really quickly and look at the camera. Then he'd start walking again.

Anyway, it moves to another scene where a little girl is asleep in her bed. She wakes up only to find that the creepy clown is on top of her toybox staring at her. Oh yeah, he has this, slightly too happy, smile on his face. So anyway the girl runs to her parents bedroom and is freaking out and the parents tell her it's nothing, and to go back to sleep. That was when I turned off the T.V. and freaked out until just now 13 years later. I really want to confront this fear and nagging memory. What was the name of the movie??

Please help!

— Reader 442

I was wondering if you could help me find a commercial that I haven't seen since the '90s. I think it was an advertisement for a car stereo system. In the beginning of the ad you see the inside of an alien spaceship with a couple of aliens looking down on Earth. One of them says something like, "This is Earth which is home to humans, a friendly race."

Next we're on Earth on a country road and a guy pops a CD into his stereo. He cranks up the volume of a death metal song that has a guy screaming, "DESTROY! DESTROY!! DESTROY YOU!!!" The song is so loud that the aliens can hear it from space. They are offended and now sense that humans are a hostile species instead. They lock a target on Earth and blast it away. I'm not sure if it actually showed the planet exploding or it just showed the logo of the product being advertised.

It greatly impacted me because it introduced me to the idea that music could be used to offend and anger others as well as have a cathartic effect on the listener. I went on to order a bunch of GWAR and Slayer albums from my Mom's Columbia House ordering catalog. I eventually started listening to death metal, black metal, or any kind of aggressive, loud, or fast music I could find.

My Wife, Step-son, and I were looking up funny commercials on YouTube one night when I told her to try to find it. We had no luck. All we found was the black and white Pioneer car stereo commercial where it shows the guy listening to his metal so loud that it's shacking the entire bridge that his car is sitting on.

Also, I'm in the midst of making a documentary about painting and I was hoping you post this preview of it….

Thanks,

Phil Mertz of Grimpressions

I want to preface this with it is not THE DAY AFTER.

Only aired once as far as I know in the early to mid '80s. Two hour special by one of the networks in the same vein as ORSON WELLES' "War of The Worlds" about a terrorist group taking hostages on a Navy vessel. Looked just like a newscast with reporters on-site and going back to the anchor for updates and experts throwing in their opinions. Whole thing ended with the terrorists detonating a nuclear warhead and then the credits rolled. Like I said, this was 30 years ago so my memory is sketchy but I do remember the disclaimers were before and after every commercial break which seemed odd because I don't remember every seeing that level of precaution every before on a "faux-newscast" type program.

I know this existed and just want to remember a name. Thank you in advance.

— M.Nelson
Evansville, IN

UNK SEZ:: I think I got it! We once got a NTT about another faux TV news broadcast (HERE) and a movie called SPECIAL BULLETIN was brought up by reader Nathan Wade as a possibility. It wasn't the right answer that day but I think it's the right answer today (Thanks Nathan!) I found SPECIAL BULLETIN available in it's entirety on Google video so check it out below and tell us if it's what you're seeking!

P.S. For a full review of SPECIAL BULLETIN look no further than our buddy JOHN KENNETH MUIR's joint HERE!

Dear Kindertrauma,

This one is coming all the way from Paris, France! I have been trying to find this movie for ten years now, and it is starting to kill me.

There's a killer Santa in it (at least, I think), which should have made my quest easier but unfortunately hasn't since I've checked all the christmas horror movies I know and still haven't found anything. Anyway, I just remember this one scene.

There's a kid, blonde I think, hiding under a kitchen table with an old telephone, as the killer Santa enters the house. The boy's dog gets killed by the guy with a wooden spoon, while the kid tries to remain silent under the table. Aaaand, that's it. That's all I remember. I've been obsessed with this scene ever since, and I hope you or the Kindertrauma readers will set me free.

Seriously though, it's killing me.

Thanks

!

Sorry if my English isn´t that impressing but I´m writing you from a far out country called Germany. The reason why I´m writing this is because of the NAME THAT TRAUMA part on your fabulous site…(…okay maybe it´s a little bit sadistic to dig out that hidden fear of boys and girls who thought they would be safe now…!)

I saw this movie…(or maybe t was a episode of some series) in the late Eighties…I think I was 5 years or so…and the story took place in an old abbey the setting of that movie had this adventure kind of style and the main actors where two kids (they could be on a quest or at least searching for something or someone, their parents maybe?)…the age in which it played seemed like the mid-ages cause they wore historical hipster stuff, potatoe-sack-style.

So the kids reach this abbey and they get friends with an older (but not a kung-fu-monk-age) monk which represented the classical type of his profession: A dark beard, a big belly, little bit drunk all the times and a big big heart…he seemed like this strange "animal-lovin´" guy from the HARRY POTTER movies that they have banned in this cabin in the woods for doing his wildlife-touching stuff…don´t remember his name but that´s not the point. Fact is: he liked the kids and the kids liked him and he offered them his help trying to find whatever they were looking for. Because of his friendly, adorable character he made himself some enemies in the abbey…bad mood monks…always praying always working, always worshipping and yelling orders. They didn´t liked it either that the kids were looking for their things behind this abbey walls. And now it comes:

The friendly monk is trying to find some arguments so the kids could stay but the other fanatics were already closing in as an "no talk-just action" mob! The lovely monk thinks they are just shitting around, tries to calm them…"no boys…what u doing? Let´s get some drinks…etc…" But it´s too late! They force a big wooden bucket over his head which seemed to be boiling water, or hot oil…so steam rises and the nice teddy-bear-buddy-guy is CRYING OUT IN TOTALLY PAIN AND AGONY…the others are laughing in the most evil way and the kids are forced to watch this scene (so did I…I remember that it was only afternoon – not the time of day for this kind of stuff)…while the wailing of the bud-spencer-monk became the silent sounds of death.

And now comes the scene which burned a image in my brain that I can hardly forget: The bad-monks are removing the bucket only to reveal the blank skull-face of the monk with the flesh still falling off..oh man…I cried because of this poor guy and realized in this moment that their must be many, many horrible ways to die in this cruel outside world. So that was the whole story…greetings from over the ocean and keep on doing this great site and the brilliant idea behind it…(if you can´t post this I understand: I believe their must be million of people out there who are trying to get behind their trauma…)

Lot´s of peace, guys!

— BARTEL-BOY

Three films & one T.V. show. I was born in 1973 and saw these between 1977 and 1980:

First one was a second part of a double feature drive-in that was a documentary about the afterlife.

The second was a possible made-for-TV movie… had a feeling of like the JOAN COLLINS' DEVIL WITHIN HER… all I remember was a dream like sequence when a mother comes out the doors of a mansion (her POV)… there is a baby carriage with balloons… I believe the idea or feeling is that the baby is dead…???

One other film… also I think made-for-TV…perhaps based on a book…in the early '80s had footprints in the sand at night… a boy and perhaps pirate ghosts…NOT THE FOG.

The TV show might have been the CHARLIE'S ANGELS in a haunted house… I remember a bulb breaking while the girls were walking up a staircase…???

Any help would be so greatly appreciated!

Love the Site!

Sincerely,

Austin M.

Hello.

I was on your site, led there by a Google search as I was trying to find the name of a movie that traumatized me as a child. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the name of the movie.

When I was young (in the very early 1970s), my father let me watch a movie on TV. I don't remember it that well, but it was a black and white movie, and the men seemed to be on some kind of spaceship. There were plant people attacking them (and the special effects were bad because the plant people were people with ivy draped around them). The plants would grow and reach out from the plant people, and sometimes when someone wasn't looking, or was asleep, then the plants would turn the normal person into a plant person.

I was so traumatized that I had trouble getting to sleep at night, and I kept waking up my parents with my nightmares. My father eventually came up with a plan: if I slept with my covers completely over my head, then when the plants dropped out of space, they wouldn't be able to get to me. (I don't know why I trusted my blankets more than I trusted the ceiling and walls.) I slept that way every night for years. Then in the early '80s, I had to read about the "Bell Witch" of East Tennessee for a school assignment. According to the book, she liked to go through the house and pull the covers off people while they slept. I was again traumatized, haunted by the thought that some witch could come along and pull my covers off, and then the plant people would get me. I was in high school by this time.

My children would like to see the original movie that has caused me so much trouble. (They are hoping that it will be on MST3K since the visual effects were so bad.) If you have any ideas what this movie could be, I would appreciate your help.

Thank you for a great web site and blog.

By the way, I'm now almost 50 years old, and I still sleep with my covers over my head.

Best wishes,

Cath

I have been trying for many years to find the black & white thriller about a woman trapped in an apartment with many ways to commit suicide, but no way out. Probably made in the '50s, I remember watching it on TV in the early '60s. But I don't even remember the names of any of the players. I just remember watching a woman try to find a way out, only to find several ways to kill herself.

Does this sound familiar to anyone at KinderTrauma?

Sure would appreciate any thoughts you might have to help me find this flick.

Thanks!

— Ed B.