Category: Name That Trauma!

I vividly remember a movie from my youth that scared me so much I had to call mom to help me watch the rest of it.

I just tried to find the title and info about it but failed.

I thought it was THE THING WITH TWO HEADS with RAY MILLAND but the synopsis says that a doctor transplanted a head onto a guy.

The movie I saw has a guy growing a second head. It started as an eye growing in his shoulder and grew into a complete second head! (I thing the guy splits in two later in the movie.)

The scary part, for me, was the "monster" behind the door! He shook the door so violently in the evil doctor's laboratory that it scared me.

Thanks,

Richard

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Big ups to Name That Trauma champ Senski who knew that this was from THE MANSTER.

Hi,

First of all, I would like to tell you that I LOVE your site!!! I visit on a daily basis and rejoice in reading what scared the shit out of other people when they were little. I have, thankfully, been able to nail down all the stuff that affected me at a tender age except for the one I'm about to describe. I'm curious to know if you or your readers can help me discover the name of this movie.

This was in the mid ‘70s, so I was about 6 or 7 years old. It was Halloween night, my favorite holiday, but I had the flu so I couldn't go out trick or treating. Instead, I lay on the couch at home watching horror movies that were airing on our local station. This one film I watched terrified me, but I don't know the name of it. Here's what I remember:

It was a Frankenstein's monster film. I'm pretty certain it was a HAMMER HORROR film from the ‘60s or early ‘70s. I think PETER CUSHING was in it, but I can't be sure. Anyway, some mad scientist has an aquarium filled with water in his lab. In that tank is a man's severed arm. For some reason, he takes the arm out of the tank and shows it to another man. The scientist instructs that man to touch the arm, but the other man is afraid to. After a bit of prodding, the man finally touches the arm and suddenly the hand of the arm comes alive, grabs the man's wrist, and won't let go!

I have always been creeped out by still-moving severed limbs, or elongated limbs (ala Freddy Krueger's arms stretching across the alley in A.N.O.E.S.), and this movie scared the crap out of me. My mom made me turn it off so I never got to finish watching, and I've never seen this film again. Please help if you can.

Thank you,

Kiddofunk

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to Reader highacorns for realizing it was Frankenstein: The True Story (1973).

Oh, I hope someone knows the name of this movie from the sparse details I remember … caught this flick on T.V. in the late ‘80s. Most likely it is from the ‘70s or early ‘80s and it's about a child or children being raped/sexually assaulted in a play house in the backyard.

The images that stood out in my memory are that of a swing in the child's bedroom or nursery, the presence of Raggedy Ann dolls and I think a moment of repressed memories resurfacing years later when returning to the play house.

I think the title had the word "house" or "home" in it. There may have been some woods behind the house too.

I have racked my brain trying to remember the title or the name of a character and I have been combing through a list of over 3,000 movies at IMDb that fit into this criteria, but half of the titles don't even have a plot description. Any clue what movie this is? It's killing me!

Thanks,

Rose J.

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to Reader saladbar for solving it with the made-for-T.V. flick A TASTE OF EVIL.

Hi!

I was hoping you, or one of your readers could help me with this movie I remember from my childhood (I was maybe 8 or 9 years old, and would rent VHS tapes from the local Video Gallery's horror section like crazy). It was from the ‘80s, and it was a collection of short films, like CREEPSHOW, or TALES FROM THE CRYPT. I remember the wrap-around story had something to do with a guy who rented a video tape, and is talking with his buddy on the phone to come over and watch with him (not sure if he ever did or not).

I only remember two of the stories. One dealt with a guy who was fishing in a small pond, hooks a small fish, and tosses it back. Later in the piece, he sees an apple on the ground, takes a bite, and gets hooked, and dragged into the lake. I wanna say it was called "The Little Fishy" or something.

The second tale had a delivery guy who is driving through a small town looking for Highway 29 (or something like that). He asks a guy on a porch, though he won't give him the directions until he takes time to have a cup of coffee. The driver refuses, possibly insults him, and for the rest of the piece, proceeds to go in every direction looking for this highway, never finding it, but constantly coming back to the guy who offered him coffee.

I know I'm not insane, and just dreamt those up. But unfortunately, NOBODY knows what the Hell I'm talking about!

Thanks, and here's hoping somebody can help figure it out.

Chris

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Reader Senski came to the rescue again with 1986's VINCENT PRICE-helmed ESCAPES.

Aunt and Unc;

This is why this site continues to amaze me; in that, not only have I seen the common traumas that we seem to have all shared, but now and again, I see the "obscure; this could only be something I would remember" type. It's uncanny, actually.

I never knew the name of the song, Angie Baby. What I remembered was a cartoon video to a song, but it contradicted itself in that music videos didn't come out for at least another 15 years. It was very repetitive, and about a girl who turned down a radio and shrunk some guy, who was never seen again.

And lo and behold, there it is. I knew it from the first five seconds, honestly.

My traumas, and I've written quite a few now, were never the blood and gore related ones, since I don't think we ever gravitated towards that kind of fare. They were always the "uneasiness from within a familiar niche" type, much like this innocuous cartoon, that, even though bound by nature to its friendly kid fodder media, churned out something unsettling.

Nowadays, I would think all bets are off, as far more gruesome and shocking cartoons can be seen any given day.

But since now the gauntlet has been dropped, I'm going to throw out my last challenge if you care to dredge this one up, or see if any others know what I'm talking about. It's probably the silliest one yet, but it's old, and hard to find. And if this one gets a hit, and someone can verify it, I will regard this as the Mecca of all sites, and retire from my submissions thoroughly satisfied, and eternally grateful.

This comes from the TONY ORLANDO AND DAWN days…and is from a variety show of the early ‘70s, probably somewhat musical, and probably comedy. My first choice is the SMOTHERS BROTHERS, although it may be LAUGH-IN or one of those. It was on at night.

There is a skit where someone is singing a ditty about some guy, who at least for part of the song, is in a grocery store. Maybe the guy is henpecked, or feels guilty of something…it was more for adults I would wager. You don't see the singer, just the guy acting out the song. There is a laugh-track, or a studio audience somehow present.

Anyway, he's shopping for groceries, thinking about whatever the song is about, and the singer delivers the line (paraphrased) until he saw his mother's face in the cauliflower…

The camera zooms in a head of cauliflower, and they (in ‘70s style) superimpose two eyes and a set of lips, which sings the rest of the song in a nagging awful voice. The super-imposing isn't good, and wobbles around, and the eyes and lips kind of move around as it sings. I don't think the eyes and mouth were from the same super-imposing…since they didn't line up to each other, making it even worse.

It looked hideous. I'm guessing 1970 on this one. I was no older than 4 or 5.

Bigwig

UNK SEZ: BIgwig, I may be wrong but something tells me that this trauma may be lost in the sands of time forever; but think of it this way, if you were watching a seventies variety program and the most traumatic thing you saw was a talking cabbage, then you my friend got off easy…

Hi there, I just stumbled across your site the other day and I'm loving it! I've got a Name That Trauma that I've been wondering about for the past 30 years. Wow, typing that just made me even more aware of my own mortality. But that's another trauma.

The one in question was a series of animated shorts that came on PBS sometime in the mid-to-late ‘70s. I must have been about 5 and my sister and I were at my aunt and uncle's house and were left with our cousins in a spare bedroom to watch "cartoons". Well, the first one starts off nice and pleasant as a man goes frolicking around in a field catching butterflies in a net for his collection back home. He pins them into his little display box and they look very pretty, besides, bugs don't have feeling, right? Right?

Cut to his next collection session and out of nowhere, a huge, school bus sized butterfly swoops down and snatches him up by the scruff of his neck. As he struggles, the giant, animated Monarch flings him onto a thorn of an incredibly large flower impaling him! As he slides down further onto the huge thorn, we are panned back to see all the other unfortunate human specimens in the butterfly's collection.

There was another one with a guy cutting off the top of his own head and putting his brain in the refrigerator or something, but it was the butterfly one that really got me. Hopefully you can help me figure out just what the hell these demented shorts were!

Thanks and keep up the disturbing work,

Jeff R.

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! It appears to be a short from the International Festival of Animation.

Hello:

I've been looking for this ‘80s horror movie for a long time.

So, teenager boy moves into a new school and neighborhood. There's an accident and one of the kids dies; so he starts to investigate, suspicious that it was murder. Soon, he discovers that most of the town people are these elastic-flesh monsters – including his dream girl (that is not as mean as the others) and her whole family. These people consume normal humans in rituals where their flesh becomes very elastic (gooey), and they absorb it. In one of the scenes, the father is with the wife and daugther in bed, and he sticks his head out of the daughters butt or something like that (gross); the teen fights the elastic flesh monster "party."

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Carlos

UNK SEZ: I know this one, it has to be the first film from director BRIAN YUZNA, 1989's SOCIETY! What a weird flick! It's a bit clunky in places but the special effects from SCREAMING MAD GEORGE are awe inspiring. I'm pretty prone to loving any film that involves a secret cult, so a flick about a secret cult that is made out of silly putty and devours those less fortunate than themselves is aces in my book!

NOTE: The brave amongst you can watch SOCIETY's climax HERE!

Firstly great site!

Secondly, I have a kindertrauma that's been haunting me FOREVER!!

It was either part of an anthology or a movie or part of a series but it starts with these group of men who go to a summer house (I'm pretty sure it was set in the '30s or '40s and all the men are on a break from college and are all wearing wicker hats and those stripey blazers. Anyway, they end up coming across this doll (a porcelain doll I think) and one by one the doll kills them all. In one of the death scenes one of the men is in bed and the bedroom door is closed with light shining through under the bottom, then you see two small feet (the doll's) appear as shadows.

Cut to the ending and I'm pretty sure the last remaining bloke is left to dispose of the doll, they stuff it in a picnic hamper and he loads it into the back of his car and just as you think everything's alright and he'll get out of it, the camera pans out from the car driving away and it begins to veer off into the side of the road indicating that the doll got him…

I know it's a long shot but this petrified me for years and still to this day I cannot remember what it was, but I'd love to see it again.

Thanks,

Em

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to Reader DavidFullam for recognizing it as STEPHEN WEEKS' GHOST STORY (a.k.a ASYLUM).

Okay…so usually I'm pretty good at figuring out the…"what the hell was that thing I saw on T.V. as a kid…" game.

However…there is one (well 3 actually…) that have been bugging me for years!

Okay…so unfortunately I only remember 2 scenes from this movie.

It was on television around 1985 or so because I don't think I could have been older than 4 or 5.

The first scene I remember is a brother and sister with a group of their friends. There is an old abandoned house and perhaps they're on the roof? Anyway…they all keep daring each other to go inside and finally the brother creeps in through a window.

He sees something inside that terrifies him and when it shows him again he has hair turned white.

The following scene is the next morning…the brother and sister are sitting at the breakfast table with their father. We now learn the boy has also turned mute.

Aaaaand that's all I've retained =P

Anyway…have an awesome day and keep up the great work on your blog!

It helps my day go by so much faster <3

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Hmmm Hayden (see what I did there?), I honestly have no idea what this movie is. The original PROM NIGHT initially came to mind, with its horseplay gone awry in an abandoned setting, but nobody turned gray or mute in that one, just homicidal on the dance floor.

What I do know is that I straight up adore the cavalcade of Kindertraumatic masks prominently featured in Hayden's (& Jacob's) video for Bioluminescense:

To hear more from The Hmmm, check 'em out HERE, and if anyone knows the name of Hayden's trauma, you know what to do:

I'm looking for a movie from the '80s or maybe the '90s where a teen or a guy in his twenties builds a futuristic gun or laser type weapon and in the end is killed. Seems the gun had a pack that went with it and it was black. The kid who possessed it had long dark hair, looked like some rocker kid and seem like his family life wasn't very good either. Sorry I can't describe it more except that I doubt highly it was a comedy. Thanks!

UNK SEZ: Rick G, I was pretty sure you were talking about 1978's LASERBLAST until you mentioned the character having long dark hair. Sorry I could not help you but at least you have given me the excuse to post the LASERBLAST video below…(as you can see this laser toting dude has blonde hair). Hopefully one of our readers can help you better than I!