Category: Name That Trauma!

Well this is going to be a tough one!

About 8-9 years ago I was visiting a friend's house and her mother was about to order a pay per view movie, MONKEYBONE to be exact.

The movie didn't start right away but rather a short film played before the feature presentation began. It was CGI animated and it was of a very creepy, abstract-looking girl running from a home I believe… I'm not entirely sure. Well she runs up to this tree and hands spring out of the bark.

I don't really remember a lot of the details because I was 8- and closed my eyes through most of it.

Sound familiar? It's been bugging me for years.

Greetings! My memory is of a TV show, possibly LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE or maybe THE WALTONS. I was born in ‘76, so I'm thinking this was in the early ‘80s or so.

There was an old man who was a traveling escape artist. From what I remember, the community gathered to watch him handcuffed or tied and put into a coffin (maybe just a wooden box) and then the box was topped with a pile of straw and set on fire. He was supposed to escape unharmed but something went wrong. I don't remember if he got out somehow or not, but I remember the townspeople frantically trying to put out the fire and the camera shot of the man inside trying to get his hands untied as the box filled with smoke.

Can anyone help me out with this?

Thanks!

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! It's looks like Aunt John's favorite repeat offender LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE was responsible for yet another trauma. Special thanks to Reader Senski for extinguishing this nightmare!

Greetings! Love the site. Visit just about every day. Love taking a trip down memory lane with all the horror and suspense movies of my youth. I can't even begin to tell you also how many great flicks I've been turned onto. Was wondering about your help with a movie that has plagued me for many years.

Was never bothered by most horror movies (or the monsters/killers) but there was this one film that has always bothered me. Not sure if it was an actual theatre movie or made-for-T.V. Saw it maybe when I was between 10-13 (am 36 now). It involved several people (possible kids) digging up a glass bottle/mason jar out of the ground. After opening it (or having it break) a vengeful spirit/demon thing caused all sorts of mayhem until they managed to trap it back in another bottle at the end of the movie.

I remember it was really creepy and had an evil edge to it and it always bothered me that you could release something so evil on accident. Any ideas folks?

Hey guys, I got a trauma that falls on the humorous side that I've been trying to locate for a few years now without any luck. Back in the 1980s HBO used to play quick funny shorts in between movies (Bambi vs Godzilla, etc…) and one of these was a spoof of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (my scariest movie as a kid). I can only recall a few bits but I'm hoping someone will recognize it.

1st Bit: In the original all the appliances in the house go crazy turning on and off when the aliens arrive. In the spoof the vacuum cleaner follows the little boy around and gobbles him up. The next scene he's thrashing around in the vacuum bag yelling, 'Let me outta here!'

2nd Bit: The famous scene in the original that was parodied was when RICHARD DREYFUSS is parked on the highway looking at his map, the mail boxes shake and his truck goes crazy. In the spoof his radio deck turns to a polka station and suddenly bubbles and streamers shoot out of the dashboard. When he looks at the mailboxes, instead of shaking they begin to bob around and sing a Motown tune (from what I recall) and if I'm not mistaken Darth Vader pulls up on a motorcycle and yells, 'You have to use the force!' then drives off.

Now I did have a vivid imagination as a kid, so I might not be specific on all this, yet if anyone knows that would be swell.

Thanks!

Mike A.

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Mike, I got some good news and I got some bad news for you. The good news is I remember this exact short, and it is called CLOSET CASES OF THE NERD KIND. The bad news is that it is long out-of-print, and although it looks like someone did try to sneak a copy of it up on the YouTubes, it was yanked for copyright violations. If it's any consolation, here's the other short you mentioned:

It's me again, the same one who told you about my fear of FRAGGLE ROCK and the THX logo! Now, I have a trauma that I don't remember much about. Here's what I remember:

Two kids were running out of a house and into some kind of van, or something like it, yelling, "We're going to the water slide! We're going to the water slide," in a sing-song kind of way. Then they look in the seats next to them and, from what I remember, they saw a bunch of school supplies next to them. That instant, they yelled, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!"

That's all I remember, since it has been a very long time since I saw it. It would be a pleasure if anyone could track this down for me.

Love,

Jeffrey P.

O.K. not to be greedy… but there is a movie I saw as a kid, and it was a movie not a T.V. movie, and I think BOGART was in it. There were children on a ship (and this is like British navy, 19th century or a pirate from that era I think) and one falls from the rigging and dies, again with blood out of the nose. I guess that nosebleed death thing really got to me as a kid!

I have sort of searched through BOGART filmography and haven't really turned up anything, so I may be wrong about him, but there was definitely a ‘40s early ‘50s feel to the film and there were (orphan?) children on a ship. I think someone gets hanged in it as well.

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Reader Senski truly is the captain of the S.S. Trauma for steering us towards A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA.

This is what I remember.

In the late 1950s, I went to the movies with my older siblings; was dumped, so they could go off with their friends. I watched this movie 'alone' in a theater with a crowd of people:

Group has built a rocket, to go to the moon. There they will build a moon base. This base has several domes. Funds are cut. Project canceled. Ordered to shut down. Small meteor-like rocks are seen falling to earth on their radar. Investigation finds that the rocks explode and an alien gets inside the human and kills or takes over their body. Further investigation finds an identical moon base has been built on Earth. It is call a soup factory. Humans who have been taken over by the alien run this factory. They give tours, where humans are thrown into a vat to feed the alien, who looks like THE BLOB. Group with the rocket blast off the rocket to destroy the alien in the 'soup factory.' The base is destroyed, but, THE BLOB-like alien is set loose. It terrorized me. Finally it was killed. This movie was set in a country where the police sirens sounded like "it was Great Britain."

So did I image this? Is it a combination of scary movies I saw, that I did not want to see? I have searched for this film. I don't have nightmares anymore, BUT I did for too many years. Can anybody help me find the name of this film?

Thanks,

Susan

UPDATE: Name That Trauma SOLVED! Special thanks to Reader Senski for knowing that this Blob came from 1957's QUARTERMASS 2.

Given my fascination with LOST (and just about any time travel/time loop story), I have spent too much time Googling and hunting for a film that help contribute to the oddity that I am today. All I remember is that a team of scientists were in some sort of space/jungle station and they kept reliving the same scenes over and over again until someone managed to break the time loop. I remember a computer that had one large center light (or possibly an eyeball.) Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

UNK SEZ: Jim M., time traveling scientists in the jungle? I'm no help, all my pea brain can come up with is PREHISTORIC GLAMAZON HUNTRESS: A.D.!

I've been reading your site for a long time now and decided to finally submit this burning name-that-trauma question of my own: Sometime during the early 1980's, I was traumatized by what must have been some kind of after-school special or something that ended with a too-gruesome-for-daytime-T.V. moment. The show or T.V. movie was about a kid who made some bad choices and got mixed up either with a gang or drugs or both. The only part I remember vividly was near the end, when the young hero found himself lying on the pavement with a gaping stab wound in his side. I'm pretty sure there was some kind of montage or voice over here that was all about how much he regretted the choices that had led him to this sorry end, but mostly I just remember that gaping, red stab wound. It was probably much more tame than I remember it, but as a young lad it haunted me for years. (Maybe it worked! I never did join a street gang!)

Perhaps one of your readers can identify this after-school trauma special.

Cheers,

Shane

UNK SEZ: Aunt John and I have thought hard about this, but we have only come to one conclusion; the after-school special you are looking for is probably not this one….

Okay, let me repeat what EVERYONE is saying…I love this site!

Anyhow, this is a long shot and if anyone can come up with this I will personally award SOMETHING whether material or online…because I have searched myself into oblivion…this has bothered me since I was about 9 or 10 years old and I am now 36…PLEASE!

I believe it was an HBO Short Take…around the early ‘80s (of course)….anyhow, it is a short cartoon about this little kid who is in a room. On the other side of the room is this doorknob that sparkles at him…taunting him to open it…but every time the kid tries, the door is locked. Next thing you know, he's a teen, the doorknob sparkles and teases him, but he still can't open it. Finally, he grows into an old man who is now literally INSANE because of this door…he can't open it but it keeps sparkling and taunting him to open it…the old man beats and screams psychotically at the door until finally he starts to keel over from either old age or a heart attack…and right when he is about to die, the door creeks open, and the man's eyes grow big as if saying "YES! FINALLY!"…but he dies.

All of a sudden, the door sloooowly swings open and it's an old fashioned in-door ironing board that unfolds and flops open.

Sounds lame, I know, but when you are about 10 years old and this psycho is freaking out, screaming, it sticks with you. I was scared for sooooo long…someone? Anyone? HELP…I need to conquer this! Thanks…

UPDATE: Name That Trauma SOLVED! Special thanks to Reader Tychoanomaly for unlocking the mystery of ROOM & BOARD: