kindertrauma

Category: Special Guest Stars

Traumafessions :: Filmmaker Chris Moore On Suspiria

Posted on By unkle lancifer

SUSPIRIA came to me a little later in life, around 9 or 10 years old, but it left me with the same lingering fear that (my previous traumafession) did. I discovered it in an issue of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY's 50 (or was it 100?) scariest movies of all time. It sounded interesting and had a black & white picture of STEFANIE CASINI tangled in barbed wire, which, at the time, I thought was simply a woman hiding in some very tall grass.

I rented the VHS from my local video store after school on Friday and popped it in. After the first 15 minutes, I had to turn it off. I was scared out of my mind. It was just so brutal…and yet beautiful and surreal…and confusing. It felt like every nightmare I had ever had. At that point, I became a DARIO ARGENTO fan for life. For the first time, I had seen an expression of my nightmares on film. It was phenomenal and truly scary.

As a kid, I had many nightmares similar to SUSPIRIA. I know many people say we dream in black & white, but I don't believe that at all…not after seeing SUSPIRIA. My dreams consisted of similar color schemes, velvet curtains, long corridors, evil witches, strange music, people acting odd, things not making sense…everything SUSPIRIA had to offer. Actually, I even remember having a dream that looked and felt almost exactly like the ARGENTO produced, DEMONS! It took place in an old theatre and everything, but I was only 3 or 4 years old when I had this dream. Spooky, eh?

It's probably one of the main reasons why I wanted to become a filmmaker. If audiences have embraced DARIO ARGENTO's nightmares, maybe they'll embrace mine!

UNK SEZ: Thanks CHRIS! I could not agree with you more about the power of SUSPIRIA! Folks, CHRIS' movie PERVERSION is now available to watch anytime you like on Amazon Instant Video HERE! Check it out!

Kinterview :: Candle Cove Creator Kris Straub

Posted on By unkle lancifer

The other day while trying to hunt down a "Name That Trauma!" I came across several mentions of a local television show from the early seventies entitled CANDLE COVE. The show seemed to have left a hefty impression on the unfortunate young souls who made a habit of watching it. CANDLE COVE was about a little girl named Janice and her interactions with a group of pirates that were portrayed by cheap looking puppets. For a kid's show, CANDLE COVE was dark and twisted in a way that only a seventies show could get away with. There was even a villain named "The Skin Taker" and his cape appeared to be sewn together pieces of-you guessed it… skin. How had I never heard of CANDLE COVE before and why did it sound slightly familiar anyway? Finally I found a conversational thread that seemed to verify the existence of this highly kindertraumatic creation. Please take a moment and read it HERE.

…Did you read it? Don't lie to me. Okay, so it turns out that CANDLE COVE was never really a show at all but spawned from a work of short fiction written by one KRIS STRAUB. Something about KRIS' creation stuck a cord with the Internet and now CANDLE COVE is beginning to crystallize into a modern urban legend of sorts right before our eyes. Some refuse to believe that it never existed and some believe that they have witnessed it themselves. You have to admit after reading that thread that it doesn't sound too far off from the conversations we have here at Kindtrauma, with different people remembering different bits until finally something solid takes form. I think the last comment that closes KRIS' piece is brilliant. It captures just how diabolical and intrusive these vague memories from childhood can sometimes feel. I'm happy to say that I was able to track down KRIS for a short interview for you guys so here it is!

UNK: I almost didn't want to reveal CANDLE COVE as a work of fiction but then I realized that no matter how many times that fact is put out there, some people refuse to believe that it's not real. What's it like to know that something you created has taken on a life of its own and in such a relatively short amount of time?

KRIS STRAUB: At first I wasn't aware that it had happened at all. I had a horror fiction site, ICHOR FALLS, where I posted CANDLE COVE initially, and it ended up shared without my knowledge at much more popular horror fiction sites, where it reached a much bigger audience. I know 4chan helped to spread it around. The first time I saw people re-enacting the story, post for post, to scare an unsuspecting forum, I was so gratified. I kind of wrote it just to get the idea out of my head.

One of the things that I think let it take on a life of its own is how vague it is, and how earnest the show seems to be before all the scary stuff is revealed. So many things that scare us as kids start from this innocuous desire to entertain children, but it's produced carelessly, or some special effect comes out way more ponderous or ugly than the creators intended, and it lingers as we, as children, try to make it fit with our limited understanding of the world. I think we have all been disturbed by shows and movies that have failed us in that way.

UNK: CANDLE COVE has inspired fan videos, fan fiction, music and a Facebook page promising a future movie. What addition to the CANDLE COVE legend have you been most taken aback by?

KRIS STRAUB: I like that people are excited about the story, but I get nervous when I see someone trying to make a film or their own CANDLE COVE books and stories. One of the good and bad things about how quick the story became an urban legend is that people really do think it's an urban legend with no origin and no author. Fan work is great, but I'm very torn about balancing the fact that it is copyrighted and I do own the story, with the idea that it is in the nature of the story to be spread, namelessly, in dark corners of the internet. I know that serves the mythos way more than me being a litigious dick about it.

As far as being taken aback, I never know how serious Rule 34 is. The rule of the internet that states that if it's a thing, then there's porn of it on the internet. So there's some sexy CANDLE COVE stuff out there that I hope was made as a personal self-challenge, and not a real, living desire to see Horace Horrible get it on with the Skin-Taker.

UNK: Can you tell us a little bit about your website ICHOR FALLS and the inspirations behind CANDLE COVE?

KRIS STRAUB: ICHOR FALLS is a collection of stories revolving around a fictional West Virginia town of the same name. I started writing them out of a love of Lovecraftian horror — not horror where someone gets chopped up, but where someone is made to realize that they don't really understand the forces that drive the world, but they've seen too much of the truth. I also came to love the short stories of STEVEN MILLHAUSER, who doesn't write horror per se, but creates these little universes where one good idea is taken too far, and then he takes it even further. Most of them are really unsettling.

Believe it or not, CANDLE COVE was specifically inspired by an old article on THE ONION: "Area 36-Year-Old Still Has Occasional Lidsville Nightmare." It's so accurate. I don't know what dark entities SID & MARTY KROFFT spent time in the thrall of, but everything they made to entertain kids is tinged with this unearthly, utterly alien sensibility. I looked up the call letters for a TV station in that area of West Virginia and the names of nearby towns, and it lent the story a little verisimilitude.

UNK: I feel like you could take this idea as far as you like. Do you have anything in store for the future as far as CANDLE COVE and its burgeoning mythos?

KRIS STRAUB: It's tough! I started to get really excited in continuing the mythos, but I think CANDLE COVE works because it is brief and vague and interrupted. I think to put a name or face to whatever is behind the making of the show is to spoil the magic. I always appreciated THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT for never showing us the witch. A CGI monster can never be as scary as what we invent in our own minds as a placeholder.

I have an idea keeping with the forum-post format, that involves someone asking around an auction site like eBay for the original tapes. There have also been some fan attempts to debunk CANDLE COVE (which always happens quickly, especially if people see this interview), but I'd like to write a whole meta-novella where someone decides to publish their attempts to expose CANDLE COVE and finds more than they were expecting.

UNK: Last but not least, I've got to try and get a traumafession out of you. What was the first movie, TV show, etc. that you remember being truly terrified of as kid?

KRIS STRAUB: I think I have a good one. There was an ABC AFTERSCHOOL SPECIAL from the '80s, "Cousin Kevin," about this little bespectacled kid whose imagination was too real for the babysitter. There's one sequence where Cousin Kevin is imagining that they're in the Arctic, and they're attacked by "30-foot-tall carnivorous killer penguins." They were stop-motion-animated by the Chiodo Bros., I remember that. All the effects were.

So Kevin and his babysitter escape and hide in a tiny igloo, and the penguin breaks it open easily, and Kevin says "watch out for their acid saliva!" and this huge fake penguin beak oozes steaming slime on the babysitter as he struggles and screams and begs for Kevin to end the fantasy. The whole scene is so nightmarish and claustrophobic! It wrecked me for months. There are more moments like that I'm sure, but it's the only one I can remember. I would give anything to find that episode again.

UNK: Thanks KRIS for the interview and for CANDLE COVE. I have to admit that somewhere in the back of my mind I'm still not convinced that it wasn't real either. Kids, Make sure you step insde KRIS' permanent residence KRISSTRAUB.COM to see all the other cool stuff pouring out of his head!

Traumafessions :: Jose Cruz of Mephisto's Castle on Deadly Dummies

Posted on By unkle lancifer

What is it about ventriloquist dummies that seem to scare people so? Is it their dwarfish human-like bodies, their wooden ligaments grotesquely moving in a mockery of life? Is it the cruel turn of their painted lips, the gleam of their wide, staring eyes? Or is it the fact that their purpose is to sit in one's lap, granting them the perfect opportunity to wrap their cold, hard fingers around your throat… laughing all the while?

I know I'm not the only one with this affliction. I've seen a few Traumafessions here already dedicated to the topic of those firewood automatons. So, why then, do people seem to cringe and shudder at the sight of those ghastly puppets sitting in faux innocence on a shelf or under a stage light's glare? To be honest, I couldn't tell you. What I can tell you is that they've terrified me all my life. And they show no sign of stopping.

I believe my first memory of animated marionettes came to me while watching television with the family one afternoon. There was a clip from what I believed for the longest time was MAGIC, but later discovered to be the cheapie British chiller THE DEVIL DOLL. I distinctly remember seeing that little bastard Hugo in crackling black and white, his beady little eyes narrowed with murderous intent and a dagger in his crafted hand. "No, Hugo!" his master commanded. Slowly, the dummy withdrew his weapon and I withdrew into the cushions of the couch. If I hadn't been officially traumatized before then, I was now.

My elementary school library was not any help at all. During this time the GOOSEBUMPS series was all the rage, and it was these that helped foster my love for horror fiction. But though I could easily brave the horrors of MONSTER BLOOD and even face down the REVENGE OF THE LAWN GNOMES, there was one that I simply would not touch. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DUMMY. Or as I thought of it, NIGHT OF THE SLEEPLESS BOY. Slappy the Dummy sealed the deal for me, and the cover of his respective volume was enough to scare me when picking it off the shelf, let alone considering reading the damn thing.

Full-on evil was manifested in that diabolically grinning face, his blood-red lips lining pearly oak teeth that I knew would eagerly chomp at my fingers and toes if I wasn't careful reaching into dark closets or getting out of bed. As cheated as I might have felt to discover that the actual book only contained a cameo appearance by the demonic dummy at the very end (?!), that cover was enough to tell me all the horrible stories I needed.

It didn't stop there. I was continuously haunted by these monsters, and even a peaceful lunch of PB&J couldn't stop the shivery horrors of "The Dummy" episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE from descending upon me. This was my first full viewing of a living-dummy story and I can never forget it. Even in the gleaming sunshine I was cold with terror, jumping every time that ringing, acidic cackle of the mischievous Willy erupted in Cliff Robertson's, and my own, paranoid mind.

Seeing Willy's eerie silhouette on the wall was a looming threat, a threat that I could hear lil' Willy himself whispering in my ear, "I know you see me, Jose. I want to let you know that I see you too. But you won't see me. Not at night, when I come to find you."

And still they persisted me. Even a film as unfortunately flawed as DEAD SILENCE can still get to me, still send waves of goosebumps down my arms. Walking down corridors, I can't help but wonder if that groaning creak I just heard was a stressed floorboard… or perhaps the sound of a dummy's foot stalking my shadow.

Who is it this time? Is it MICHAEL REDGRAVE's homicidal familiar from DEAD OF NIGHT (1945)? Is it the knife-wielding fiend from THE DUMMY ? Whatever foul creature it may be, they still bring on the trauma in me with the glint of their ceaseless smiles and the nod of their oiled throats. When I see them, I hear a sound, one that chills the marrow in my bones and makes me want to curl up in a sweating, terrified ball.

It's the sound of laughter in the dark.

UNK SEZ: Thanks Jose for sharing this ultimate ventriloquist dummy traumafesion! Folks, as long as you don't happen to be an animated ventriloquist dummy you are welcome to join Jose over at his main haunt MEPHISTO'S CASTLE as often as you please HERE! Tell 'em "Slappy" sent you!

Traumafessions :: Carole Lanham, Author of "The Whisper Jar" on Dolls Gone Wild

Posted on By aunt john

carole lanham

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Kids, gather around and give a big Kindertrauma welcome to Carole Lanham, author of the forthcoming must-read "The Whisper Jar." More on her new book in a minute, as Carole has kindly agreed to share with us her very own traumafession!

Take it away Carole:

It was going to be the greatest night ever. My friend Tammy and I had decided to camp in a tent in her backyard. We hammered down the stakes and shoved our pillows in through the zipper, and then we made a dangerous mistake. Instead of climbing into our sleeping bags while things were all rosy, we sat down to watch an episode of NIGHT GALLERY with Tammy's mom. The Doll, it was called. It goes without saying that dark tents and dolls with scary teeth make for terrible bedfellows. Alas, we were only about ten years old at the time (ever notice how many traumafessions feature kids who are about ten years old?) and so we had yet to learn that rather important life lesson.

"Don't worry," Tammy's mom said, after ROD SERLING and a levitating oil painting of a rag doll with a skull melting out of its head had bid us a decidedly troubling goodnight. "Dolls almost never bite." With an encouraging shove, she sent us out the backdoor, turned off the light, and left us to face the forbidding black triangle of our tent alone.

We couldn't stop thinking about it, of course. Couldn't get the mascara-smeared eyes of The Doll out of our heads to save our souls! We turned on a radio, hoping for some relief, but the DJ, swear to God, was talking about a possible Big Foot sighting. Big foot! This was distracting at least, but not in a good way. There was nothing to do but click on our flashlights and take a trip around the block. Someone had to ensure that there were no creatures with big feet and/or crazy-haired dolls prowling about the neighborhood.

When we got back in the tent, we felt safer and started saying things to each other like, "This is the life, eh?" and "That Eric Brown sure is cute!" but it's hard to enjoy a cozy sleeping bag and a good crush when you're under the spell of a creepy doll. Next thing we know, strange shadows are circling our tent and there is a weird sound not unlike the sound of the clacking teeth of The Doll. We huddled together, our brains swimming with the NIGHT GALLERY theme music and vivid images of fez hats, fireplace pokers, and doll-bitten skin dancing before our eyes in the wonderful world of color. The clacking clacked closer. After much panicked deliberation over how we might transform our supply of Doritos and tampons into a proper weapon, the clacking dissolved into the stupid girlie giggles of the stupid neighbor boys.

That was one long night.

Sad to say, I had not learned my lesson about dolls yet. Many years later, writer Richard Matheson tried to teach me once and for all, by way of KAREN BLACK.

The film was called TRILOGY OF TERROR and the first two stories were mysterious and fun, but for my money they might just as well have dropped the trilogy and the of and called it straight up singular terror since the last segment is the one that makes grown men wet their pants. It's definitely the one that sticks.

I had never seen this film until recently so you'd think I'd be wiser this time around. Well, I wasn't dumb enough to plan a camp-out for that same night, that's for sure, but I did sit down to watch the movie with my kids just as a storm was moving in.

Same dif.

Come bedtime, my daughter (about ten at the time) had no better luck forgetting the doll in this movie than I did forgetting the one on NIGHT GALLERY. Throw in the fact that she's scared stiff of thunderstorms even on a Pixar night and it's probably clear why I should keep away from bad dolls at all cost. Not a wink of sleep was had by either of us, and if you've ever seen the Zuni fetish doll in this movie, you know why. Without meaning to do it, I had given my daughter her own dolly traumafession.

Don't let the cover of this movie fool you. It looks like the font is the scariest thing about it so that's probably why I ignored the thunder and turned it on. Matheson changed the name of his doll story from Prey to Amelia when he wrote the script, to go along with the fact that KAREN BLACK was playing a different woman in each of the three segments. Prey says it better. Even as an adult, I huddled up with my family, wincing and jumping as Amelia and the doll had showdowns in the bathtub and the oven and the living room. There's a missing carving knife that provides for a lot of suspense, and a horrifying bit involving a suitcase that for some reason made me squirm more than all the rest. There are no real special effects to speak of but the film holds up because the story is truly terrifying.

After all this time, you would think I'd know better than to play with dolls, but I'm afraid I still have a thing for them. I'm planning a scary doll give-away when my book comes out and this is purely due to the fact that I was damaged all those years ago by people like Algernon Blackwood, who wrote the short story that The Doll was based on, and Richard Matheson's Prey. Scary stuff!

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Thanks for sharing that Carole. I feel your trauma as my own kid sister suffers from extreme pediophobia, a condition I might have used to my advantage on numerous occasions when we were kids. But I digress… I really want to talk about Carole's new book "The Whisper Jar" (available Monday, October 31st in print or pre-order now, in electronic format via Morrigan Books).

Just in time for Halloween, "The Whisper Jar" is an anthology of seven short stories and two poems which all feature, in Kindertrauma parlance, traumatots grappling with the supernatural and the mundane. As Unkle Lancifer will be the first to attest, I have a very limited attention span and the idea of reading for pleasure is a luxury I rarely enjoy since I can't sit still long enough. I am the fidgety type who can barely make it through a movie without having to check email, smoke a cigarette, or, well, fall asleep.

Such was not the case when I embarked on "The Whisper Jar." As evidenced by her traumafession above, Carole knows how to turn a phrase, if you will, and I was sucked right into her fantastic world of slightly-off child protagonists. Some are dealing with sibling vampires; some are vying for the undivided attention of a pixie; and one has to come to the heart-breaking realization that nuns at her orphanage were less than truthful about her lineage. Honestly, Flannery O'Conner came to mind when I read the orphanage story "The Blue Word." There is a definite moment of grace, and the final path to salvation is nothing short of heart breaking.

One last thing about Carole's collection; "Maxwell Treat's Museum of Torture for Young Girls and Boys" seriously begs for a small or silver screen adaptation. There is a powerful overarching theme of parental loss and Carole places her tragically displaced protagonist with one of the quirkiest families ever, one that includes three brothers who have the gumption to erect a museum devoted to archaic torture devices and two parents who fully support them in this endeavor. I want to live there!

OK, I am done. To read more by Carole Lanham, be sure to check her out at THE HORROR HOMEMAKER , her personal site, and snag a copy of "The Whisper Jar" HERE.

carole lanham

Name That Trauma :: Kinderpal Brother Bill of The Haunted Closet on a Creepy Crack

Posted on By aunt john

After lurking at Kindertrauma for several years, I FINALLY have a Name That Trauma request worthy of the site. I've had a run of good luck tracking down spooky books and films that haunted me as a child, from the haunted house oral hygiene film I saw in 2nd grade (The Haunted Mouth), to the pair of creepy anthology books I used to check out from the school library (Roger Elwood's Monster Tales and Horror Tales), the classroom vandalism film that never let go of my soul (The Boy Who Liked Deer) and the disturbing image of an exotic dancer biting off the head of a live snake that I needed to exorcise from my subconscious (Stanley!)

But there is one fragment of a memory from early childhood that I've never been able to locate. A short animated piece (I remember sparse black-and-white line drawings) where a little girl or boy is in the bedroom and a crack on the wall starts moving, talking, and forming different shapes. I remember it finally formed a monstrous, scary face, before freezing and becoming just a crack in the wall again. I want to say this was on SESAME STREET or ELECTRIC COMPANY, but not sure. This would have been in the early-to-mid '70s.

In my own search on-line, I find reference to this film in talkbalk conversations by other people also desperate to identify it (the consensus seems to be it was from SESAME STREET, possibly called "Crack Master") but no one is 100% sure, nor does anyone have a screen capture or video clip of the film… any help?

Thanks, Kindertrauma!

— Brother Bill

The Haunted Closet

Traumafessions :: wellyousaythat© on Automatonophobia & Other Side Effects of Watching Dead of Night

Posted on By aunt john

You want trauma? I've got trauma; 1945's DEAD OF NIGHT. Known for its segment starring MICHAEL REDGRAVE as an unhinged ventriloquist this portmanteau of terror was, it's fair to say, my childhood nemesis.

Dissected

It's got the lot: a ventriloquist dummy (never a scarier artifact in the light entertainment business), premonitions of death, a psychiatrist, Victorian ghosts, haunting, a sinister undertaker, a supernatural mirror, murder, horror at a children's party, fatal accidents and a twist at the ending.

The children's party is a harsh reminder of the dangers of wandering off as a child; even in the comparative safety of a sedate Christmas party. The Dorian Gray-esque segment is creepy in the extreme in its portrayal of vanity, and the Grim Reaper taps on an unsuspecting chap's shoulder to chilling effect. There is some light relief in a story about death and golf, but this is just false hope that things may lighten up.

Truly horrifying prison sequence

The ventriloquist story is, in itself, a clear example of the evil that lurks inside these pint-sized plaster and paint artificial humans.

The film was responsible for many a sleepless night and is a major factor in my aversion to all things ventriloquy. I also would be averse to any type of wandering in other people's houses, and think twice before getting on the local bus.

DEAD OF NIGHT was absolutely bowel opening in its eerie and terrifying atmosphere and content. A childhood memory revived by a recent viewing. And guess what? It's still scary!

The awful truth

— wellyousaythat©

Streaming Alert! :: Kinderpal Mickster on Jack's Back (1988)

Posted on By kinderpal mickster

UNK SEZ: Aunt John and I have gone fishing but don't worry, as I was able to coax everybody's Kinderpal Mickster into recommending one of her faves for you. Thanks Mickster!

MICKSTER SEZ: Netflix isn't the only place that offers obscure horror movies instantly. Hulu.com is another good source for instant streaming. The best part is that Hulu.com is free. The only caveat is that you have to watch commercials every ten to fifteen minutes; however, it is worth it when you come across a movie that has not been released on DVD. This brings me to my recommendation for the week, JACK'S BACK (1988). I first discovered this little known gem on USA's UP ALL NIGHT during the early '90s.

It is one hundred years after the original Jack the Ripper murders in London, and a serial killer in Los Angeles is meticulously recreating the killings. If you like Jack the Ripper-themed movies, you should enjoy this one. It does not hurt that JAMES SPADER is so damn hot in this. He plays twins John and Rick Wesford. John being the straight-laced med student and Rick being the "bad-boy" shoe store manager. The supporting cast includes ROBERT PICARO (THE HOWLING) , ROD LOOMIS (aka Sigmund Freud from BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE) and CYNTHIA GIBB.

Mickster's Special Moments:

  • "Red Harvest" playing, as the Polaroid develops to reveal a dead prostitute.
  • The Ripper enjoys singing "My Way" in the shower to prepare for killing hookers.
  • John's unfortunate demise after being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
  • Rick wakes from a nightmare (about John's death) and rolls around on the bed in his underwear… Yay!
  • Rick teams up with the John's cute and spunky co-worker Chris to catch Jack the Ripper.
  • The porn theater sells guns but not bullets
  • Rick knocks "Red-Herring Jack" on his ass.
  • The final showdown with Jack the Ripper.

Traumafessions :: Eric Weber of Yedi Hideout on Swamp Thing

Posted on By aunt john

There is only one instance in the history of my movie-going experiences where I had to leave the theater.

When I was seven, my dad took me to see SWAMP THING (1982). I can recall sitting there enjoying all of the action and adventure when, slowly, I began feeling deeply disturbed. A moment comes late in the film where, during a semi-swank party at his mansion, the villain (played by LOUIS JOURDAN) tests a secret potion on his henchman, Bruno, (played by the lovable and adorable NICHOLAS WORTH.) Bruno starts twitching and convulsing as his face begins to bubble up and deform while all of the party guests start flipping out. I remember becoming super-agitated and nervous and told my dad that we needed to leave, "RIGHT NOW!"

Even when the movie began airing on HBO, I found myself totally and completely terrified when this scene started. I would literally hide behind the couch and peek out every now and then. Little did I realize that an even more disturbing scene was awaiting me! After Bruno is turned into a kind of sweet-looking, pint-sized rat creature, LOUIS JOURDAN takes the potion himself and begins transforming into this creature in a truly disturbing and gory sequence with lots of gooey special effects. I went absolutely out of my mind and remember racing upstairs to the safety of my bedroom.

I don't think I watched the movie in its entirety until my teenage years when stuff like SWAMP THING was old hat and I had already moved on to the works of JOHN CARPENTER, GEORGE ROMERO, TOBE HOOPER, etc.

Actually, I lied – there was one other instance where I walked out of a film but that was THE MATRIX RELOADED for completely different reasons.

— Eric Weber at yetihideout.blogspot.com

Traumafessions :: Geofree Capodanno of The Man Cave on Vincent Price

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Vincent Price. One of the all-time great horror icons. Some call him a master. Others call him an innovator. Most call him a god of the horror genre. All of which I agree on by all accounts, but for my Traumafession, I will refer to him as a someone who cost me hours of sleep between 1983-1984. When the Michael Jackson Thriller video was first released, it scared the crap out of me when I was a kid, so everything related to that video activated anxiety in my fragile, little mind. Since Vincent Price did the rap at the beginning and his signature laughter was used during my scariest moment of the video, during the "Cat's Eyes" sequence at the end, Price simply horrified me. Just when I found peace with Thriller, as it became my all-time favorite music video instead of my most feared, Vincent Price struck once again!

Around late 1984, I remember staying up very late to watch some R-rated raunchy comedy on HBO. Once that was over, I accidentally switched over to a local channel when I tried to shut the TV off. Once the channel changed, it was a close-up of Vincent Price's face as his eyes glowed green and he executed his famous evil laugh!! It lasted about 8 seconds but felt like 8 years to me. Frozen in terror, I did not sleep properly over the course of the next two days. It had to be at least 2am when this happened, and I was only about 7 or 8 at the time, so this was all my fault for sneaking to stay up so late on a school night in the first place. Come to find out later on the following week, it was a commercial for a Time-Life horror book series they released, for which Price was the face of the promotional ad. As the weeks went on, every time the commercial started playing on the channel I was watching, and it happened A LOT, I'd feverishly run to switch the channel in a panic.

In retrospect, this is all very embarrassing to admit, but I can laugh at myself. Not to mention that this happened before I learned how to do long division, so I'm not going to be too hard on myself. I read someone's Traumafession the other day and somehow the memory of this commercial (thanks Kindertrauma!) just popped back into my mind. Better yet, I actually found the commercial on YouTube, which unfortunately really cuts out a lot of the ending that scared the bejesus out of me. You can grab a glimpse of it though. Looking at it now for the first time in 7 years, the commercial is extremely corny and cheesy. It is silly to look back at this TV spot and think about how it affected me so much back then, but this is Traumafession and all, right?

UNK SEZ:: Thanks for the excellent traumafession Geofree! All you fine folks out there make sure you moonwalk over to Geofree's top-notch joint, THE MAN CAVE!

Stream Warriors :: With Special Guest Host John Squires of Freddy In Space!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

UNK SEZ: Today's Stream Warriors is hosted by none other than JOHN SQUIRES of FREDDY IN SPACE! He's got some killer picks for you kids today, so lend him your ear!

MONSTER DOG
Like peanut butter and jelly, some pairings were just meant to go together, as if by a decree handed down by God himself. If ya ask me, Claudio Fragasso and a video camera is one of these divine pairings. Just a few years before creating his masterpiece, Troll 2, Fragasso lensed a little gem called Monster Dog, an Alice Cooper star vehicle that saw the Coop battling off a horde of vicious dogs … and a bunch of hillbilly dudes … and a giant werewolf monster. I don't know how the Italian director and the American rock god ended up in bed together, but I'm sure glad they did.

In the film, a dubbed over Cooper plays Vince Raven, a rocker who returns to his hometown with some friends to film his latest music video, only to discover that the grounds are hunted by a pack of killer dogs (aka a bunch of friendly looking pet pooches dubbed to sound angry.) Turns out they are ruled over by a giant Monster Dog, which may or may not be Cooper himself given his father may or may not have passed on the weird heart condition he had that made the townsfolk think he was the titular monster, which he may or may not have actually been.

Flirting with the zombie movie, the werewolf movie, the killer dog movie and even the spaghetti western shoot 'em up flick, Monster Dog is rife with that same peculiar and even otherworldly quality that makes Troll 2 so gosh darn lovable. It's admittedly not as compelling as Troll 2 throughout much of its runtime, but there's some real tasty morsels in there including a couple highly catchy faux Alice Cooper music videos as well as his transformation into a werewolf at the end, which is worth the wait in and of itself. What's not to love about Alice Cooper wearing makeup and a ruffled sleeve jacket while talking in someone else's voice and blowing off hillbilly heads before ultimately turning into a monster dog himself? If you answered "absolutely nothing," then you should the hit play button on this one as soon as possible.

CRAWLSPACE
Few people are more captivating to watch, both onscreen and off, than the late German actor Klaus Kinski; a pariah to all those who worked with him and a real treasure to those of us who just get to sit back and watch from afar while he does his thing. As deranged Nazi landlord Karl Gunther, who loves nothing more than to stalk his beautiful female tenants, kill them with D.I.Y. traps that would make John Kramer jealous, talk to his imprisoned and tongueless friend and play solo games of Russian Roulette each night before bed (with a bullet with his name literally etched into it), Kinski is at his most captivating and utterly creepy best.

I first discovered the film when I found a copy of it on VHS at a yardsale several years back and instantly fell in love with its totally off the wall and completely original vibe. It's fast paced with a weirdness scale that escalates by the minute and it's frankly unlike any other movie I've ever seen. The majority of that praise is all thanks to Mr. Kinski, who brings to the proceedings one of the most interesting and unsettling killers in all of '80s horror, a mix between Dr. Kevorkian and Adolf Hitler himself (who Gunther delights in watching footage of while prancing around with lipstick smeared all over his creepy little face).

Maybe I'm biased given that I could sit down and watch Kinski watch paint dry for an hour and a half and be completely amused and interested, but I've gotta say that Crawlspace is one of the best little known horror flicks circulating out there. The coolest thing about it being on Netflix Instant is that the only DVD release of the film, which saw it paired up with 1980's The Attic, is long out of print and fetches upwards of $40 these days. So be sure to check it out before its instant status is revoked. Oh and you also might want to watch "Please Kill Mr. Kinski" afterwards, a nine minute little short documentary the director of Crawlspace made after Kinski's death as a sort of oddball tribute to the notoriously volatile actor. It can be watched in full over on YouTube.

AFRAID OF THE DARK
Imagine being completely blind and living in a city that is being stalked by a slasher who is targeting … blind people. This is the premise of Afraid of the Dark, a fascinating early '90s export from Britain that sees a curious little boy taking it upon himself to investigate the attacks and ensure that the blind community in town, which includes his own mother, is kept safe. Unfortunately, that's just about all I can say about the movie because it's the kind of film that's best to go into without knowing a lick about it. The whole movie basically shifts gears about halfway through and it's a completely disorienting and thought provoking journey into the psyche of both children and blind people and to really comment much on it would spoil some of that mystique. What I will say though is that this film is a perfect example of why I love Netflix's Watch Instantly feature so much. It exposes you to films you've never seen and oftentimes have never even heard of before, films that you probably either wouldn't add to your queue or wouldn't even know about to add to your queue, but ones that you will be more willing to delve into when they're right there in front of you for the taking. Afraid of the Dark is one of those movies that I had never even heard a peep about before and I'm thankful to Netflix for introducing me to it. It is films like this one that make me a bona fied Stream Warrior, loud and proud!

UNK SEZ: Thanks for the excellent recommendations! Kinderkids, make sure you stop by JS's home base FREDDY IN SPACE very soon and very often! SQUIRES' enthusiasm for horror is pretty much unmatched so there's NO chance you won't enjoy yourself THERE!