Category: Traumafessions

As a fairly long-time devotee of Kindertrauma, I have tried to contribute my few submissions to the Kindertrauma "family" (which is much like the "Manson Family") in the fields of "oddball" topics that have child-traumatizing elements, such as "Sesame Street" film segments or apocalyptic nuclear war themes. To continue that direction, I would like to address a field that, for people like me raised in evangelical Christian homes in the mid to late 1900s, caused potential traumas that are far greater than the scary movies and stories of monsters and ghosts – the threat of demons grabbing one and dragging them off to Hell, and the prophesied imminent End of the World.

As an older adult who still espouses Christian beliefs, and has even contributed to the field by writing on serious research topics in the field of prophecy in the Bible which still holds my respect, I have to clarify that my work has been of an intended non-exploitational nature (if that is possible) and targeted for a mature Christian adult audience. However, even in the pre-Internet and cable television days of the early 70s, it was very possible for a new generation of "Christian scare" literature and films, bolstered by a revival of Last Days apocalypticism and phenomena such as the Thief in the Night "last days" films (which everyone should watch on Youtube if not having been seen them in their churches previously), to randomly fall into the hands of easily-scared or otherwise fascinated children, such as yours truly.

On my "watch" as an impressionable child of the early 70s, the "grand daddy" (and reigning champion) of all "Godsploitation", "Christian scare" literature was the "Chick tracts" produced by the enigmatic and reclusive Jack Chick. His small rectangular tracts were ubiquitous in the 1970s public realm – Chick Publications reportedly claims to have sold 750 million tracts since 1960, and having been translated into over 100 languages – what other type of propaganda literature (good or bad) can make such a claim in terms of its impact on society and its worldview, even if communicated in the shadows, and its message preserved in unspoken form in the back recesses of the readers' minds?

In 2003 Los Angeles Magazine did an extended expose on Chick and his impact (HERE). It notes that, "In the pocket-sized tracts, people are stabbed, burned alive, and eaten by snakes. There is cannibalism and human sacrifice. The apocalyptic works are equal parts hate literature and fire-and-brimstone sermonizing, with a tough-guy Christ – ‘Jesus is not a weak fairy', he writes – as protagonist". They note that "Chick is the world's most published living author", with his works "handed out on subways and campuses or left behind in diners and bus stations", and his tracts having been displayed at the Smithsonian. The screenplay writer of the film Ghost World was noted as saying of Chick's work, "I had never been so terrified by a comic book". They note that his work, targeting the Satanic work of Catholics, gays and a long list of culprits (including those who use any Bible but the King James), was banned by many Christian bookstores, denounced by Christianity Today, and led Chick to quit the Christian Booksellers Association, thereby cementing his reputation as the king of "Christian outsider literature" (my term). His few favorable subjects include Israel and Tony Alamo, a Los Angeles-based cult leader.

I must have come across my first Chick tract as a six or seven year old at a restaurant or public bathroom – where most Chick tracts are discovered. Inside I found the most grotesque and stupifyingly horrifying images that have seared into my mind and nightmares, as they have with millions of others for decades. Like many such younger readers, I am sure, my mother told me to discard it because it was "not good" – which of course led me to crave the perusal of its contents as taboo, "forbidden fruit" of dangerous knowledge and ideas. They permanently form the enduring, defining images of demons and Hell in all of us who have been touched at a tender age by them.

While they may seem a little more quaint in today's "Saw", "Hostel" era of "no limit" depravity, they still pack a mighty wallop – magnified a hundred fold for sheltered youth. While the Chick Publications website features their scores of famous tracts, with online illustrations of their pages, I would like to mention four Chick tracts that I have not forgotten, almost forty five years later – indelible images not privy then to the notes-sharing and discourse now possible with the Internet, and rather kept in the isolated thoughts of those damned to find such a tract on their own in the mysterious pre-Internet world of discovery.

The first, The Beast, (HERE), clearly warns the reader of its contents with a cover picture of a father, mother and child – marked on their foreheads with the dreaded "666", and thus damned for eternity. The contents reveal widespread death from the Flood, gay encounters in "today's world" (with one perpetrator's phrase of "You know you're the only man for me" remembered by a senior friend of mine fifty years later), Lucifer worship, the Antichrist embraced at the Vatican, guillotining, black eyed and fanged demons, werewolves, a Goat of Mendes, and the Lake of Fire – all in one tract!

The next, the cleverly quaint Somebody Goofed (HERE), reveals an adult mentor of a child sneering at others who appeal to the child to follow Christ (and avoid "overdosing on speed") or be "eternally lost", leading to the eventual car wreck and descent to Hell, where the "mentor" reveals himself to be in fact a ugly, masked demon who intended to drag the child to hell.

The tract The Last Generation (HERE) has a cover with a costumed super-villain offering a syringe of drugs to youth, features death camps for Christians, a Damien-like child informant of his parents because they are "straight" and who sacrifices cats and dogs on Halloween, reincarnation and the Mother Goddess, all taught to children in public schools, concluding by noting that "Little Bobby died in his sins, because he never prayed a prayer".

The legendary This Was Your Life (HERE) shows a man who dies, and is forced to watch all the creepy and lecherous thoughts he ever had, until he is thrown into the Lake of Fire.

The purpose of my post is not to mock or belittle the message (and warnings) of Christianity, but rather to spotlight an iconic, social impacting role of a "king traumatizer" and controversial but undeniably influential individual from the magical days of the youth of my generation and evangelical circles, and the amazingly "traumatic" influences of religious extremist expression (even when communicating spiritual truth) in the "good old days", which really weren't so "innocent" in comparison to the "Dungeons and Dragons" and demon-filled video game culture of today.

If you like exploring such topics, please trot over and check out the hundreds of free archived radio shows I hosted over on my website FUTURE QUAKE.

I was an introverted only child with an admittedly unhealthy love for my own possessions (thanks Brave Little Toaster). Edward Scissorhands, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Gremlins 1 & 2 were definitely some of the few somewhat-traumatizing movies I experienced during my childhood, but at least I knew that they lived in a world of make-believe, or they were puppets. The kid from the Problem Child movies, however, lived in my world–the real world–and while there might not be so many kids with the brains for the sheer amount of hate-filled evil he wrought, there were definitely a few in my classroom with the personality for it.

I remember watching Problem Child 1 at a sleepover when I was 7. The scene where he decides to trash his bedroom is what really horrified me, setting it on fire, just because he didn't like clowns. Those were TOYS. That was his HOME. To me toys had inherent personalities–and as we all know just as adults from watching Toy Story: when toys with personalities are about to get melted down–even that jaded, stone-hearted bear–it's SAD and AWFUL. Oh yeah and then there was the animal abuse of that poor cat he feeds soap to. At that young age, I still lived in dread that my parents hadn't finished making babies and I might get some little demon brother or sister like the Problem Child. It was a fear I lived with nightly for years. And I blame the Problem Child for my unwillingness to have kids of my own now. Now how many supposedly awful and evil movie villains actually have that kind of effect on an adult's big life milestones?

Then in Problem Child 2 (another movie forced onto me at a sleepover), he sets a sprinkler off in the whiny little girl's room, soaking her stuffed animals, confirming my fear that not only would he trash his own sanctuary, he'd trash someone else's.

I remember watching The Ed Sullivan Show (or program) on a "black and white" (grey scale) TV with my parents circa "1967". Ed Sullivan was showing the puppetry talents of Jim Henson and one of his puppet performances was "The Glutton". This was a very large Muppet operated by Jim that would eat everything in sight incessantly (the "cookie monster" of Sesame Street is a grossly watered down version of this "uncanny valley" mega puppet that Jim created). The glutton was interrupted in his eating by a small flying saucer. The saucer shot a ray at him and made him small. When he was small, a "normal sized" version of him walked into the scene, looked down at him, picked him up, and ate the smaller version of himself… needless to say the 5 year old me ran screaming from the room…

UNK SEZ: Thanks for the traumafession, Warren! Sadly I couldn't find "The Glutton" on YouTube but I did find a clip of JIM HENSON's first appearance on THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW, check it out below!

"Blade Runner" as a childhood trauma? Considering how I was introduced to it yes! Way back in the early 1980s at the age of 15 I was channel surfing while watching TV. When I got to HBO I stumbled upon the scene in "Blade Runner" where Deckard confronted Pris. Deckard goes into the toy room filled with creepy dolls. When he finds Pris trying to imitate one of the life sized dolls she gets up and attacks him. As she beats him up I'm thinking, "This spike haired crazy lady with the weird makeup is creepy!" She's screaming the whole time and she even gets him in a "standing headlock" with her legs. When she twisted his head and body around I thought she twisted just his head! Pris then temporally lets him go she decides to run at him to finish him off…..while doing gymnastic flips! While she's in mid-flip Deckard gets his gun and shoots her in the abdomen. Now this is the part that REALLY had me creeped out: Pris lands on her back and she violently, and rapidly, pounds her fists and feet on the floor while she's screaming her head off. Quite an unnerving thing to stumble upon!

Oh, this isn't the first time I was "introduced" to a movie via seeing a traumatic death scene. Can you say "Heavenly Creatures"?

FatherofTears

I was a child in the early 90's and there were two things I loved; werewolves and the video store. A combination which got along together like peanut butter and jelly. Werewolves had been my favorite monster since I had been shown The Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney Jr. by my father. The other side of this match made in horror heaven, the video store was where I acquired my love of film and indulged my imagination.

In short, the video store was my salvation. I loved everything about it, going there and seeing all the strange box covers promising entry into a strange, fantastic and often terrifying world where all the rules and limitations of mundane reality no longer applied. Werewolves, vampires, unstoppable indestructible undead maniacs and monsters of every description were not only very much real but out to get you; you were in their world now. It was simply the biggest thrill in my life. The first video store that I ever frequented was Hugo's video store.

It was a small independent operation run by none other than the man himself, the eponymous; Hugo. The place had wooden shelves upon which sat all the box covers. I was compulsively drawn to the horror section because I adored the genre more than any other due to an early introduction given me by my father of all the old Universal Monster movies of the 1930's and 40's. Now one box in particular stood out and scared me, positively sent shivers down my spine. It featured a werewolf with what appeared to be bluish-blackish hair, an off white or light tan dress shirt, bearing his fangs and staring down from the shelf with the most terrifying look my young eyes had ever seen. My heart skipped a beat looking up at that face and made me feel as though my stomach dropped out.

My father rented it for me, I got it home, put the tape into the VCR and by the end, I was captivated, frightened and utterly distraught. It was the saddest movie my young self had ever seen. Many years past, Hugo's video store packed up and moved to another location in the neighborhood for a short while and then eventually went out of business. Other video stores opened up at the same time as or shortly after Hugo's and they in turn went defunct as the decade gave way to the millennium and the rise of the internet sounded the death knell of these emporiums of my adolescent phantasmagorical celluloid neuroses.

For years I could not remember the name of the film. Maybe I never knew it. I could only remember bits and pieces of it, certain pictures. A priest walking in the autumn woods, pensively traipsing over orange, yellow and brown leaves. A werewolf pierced by a mystical dagger falling to his death followed by an end credit crawl. I had forgotten the name of the movie but these images stayed with me.

The feeling the movie gave me stayed with me. I tried to find it on the internet but could not. I only remembered the box cover with that face and the 'Thorn/EMI' logo I had become familiar with through encounter of it on numerous other films I had rented over the course of many years. Then finally one day a year or two ago, I succeeded in rediscovering for myself this terror archetype long submerged and obscured yet nonetheless looming mightily in my subconscious memory.

There it was staring at me from my luminescent laptop screen opened to Google images. It was a recherche little title from 1979 called "WolfMan", starring Earl Owensby. Elation took hold of me, I had finally satisfied the nagging question from my youth; "what was that movie called?". I flew to Ebay immediately and purchased a copy for my collection immediately. The tape arrived in the mail several days later and on a warm summer's night in the icy cold dark of an air conditioned bedroom, much like the one in my childhood on which I first saw the film, I watched WolfMan.

One thing was different however this time around; the movie was not good. Apparently time and maturity instill in one things lacking in the adolescent; namely taste and discernment. Not to say the movie was entirely without merit nor held any enjoyment, for there is something to be said for the sets and camera work which are quite well done. However, the acting is simply subpar and laughably wooden especially from the star, Mr. Owensby, who also produced the film. The story is typical for a werewolf movie involving a family curse and a tragic love angle, nothing to write home about.

What this did for me was to deepen my appreciation for the wide gulf which exists between the perceptions we have of something as a child or in the form of a memory and the reality of the thing in itself as it actually is when perceived through the lens of adulthood and a sense of discernment. I will always cherish WolfMan for the emotions it stirred in me and the memories I had of it as I experienced it in childhood, but it isn't a good movie.

I can see why Earl Owensby is not as well known and consequently has not developed the same sort of following as have fellow producers of southern-fried horror such as Charles B. Pierce with his well crafted and thoroughly enjoyable films Legend of Boggy Creek and The Town that Dreaded Sundown. Though this be the case, I don't think he should go unmentioned entirely as he seems to because despite the lack of quality dialogue and general dullness of his movies, you can tell that Mr. Owensby is truly passionate about film and has had quite a career outside of acting, building a successful film studio in North Carolina and has contributed to movies such as James Cameron's The Abyss.

First of all, I love your website. It's a walk down a dysfunctional, horror-infused memory lane. I was surprised to see that you haven't reviewed the late 1970s made-for-TV adaptation of Thomas Tryon's Harvest Home. It was called "The Dark Secret of Harvest Home" when it aired on the small screen. Bette Davis scared the living hell out of me as the Widow, back in the day. This flick had it all, a secret society, bizarre fertility rituals, an unusual way to guarantee that next year's corn crop will be a success, murder, suicide and a kind of Stepford Wives mentality among the women of this deceptively peaceful village.

— Kelley J.

UNK SEZ: Thanks Kelley! I agree with you, there's not enough HARVEST HOME around these parts and I too am surprised that we have not covered it more extensively on these pages. I'm just going to place the blame on dopey UNIVERSAL for never properly putting TDSOHH on DVD and for releasing it on VHS only in a highly edited form. Luckily I found the entire miniseries on YouTube. The picture quality is for the birds but it'll just have to do for now!

Dear Kindertrauma,

I am writing this trauma on behalf of my father who shared with me a piece from one of his haunting childhood memories. He could not remember the film's title rather only the singsongy words spoken by the film's antagonist. With some tireless Googling of what little information he could provide, we finally identified a scene from the 1972 TV movie "Two for The Money" which featured Mercedes McCambridge as a psychotic knife-wielding killer. She shrills out the memorable line "WITH A HEY NONY, NONY, NONY, MEN WERE DECEIVERS EVER, WITH A HEY NONY, NONY". This stuck with him over the years and still makes the hair stand straight up on his arms.

After identifying the movie and skipping forward to the nightmarish scene which occurs at the end of the film (available on YouTube HERE @ 1:01:00) we searched through McCambridge's career only to find out she voiced the Demon in "The Exorcist". What a creepy old bat!

Anyway, I hope that some of you will remember this one and enjoy it just as we have.

HEY NONY, NONY, NONY!

Love,

Casper

Burlingame, California has a great legacy of terror. Why, did you know that it's where Shirley Jackson spent her formative years? Well let me tell you about my own spook house experience.

I didn't know I was in for.

Ahh, Halloween, I'm pretty sure it was 1972. I was in the first grade and got a cheap-ass Ben Cooper Devil costume … sans pitchfork, but it's all good! Before the high-tech boom, the (SF Bay Area) peninsula was just another region with its share of derelict homes. And what happens to a derelict home during Halloween? Back then a charity group turns it into a Haunted House!! YEEAAH!! I didn't know all if this of course; my six year-old brain thought that this was a REAL haunted house and it was on display for the public. I'm sure my older brothers helped me reinforce this belief. Maybe I'll see Casper, Booberry y'know.

There it was, perched on the corner of El Camino and Broadway across from the ol' Phillips 66; some old two-story is all I remember. I could smell the candy apples and other treats wafting from the back concession area. I was hypnotized by the white rope used by the usher before entry, it was glowing under a black light! In we go. We immediately go up a narrow stairway turn, turn, 2nd floor. First thing was the face inside a crystal ball, interesting but not scary. Down the hall was some witch scene or something medieval. By this time I realized this isn't a real haunted house, this is more like "Frontier Village." OK turn the corner… oh it's a barber, with his back to the crowd, cutting some unknown guys hair behind a chair. Then it happened. In unison the chair turned around and the barber showed his face and growled! He was a WEREWOLF! And his customer was a mutilated corpse! It was a jolt of pure terror! I let out this high pitch shriek!

It must have been pretty terrifying because my memory erased the rest of the attraction. My next recollection was my brother, being the obnoxious punk that he was (and still is, ahem) throwing candy at someone in the concession area. I didn't care, I felt like a survivor. And candy always cheered me up.

The terror's not over yet! The following Sunday after Halloween, my sister and I had to walk to late mass at Our Lady of Angels. And guess what's along the way? The Haunted House! every step I took brought me closer to that sepulchral lodging! And it was already dark! Upon arriving I saw a bunch of older kids were tearing up the place since it was going to be demolished anyway. So I felt pretty safe, just as long as I didn't go in! My sister, pulling my arm, seeing all the fun being had with the destruction, said, "Let's go in!" There was no way, and I pulled back with all my might. At that moment some kid in the ticket booth right next to us made a big roar and shook a piece of torn-up grass. That was it, my sister got the message, she knew I wasn't up for it!