Category: Traumafessions

You guys have helped me twice with Phantasm and Magic Island, it's time I give back and tell the stories about what scared me as a kid.

When I was younger than ten, my family decided they were going to put on E.T. Everything was going fine at first. I was sitting in the living room, eyes fixed on the television when I felt uneasy. At the beginning where the UFO is discovered and E.T. makes a break for it, is where I was scared out of my wits. There was something about when he was rushing through the bushes, with the creepy UFO lighting in the background and the distressed noises from the alien. I ran out of the room crying and screaming I was so afraid. It took me years to finally watch E.T. without being frightened, and my family still makes fun of me for it.

Another tidbit from my early youth will probably make you laugh. I admit as a child I was terrified of the intro music to X-Files. As soon as the first note hit, I was in my room covering my ears. I'd stay in there until the intro was over, then go back into the living room to watch the show. It was just the music that scared me so much. The music! How lame is that?? These days, I love theremin music.

I'd tell you the story of my first time watching Pet Sematary, but it involves a family that wanted to scare me, a haunted house, and nearly hiding under the couch. Perhaps another time.

Thanks for listening,

Woody Monster

Hey everyone!

One day back when I was in (yes, really) kindergarten during the late 70s, our teacher showed us a creepy little film that has stayed with me over the years and I was wondering if anyone else remembers it. It was in black and white and was basically footage of a train trip, but there were no actors or actresses. It seemed like stock footage that would be used for advertising or movies, and there was a voiceover track with various people talking – but you never saw these people. So the train pulls out of the station, moves through the countryside and everything is fine and dandy as the passengers chat away. Except the train eventually wrecks. Here's where it gets fuzzy: I don't recall how it crashed and I don't believe the crash was actually shown, but I remember the people hollering and panicking and shots of the train moving fast at night. After a fadeout, the camera pulls back to show a cemetery and the film ended.

Yes, this was actually show to us in KINDERGARTEN (and yes, our teacher DID have issues as well as a wicked temper). It seemed like the film was made in the late 50s or early 60s given the trains featured and the manner of speech on the soundtrack. And it was an actual filmstrip that was loaded onto a projector. I'm not sure of the length, but it seemed like it had to have been over 10 minutes long.

Despite this, I really dig trains and am big on model railroading!

I have a new traumafession that has recently resurfaced after lying dormant for decades.

Thanks to the marketing folks, my old nightmare fuel from Swiss Miss has been resurrected.

In the 1970s Swiss Miss ran ads with a disturbing stop motion doll. She always gave me the creeps and contributed to at least one early childhood nightmare. I think part of it is simply the evil smile and dead eyes but the way she would yodel and the way it would echo was another contributing factor.

I remember being relieved when the company moved away from using her image in their advertising and switched to the more cartoonish version of the girl. However while shopping recently I spied her scary face once again as she is back on the packaging with the old advertising artwork. Let's hope if she makes new commercials they are CGI.

Hi again Kindertrauma,

It's been a while since I've sent in a Traumafession, so I figure it's time for another episode of 'Bizarre Snippets That Terrified Tiny Chanter'. Not surprisingly, this one's a Sesame Street short, specifically Stranger On The Field.

Watching this particular clip now, it's painfully clear it was made in the '80's – oh wow, the music! I knew nothing of songs dating themselves when I was a tiny, though. All I knew was that the keys this particular song was played in creeped me out, and that effect hasn't diminished much to this day. Holy cow is it ever ominous! I didn't have the vocabulary to explain it then, but that's precisely the feeling it evokes. That's not the worst of it, though the foreboding reaction is plenty bad on its own.

I can't find the bit that truly terrified me anywhere, and I've tried combing cyberspace for it. No luck. There must be two versions of this sketch out there. I would swear to you that in one, after one boy says 'give him a chance, let's see what he can do', the same, or at least a similar, voice to the one expositing about the stranger being given a look of dooooooom (gah, that's creepy too!) speaks over near-silence. He's calling the game, but in the tones of Dr. Claw of Inspector Gadget infamy. The sound of that monsterish voice snarling 'strike one, strike two'… tiny Chanter was suitably frightened to the soles of her slip-on shoes, I can assure you.

At least the last few lines redeem the song a bit, but there's the eerie key to factor in yet. This always unsettled me as a little girl, and it hasn't stopped doing so to this day. I may have the vocabulary to explain why now, but the fact remains–brrrrrr!

Does anyone else remember the extended sketch, or did I concoct it somehow? Maybe this short really did rattle tiny me so badly that my brain distorted it to worst effect. I don't think so, though.

Hello,

I follow Kindertrauma on a daily basis, this is however the first time I've turned to its majesty for answers.

There was a show in the 90s that Chris Carter created called Millennium that starred Lance Henriksen. Great show, great countdown to doomsday mystery sort of thing. There was one episode in particular that frightened me very much. The scene is of a kid's birthday party, somewhere there is a clown involved. A little girl, probably the birthday girl wanders into the house to look for said clown. She enters the living room and in the far corner the clown is on the ceiling with his makeup altered, either seated or protruding from the wall. I remember him tapping his gloved hands on the ceiling and smiling a diabolical smile. The little girl screams and the show begins.

Does anyone recall this frightening scene? Episode? Online anywhere? Thanks, I'd really like to see this image and know I didn't dream it. I'm not even that frightened of clowns and it stuck with me. Thanks.

UNK SEZ: Here is the clown you are looking for Mackenzie! Sorry it's not a better picture but that guy appears in the first season of MILLENNIUM and I only own seasons 2 and 3 so I couldn't grab a shot myself. The episode in question is entitled "Dead Letters" and it was written by JAMES WONG and GLEN MORGAN. Sadly, I can't find a clip of it anywhere. Oh well, maybe it's better that way! Thanks for reminding us of this exceptional show!

When I look back on the many and varied Traumafessions I have made lo these past few years, I notice two things: 1) I must have been a weird little kid; 2) they are not of your standard issue ghost/monster/haunted house variety. They're often caused by something fairly innocuous, or more accurately, the effect my mind superimposes over something harmless. (I'm reminded of how Stephen King was massively creeped out as a child by mis-hearing the movie line "It feels like living tissue!" as "It feels like tissue paper!") Although this one sure has its spooky roots, my brain ran with something else altogether. But first, some background…

Comic books were my gateway drug, and although I read more than my share of funny animal books, it was the horror titles of the late 1960s that were closest to my heart. Every Wednesday afternoon my dad would drive me over to Dean's Red Owl, the supermarket across the river, that I could pore over the new releases as they sat in a shopping cart, waiting to be placed upon the stand, but only after I got first dibs. The market's owner, Dean Farrier, was a kindly guy who wanted to make his little customer happy, even going as far as to contact his distributors to secure back issues that I may have missed – and in those days, that was not an easy feat. Thank you, Mr. Farrier!

The Red Owl also carried magazines, but since those were a bit more expensive, I would gaze at them lovingly and didn't ask my parents for the additional money until a few years later. Famous Monsters of Filmland was always in stock, and occasionally the store would get the Warren comic mags as well – Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella – but it was not on a consistent basis, and old issues would remain on the rack for months beyond their sale date, waiting for a haphazardly shipped follow-up. Now, if you know the Warren magazines of this time, they were in a notoriously bad stretch (the Frank Frazetta glory days were behind them), scraping by on a mixture of reprints and markedly substandard material.

Which brings us to Creepy #24, the December 1968 issue. The cover art is attributed to Gutenberg Montiero, who did but a few pieces for the company, and shares some elements with the uncredited cover to the Berkley paperback anthology Masters of Horror – also from 1968, but I'm unsure which came first. But Creepy's juxtaposition of two images, presumably in two difference places, was a common design for horror comics of the period; we have a man, profoundly distressed, seemingly driven mad by this resurrecting corpse.

What got to me? The wristwatch.

Why was this guy wearing a shattered wristwatch? What did it have to do with the hand coming out of a grave? And why was he sweating like a farm animal in August? And then I thought – what if he put it on, broken? What if he was so insane as to not care that his timepiece was incapable of telling time? My mind was blown, and the issue seemed to remain on the stand for months thereafter, freaking me out too much to ever purchase it, but having ample time to make its impression.

I still think there is a fantastic story to be told in the intersection of these two images; maybe a Kinderpal shall be inspired!

It's a song by the Russian band called "Agatha Christie" from the 1990s. First there's nothing creepy neither in the video nor in lyrics (it's about a sailor who gets womens' attention and free drinks wherever he goes), but on 1:10 is that strange telephone call and a female voice saying "nobody loves you, your lover is dead".

Then it's 1:48 and that face. The woman then receives a message which suggests that her loved was actually killed.

2:28 – "Please stop. I know him. I gave him these boots… But where's the head?" – "Do you really want to know?"

As far as I know, the video was banned on some Russian tv channels because of its "negative impact on the viewers", but I saw it frequently on music channels and it scared me shitless every time. Somehow I couldn't switch it, maybe trying to convince myself that it wasn't that horrible – still, I always got the impression that a headless body wasn't the most creepy part of it. There's also a 2004 sequel. It doesn't really explain the events shown in the first video, but at least the HEAD is shown.

If you think you're safe on a bus trip to wherever, think again!

It was a few year ago. Can't remember how old I was, maybe 23, 24 something like that. Anyway, I was on a bus trip to Kalgoorlie (that's in Australia) to visit a friend and I was listening to some music on my iPod when I noticed a movie was put on before the bus driver drove away from our last pit stop. Feeling bored, I decided to watch it.

The title opened up saying Ghost Ship, but in a '70s-like neon style, so because of that, I have no idea that it was going to be a horror movie. Anyway, people are on deck dancing to some singer. A little girl is sitting alone when the captain saw her and asked if she wanted to dance. So they are dancing for a few minutes 'til something snaps violently and a loose razor wire just flies across the deck slashing everyone through the torso! Next they were falling to the ground into bloody pieces!

I starting to feel sick, I was horrified thinking, "WHAT'S GOING ON?!" But then came the final blow…

The girl was safely huddled in the captain's arms. When she looked up… GASP!!! The wire had slashed through the area above his jaw and was bleeding!!!

I quickly looked away as I knew what would next and all I heard next was the little girl screaming hysterically.

Now I was ready to throw up. Wish I did though as that would of knocked some sense in the bus driver. There could of been little kids on that bus you know!!!

Not only that, but I couldn't get that image out of my head for days. It was awful. Just goes to show that you don't have to be a kid to be traumatized.

h, a one last request. You can show images of the movie as I'm okay with that, but please, whatever you do. Please do not put any pictures of that horrible scene I mentioned.

— Michelle D.

UNK SEZ: Thanks Michelle! That GHOST SHIP sure is gaining momentum on the trauma-o-meter! As you requested I made sure not to use any images that might cause you a relapse! Folks who desire a closer look at that memorable opening click HERE!

For almost a decade I had no idea what movie this scene was from.It wasn't until I caught the film on HBO one night about a year ago that I finally did. I had a vague memory of seeing it as a child, I couldn't have been older than 9 and it was playing on the Sci-Fi network, which I rarely watched, but there was nothing on that night and I was really bored. I happened to turn it on right in the middle of the scene where Ming erases Dr. Zarkov's memory.

I felt like I was watching some kind of bizarre student film, even now it seems out of place in a movie as campy and lighthearted as Flash Gordon. It went all the way from his resignation from NASA, to memories of his former wife "BRENDA!" drowning in a swimming pool (looking back this scene just makes me laugh. a grown woman drowns in a swimming pool, at a party no less, and no one jumps in to save her? maybe they were all too drunk to notice) to holocaust flashbacks, memories of his family and (gross) his own birth. For years I assumed it was from Ken Russel's Altered States, which came out the same year and had similar surreal imagery. It never crossed my mind that it was from the campy sci-fi movie that Queen composed the music to.

It was one of the creepiest and most confusing things I had ever witnessed. I turned it on right in the middle of one of his flashbacks and I had no idea what was happening. Were these nightmares? Was he being brainwashed? It wasn't until I rewatched the scene years later that I understood what was going on. And even when I did figure it out, I still didn't entirely understand it.

It's been a while since I've contributed here, but I have a great traumafession to share.

When I was in junior high school, HBO frequently aired their "Video Jukebox" program. One of the videos they would sometimes show was "Demon Alcohol" by The Kinks.

That video scared me! I had never yet at that point tried alcohol, and I was afraid to, thanks to all of the after school specials and educational propaganda they fed us during our health class. Yet watching this video, with Demon Alcohol's sinister laughter scared me that I would somehow become an alcoholic.

The video scared me of what might become of me if I ever dared to drink. On an ironic note, the health teacher I had with the anti-alcohol scare tactics later worked in a liquor store after retiring from teaching. Also ironically, I might have to watch this video sometime while enjoying a Guinness (in moderation, of course)!

Cheers (and fears),

Dustin in Minnesota