Category: Traumafessions

Hello, dear traumapeople!

I don`t know, how popular the other works of Astrid Lindgren, the author of "Pippi Longstockings" are in the english speaking world, but here in Germany they are very common. So everybody likes this nice grandma and her stories about innocent times from Sveden, right? She would never traumatise anyone, right?

Well… Although her fantasy Novels are sometimes really dark, it was a pictured book, that really scared me as a child: "Rupp Rüpel – das grausigste Gespenst aus Smaland" (something like "Rupp Rude – the most horrible ghost of Smaland") as it was called in german. Looks harmless, isn`t it?

Wrapped in a story from the author's childhood, is the tale of the eponymous ghost: A rude troublemaker, who wants to scare the vicar, dresses as a ghost and dies from shock, when his coat is stuck in the churchdoor, because he thinks, it's a real ghost "or even the hand of the Lord himself, who wants to punish him for his deed". His frozen body stands on the churchyard for hundreds of years, till a tough woman makes a bet to carry him at night into a tavern. She does it and wins, but when she brings him back, he clinches his icy hands around her neck and forces her to bring him to the vicar's grave, where he apologies and gets salvation… while the woman goes insane. Happy Ending!

Very classic mix of two famous ghost stories, we've often seen in "Twilight Zone" or "Hellboy". That would'nt be the problem, even for a child. The problem were the illustrations by Ilon Wikland: Rupp's prank as a ghost, the frozen corpse at the tavern and the gruesome grip of undead hands.

Some time ago a friend told me, that she got also traumatised by it in her childhood and still got the book. So I could get an update of his gruesomeness. – Maybe out there at the internet are more victims of Smaland's most horrible ghost?

Greetz

Dirk

First of all,

I have just discovered Kindertrauma, and I have to say, as a kid who got spooked quite a bit from watching too many scary movies/t.v. shows, I love the idea behind this website! I also should admit that I found it through a very random google search. I wanted to find the name of a television show that I used to watch as a child (at first I thought it was a 90s adaptation of the Twilight Zone), and, because of my lucky search engine abilities, I was brought to Kindertrauma. I found out the show was called Amazing Stories and the episode that traumatized me was an episode called "Thanksgiving."

Anywhoodle, I figure I might as well share some of my childhood scares. One was not actually a t.v. show, but it was a stupid collection of cards. I believe they were called Garbage Pail Kids, and I found them when I was about nine years old. After my father's breakup from a woman he had been with prior to marrying my mother, I accidentally ended up with a tub of those damned screwed up collectible cards which belonged to his ex-girlfriends demented fourteen year old son (no relation). I was going through the tub expecting it to contain my seemingly innocent Pokemon cards, but instead I found THESE screwed up images of mutilated babies in a toy card form. It made me sick to my stomach after finding a few. Needless to say, the awkward harbored feelings towards the family my father had been a part of before mine was made more awkward after I found those obscene cards.

Secondly, the movie that really screwed with my head as a kid was The Twilight Zone Movie that came out in the 80s. It was this scene…

Anyways, thank you for being a wealth of information about scary crap from when we were kids. Hopefully my traumas are relatable for some other inner child needing closure!

Thanks,

S

Hi! I just discovered the website today and after checking it out for a bit, it is great. one specific creepy point from my youth involves the show Out of This World. I specifically remember one horrible episode involving some kind of person-sized puppet or doll. it was just really creepy looking, along with the way it moved. It is such a vague memory at this point. I have no idea how I could track down a clip of it or find a picture

While I was writing this I remembered two films that messed me up as a kid that I did not see already mentioned on the site that much.

First was Serpent and the Rainbow. I was probably like 7 or 8 when I first watched it at my grandmother's house. so many amazing scenes. So incredibly creepy to me.

Second was The Gate. I think I was around the same age when I saw this one on TV. I could not remember the name of it until just recently. I only remembered specific scenes; one was a red phone melting. I have no idea why that stuck with me so, but it did. Also, there was a scene in either this or Serpent involving a person being dragged down through a tunnel filled with arms, continually pulling them down. I tried to find pictures of the scene to pinpoint which film, but I could not find them. I rewatched this one recently and loved seeing it again, having those faint memories be revitalized. I also love the whole playing the metal record backward satanic stuff in it that I did not remember from before. Well that is all for now.

Thanks!

— Andrew D.

P.S. Sh*t, I just realized the tunnel of arms was Labyrinth. I could have sworn though that one of those two had a similar scene…

UNK SEZ: Look! We got another postcard from our Pal Francisco from Spain!

Hey ho let's go…

More about 70's and early 80's lp covers, this time by one of the more interesting artistic teams I know Hipgnosis, who did covers for artists like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Electric light orchestra and these two traumafessions. First, one of the weirdest covers in the history of pop and rock, 10 cc's "Deceptive Bends" (Image Above)

I saw that cover in a 70's catalogue for buying lps that was in the house of a relative and although I have listened to almost nothing by 10 cc that cover is still a mystery for me. I know it is a group known for its soft ballads, so what exactly is the meaning of the cover? What's the relation with the music on the vinyl? Is the girl dead? What happened to her? I think now that art by Hipgnosis is kind of abstract or surreal with absolutely nothing related to the music on the lps inside. In any case, although a bit creepy, a fascinating and very artistic cover. I don't want to be cruel but it's sure better that the music by 10 cc!!!

And what about this…Rainbow's Difficult to Cure.

Without comments for someone like me with fear of hospitals and doctors… just imagine yourself about to be operated on by this bunch of surgeons, it must be something really, really difficult to cure if the operation requires seven surgeons!!! At least on the back cover there is a pretty nurse but with the exception of the ultracool chief surgeon the people look worried… glubss…

Just opposite of 10 cc (sorry for the fans of this band) Rainbow is great… and this lp has as the first track one of the best heavy/pop songs I have heard…

I was pretty normal kid. Granted, at 6 my mother took me to the theater to see Friday The 13th in 1980, completely traumatizing me and ensuring I never spend the night in the woods again, but I digress. More than trips to the theater or watching slasher movies on Beta during a sleep-over, what really did it for me were those sinister, evil voiceovers that accompanied movie trailers or sometimes even TV spots for horror films. Those voices, and there were many of them, were filled with such resonance and horror that turning away and covering your eyes was never enough. I was haunted by those inflections, those slightly-English-sounding adjectives, the way they would draw you in and leave you utterly frightened after the first sentence. Those voices are as indelible as the trailers, and while there were many, I have to reflect on MY 'big 3':

1) DAN LaFONTAINE – This is the guy we all know and love. "In a world where" he spoke on the airways, we were truly freaked out. True, his voice and style became a bit TOO mainstream and recognizable towards the end of his life, he was pretty much "the voice" of Paramount Pictures in the late 70's-early 80's and his voice is clearly recognizable in gems like My Bloody Valentine (1981), Dressed To Kill, The Fly (1986), Scream, and he needs only to count to freak us out in the original Friday the 13th (1980) trailer:

2) ADOLPH CAESAR – Caesar was an accomplished black actor, with roles in A Soldier's Story, The Color Purple, and other films, but he really left his true mark in FREAKING ME OUT in the late 70's and early 80's. An amazing, deep, and resonant voice, he could make just about anything sound scary, and usually did. You'll most certainly recognize the damage he did to you when you hear him voice the trailers from Deep Red, Blacula, A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984), Sleepaway Camp, Last House On the Left (the "It's only a movie" trailer), Creepshow, and probably his most famous – Dawn Of the Dead (1977):

3) PERCY RODRIGUEZ – Probably the most notable of my 'big 3' voiceover artists, because his voice was deeper and more sinister, and along with the films he voiced, he really packed a lot of punch and undoubtedly scarred many of us in the process–'normal' people included. His films are epic, and he could scare your grandma talking about what he did on Labor Day. His voice will be indelibly linked with some of the terrifying moments he set up in films like Dracula (1979), Madman, The Omen, The Amityville Horror (1979), The Exorcist, and his piece-de-resistance: Jaws:

Thanks to Dan, Adolph, and Percy for giving me an entire horror movie's worth of chills in about 90 seconds. nYou truly traumatized my youth, and I wouldn't change a thing. Like I said, there are many amazing voice artists out there that voiced many, trauma inducing trailers. One honorable mention from my list has to be ROSCOE LEE BROWNE, a Shakespearean actor and cast-member of the TV Show "Soap". Often confused with Adolph Caesar, he leant a similar inflection of voice to terrifying trailers like The Prowler:

I find his voice not to be quite as deep or resonant as Caesar's, but that delivery, that pacing, that almost-English-like-inflection on certain words still freaks me OUT.

The next time you sit down to watch an old horror movie trailer, take a good listen. It might very well be one of these guys. Now, I have to go and turn on some more lights….

When I was about 5 or 6 I walked in a dark room and turned on the TV set. What came on scared the crap out of me. It was an episode of Space:1999. It showed an alien devouring astronauts then spitting out burned husks.

I found a link on youtube. Kind of long, but it does not disappoint.

Over the years, I have carefully organized my life so that I would never have to watch this movie again. Now it is time. It is time to purge this… demon, this disguised animated maniac, this madman, this nightmare-inducing judicial charlatan, this murderer responsible for the death of Theodore J. Valiant and–rumor has it–the seemingly random killing of Bambi's mother. The VCR is broken. The TV has been long killed. The couch providing a hiding place from Him (to my four year old self, not even God could save me from Him) has long been donated. The original VHS tape, contrariwise, still exists alongside this clot in my preschool memories. It resides wrapped in a plastic bag in my old lunchbox shut inside the trunk of my sibling's electric car. If He somehow escaped the spring-loaded locks of the tape, then He still would have to escape out of the bag, then lunchbox, and then trunk, leaving me the necessary time to run away. But I digress.

Prior to the discovery of "Kindertrauma", I had planned to purge this particular demon by either painting a triptych or consenting to modern cognitive behavioral therapy. Only through those mediums I thought I could symbolically/artistically/therapeutically face off against the bane of my VCR: Judge Doom played by Christopher Lloyd in Robert Zemeckis' Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1989). I am sure there are numerous entries in the archives tagged with: "Roger Rabbit", "Dip", "Steamroller", and possibly "freeway scheme." If not, then I will speak for all those still hiding behind the couch.

Salutations. My name is irrelevant and private. I am writing under "Anonymous" to protect my identity just in case He ever does enter the real world. Cartoons were already interacting with the fleshy living in that movie. Who's to say that was so far-fetched a fear? I have often wondered why He haunts me more than Cousin It from Barry Sonnenfeld's interpretation of The Addams Family, Hexxus' smog-ridden forms in Ferngully, the hundreds of worms in that episode of Goosebumps on TV, or the silver sight in the often mistaken last episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? from the year 2000. I didn't ride a carousel for years. No. The cloaked figure of Judge Doom walks and stalks soley on an Island of Memory that He's made his own. To move on, to strip, to conquer Him I had to face my fear. In order to write this entry, I unearthed the VHS. I found a preserved VCR and television set. I rewound the tape. I listened for the click. I pressed play.

"Remember me, Eddie? When I killed your brother, I talked just like THIS!"

My theory: the everlasting fear associated with Who Framed Roger Rabbit? has to do with quantum physics. I'll be brief. This film won three academy awards for its brilliant mix of animation (the second dimension) and live-action (the third dimension). The governing powers of the universe do not condone two dimensions in one space. Only one dimension can rule. The strike of fear of this movie stems from our inner repulsion of a two dimensional world. This reasoning being: 1) We would all die because the heart cannot beat when flattened 2) The 2-D world has its own laws of physics that would leave us one fatal step behind. Regardless of Him, this film drips with utter nightmare fuel. Unintended, but potent.

Due to this theory, Judge Doom emerging from the television screen to get me wasn't that outlandish a fear. I would scream and scream for my brother not to take the tape out. If the movie was turned off prior to Judge Doom meeting his date with dip, he would–in theory–still be alive. As stated before, he just might have come out of the TV to kill. So, I would force my little self to listen to the climax scene. The clot was formed. I slept in my parents' room after every viewing.

This viewing would be different. While the clot oozed with a nostalgic vengance into all fissures of my very soul, the movie's climax–which had been obstructed by the fibers of the couch for fifteen years–came to cinematic life with a steamroller and optical effects.

I came.

I watched until the ending credits.

I wrote this entry.

I conqured (but had to sleep with a bottle of White Out).

I surmise that I won against Him in the end but trigger objects continue to be: a steamroller doing its innocent job on a highway, black cloaks, and the laugh of a hyena in the safaris of the country from whence those bastards came.

Hi guys.

This one will come at you from a different direction.

William Kulerek's Despair.

We had Time-Life Science books in our bookcase growing up, which were a layman's overview of a variety of topics; not quite an encyclopedic. They were broken down simple enough for a nine year old to at least look at, and we poured over them, since they were rife with illustrations. One such volume was called "The Mind". In the middle of the book was a section on Art used as therapy in diagnosing mental disorders.

I wanted to be an artist.

There were a few paintings by schizophrenics, and a few by Van Gogh…but the most riveting was a two-page spread by William Kulerek entitled "The Maze". This was before the internet, and I had no idea that Kulerek was an accomplished painter; rather I thought he was merely an incredibly good, incredibly ill patient. The painting was a cross-section of his skull laying in a field, with many painful, harrowing, surreal illustrated memories compartmentalized within. The caption by the photo went to say that the artist painted "The Maze" while in a mental hospital as means of therapy.

I would always stare horrified at these pages, seeing these interpreted memories of a young boy being isolated, beaten, mocked, dissected….and they get worse…horrified not so much by the images themselves, but by the fact that someone felt this way. Could a child's life have been this horrible?

Somewhere down the line, after I came out of art school some 15 years later, I stumbled upon another painting called "I Spit on Life". All it took was five seconds I'm sure until I was assured that this painting, perhaps even more bleak with it's hopeless, miserable vignettes, was created by the same artist from the mental hospital in the book I saw as a kid. It turns out William Kulerek was far more a talent than I had ever known. In fact, Van Halen used part of "The Maze" as an album cover in the 80's. News to me.

The good news is that Kulerek tamed his inner demons to a point, and went on to illustrate children's books, and painted a number of religious works before his death. But none of those pictures, which I have seen, had near the lasting impression of these bleak works which had a place in my nightmares and sleepless nights throughout childhood.

Kulerek's own explanation of The Maze with a picture: (HERE).

Here's a great zoom-inable view of "I Spit on Life": (HERE)

And just like that….I find this is coming out…