Category: Traumafessions

Dear Kindertrauma team,

My name is Marc Hendriks and I'm the author of the anthology Monstruos. This is my traumafession:

Now, for the first time, I am bringing to you the full story of what happened on that fateful day in 1985, when I was eight years old. My friends, I cannot keep this a secret any longer.

Back in the swinging eighties, I was known by peers and relatives alike as a spineless momma's boy. Eager to rid myself of that stigma and to be thenceforth known as a tough guy, I boldly stepped into my BFFW's (Best Friend For a While) bedroom and demanded to be shown his copy of a magazine devoted to MICHAEL JACKSON's Thriller video. My buddy reluctantly obliged, warning me that the pictures in the magazine might prove too much for me. Obstreperously waiving his concerns, I grabbed the magazine from his hands, opened it at a random page, and was confronted with a photo of MICHAEL JACKSON transforming into the werecat.

All color drained from my face and I tossed the magazine out of the window. Those teeth, those yellow eyes…it was too much for me, all right. Way, way too much. Gone were the thoughts of wanting to be a tough guy, born to be bad. I bolted for the door, screaming for my mom as fresh salty tears trickled down my cheeks.

My bemused friend not only had to physically support me on my way home, but also endure repeated cries of "I'm hallucinating! I'm seeing the JACKSON werecat behind that tree/that lamppost/that car!"

When my mom answered the door for us, her first reaction to the sorry state I was in consisted of an indignant "Have you been giving my son alcohol?!"

I let my friend take care of the explaining, ran up the stairs and hid under my bed; surely, the JACKSON werecat wouldn't be able to get me there.

The next day at school, I learned that my friend's pinky swear to keep things under wraps had been superseded by the enormous LOL-potential of my mental undoing. Every kid who owned a copy of the Thriller magazine brought it to school after lunch break, waving it in my face in the hope I'd turn on the sprinklers again. I didn't, for the harmless picture couldn't match the sheer terror of the JACKSON werecat I'd encountered in my nightmares the night before.

Kind regards,

Marc Hendriks

Hello Kindertrauma!

I'd like to share with you a couple of things that scared the holy whatsit out of me as a kid, if I may. I was reminded of the first one by your recent post about Super Naturals – here in the U.K. we had a Super Naturals comic, and there was a separate strip in it about an evil ventriloquist doll, just called, I think, "The Doll."

If I remember correctly, a young boy goes to live with foster parents, and discovers the ugly doll in his bedroom. I think it belonged to the foster carers' dead son, and the dad goes mental and chucks the doll in the bin, and the image that always stays with me is how the doll scratches him as he throws it away…brrr!

The other thing that had a deeply unpleasant effect on me as a kid was Disney's THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS. I only managed to gather up the balls to watch the full film a few years ago, and discovered it to be a weird sci-fi thing, but the idea/image that always bothered me was the parts of the film which used the POV of some invisible force watching people…in the woods!

I couldn't go in or near wooded areas for YEARS; I even had to avoid large front gardens with a lot of trees in them, because I was certain the "Watcher" was in there, being all creepy.

Regards,

Rev. Austin

Hey again guys:

I'm not quite sure if it's just me, but I'm assuming that many folks my age were equally affected by the mid-eighties triad of The Bomb, AIDS and Crack, whose growth-stunting effects on the young teen mind were unmatched at the time.

Being in 7th grade and watching THE DAY AFTER (Thanks Andi T.) three nights in a row was, for me, terrifying.

AIDS didn't even need a made-for-TV movie to screw up a 13 year-old, hormone-riddled mind.

And, thank you, CRACKED UP for showing us how even such a fun thing as smoking pot can quickly lead to the untimely death of a budding high-school sports star.

Now, before The Big Three came at me, I had been content to believe the biggest concerns in America were with their far more innocent analogs, Bulllies (MY BODYGUARD), Premarital Sex (see a very special episode of GIMME A BREAK), and just plain-old Pot (Do yourself a favor and get a copy of the ABC Afterschool Special, STONED with SCOTT BAIO.)

And somewhere between these two groups, my brain was branded with an indelible memory.

Perhaps, not so indelible, as I don't really remember every aspect of it.

I just remember the icky-ness of it.

And the icky-ness was huge.

At least the way I remember it.

Aside from The Big Three, one of the largest psychic scars I garnered as a kid occurred upon viewing FALLEN ANGEL.

In it, RICHARD MASUR plays a consummate creep, and DANA HILL is the newest addition to his softball-team / kiddie-porn ring. Mostly, what I recall is a never-ending bounty of pills for the kids to enjoy and a cooler full of Orange Crush to wash them down with, accompanied by a blurry cascade of satin jackets and too much lip gloss.

The only line I can remember enough to butcher is from when a more experienced girl tries to get DANA HILL's character to ease into the whole gig, telling her, "It's no big deal. Just show a little skin and give a toothpaste smile."

Anyone?

Eric McDade

P.S.: By the way, all that icky-ness from FALLEN ANGEL would eventually come flooding back to me in a tidal wave of revulsion while watching DANA HILL chew gum and blow bubbles on the train in EUROPEAN VACATION.The sounds….

UNK SEZ: Eric, I was traumatized by FALLEN ANGEL too; I never watched ONE DAY AT A TIME the same way again and I think RICHARD MASUR's mustache alone should have been arrested for indecency! As disturbing as that 1981 television film was, who can deny the fact that DANA HILL delivered a fine performance, just as she was always known to do. DANA seemed to be in just about everything in the early eighties (most notably in SHOOT THE MOON opposite DIANE KEATON and ALBERT FINNEY ) but then disappeared due to poor health. Thanks to her signature raspy voice though, she went on to do a lot of voice over work in popular cartoons like GUMMI BEARS. Sadly DANA died of diabetes in 1996 at the age of 32. If anybody out there would like to help people with diabetes in honor of DANA this holiday season, just do some shopping HERE!

When I was pretty little, some time in the ‘70s, some babysitter let me and my sibs watch ROMAN POLANSKI's THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS. It scared the crap out of me. The old hunter who kept freezing and having to be thawed out was bad, but the worst was the woman who was stolen out of her bath by the vampire. I was terrified for weeks, afraid I was going to be snatched out of my bathtub by a vampire.

When I was in college I rented it and re-watched it to see what was so terrifying, and then I saw that it was a sex farce and that the vampire was a homosexual trying to seduce the young vampire hunter. What a difference twenty years makes!

Carol

Hey Unkle and Aunt!

Allow me a moment to sing your sites praises. Despite being a yellow bellied Aussie girl, I've relived and discovered so much trauma at the hands (sites have hands, right?) of this wonderful page.

I felt it necessary to share with you a trauma I've had since I was a wee one. As mentioned above I had a fair few, I was so weak! I didn't even watch POLTERGEIST until I was 25 (last year). But as for stories from my youth, there is one that sticks out in my mind was a video trailer for the movie length commercial MAC & ME. I didn't even have to see the movie to be terrified! I don't even recall what video it was on but there it was, this horribly tiny ugly thing!

This was meant to be good wholesome entertainment?? Not to THIS little black duck! I even recall something about a vacuum cleaner, and being stuck on the ceiling…? I don't know if that's another trauma mixing with this one, but the scene of it sent me hitting the fast forward button on my VCR as hard as I could with my eyes shut.

I've never seen the movie. Such is the power of MAC & ME. I even faced my fears today in locating a trailer and wow. Does that movie look pathetic (and a rip off!) but still, as states by so many traumafessions before me, it's amazing what scared us then hardly phases us now.

I've got many more traumafessions, but they can wait for another time.

Your fellow sufferer down under,

CGAussie

AUNT JOHN SEZ: CGAussie, if you though the theatrical trailer was a doozy…

… then DO NOT WATCH this one:

Hi,

My name is Timo (a.k.a. ghostofthemovie) and here is my traumafession.

My worst kindertrauma was definitely the movie adaption of STEPHEN KING's novel IT by TOMMY LEE WALLACE. I'm still shaking when I remember watching it in my childhood.

Every time I saw TIM CURRY's clown masked face in a close up my heart started to pound and cold sweat was running down my neck. For a long time I was afraid to go outside when it was dark, because I thought the clown would come and hunt me down.

This kind of fear inspired by a movie was exciting in a completely new way. So I started to watch more horror stuff and I'm still a fan of this genre. But nowadays, these films are more like funny amusement than a deeply terrifying experience.

Great website by the way!

Greetings from Germany,

Timo

I watched this movie as a tot.

We got a VCR, when they first became popular. There were very few kid movies to rent at that time. My mother thought that this film was appropriate for me and my older brother and rented it over and over and over again. My brother and I hadn't discussed this movie in over 20 years, when one day it came up. I didn't remember the plot or the movie itself (I was that young), I only recalled the bunnies, blood and horrifying violence. My brother then chimed in with the name of the movie and how traumatizing he too thought it was.

I'm 33 years old and still have nightmares. I think about renting it and watching it as an adult; thinking it won't be as traumatic and may ease my mind… but I'm too scared.

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Thanks for the great traumafession Nicole. If you are looking to start an adult support group for this bloody bunny traumatizer, we can hook you up with Readers Greta and Matt N.

I have been searching several years for a commercial that traumatized my nephew when he was three years old. It was for hologram action figures called Super Naturals. As you will see in the commercial, a kid rips his head off to reveal a glowing wolf-man face. Poor Zac would run screaming, "Kid pull his head off!" to his bedroom. I wonder if other children were traumatized by this commercial?

I was nine when this was shown on T.V., and it's been stuck in a dark recess of my brain ever since. As one of the comments [on Youtube] points out, "It's PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE" for kids. (With JOHN SEBASTIAN, even!)

UNK SEZ: Thanks Props! I'm surprised nobody has brought this one up before, back in the day they used to show it on Halloween. THE DEVIL AND DANIEL MOUSE, like most things with the Devil in it, gave me some creeps as a kid too. Based on THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER, this Faustian mouse tale got revamped for the big screen in the form of ROCK AND RULE (It also bears a striking resemblance to the cult musical THE APPLE!) How frickin' cool is DEVIL AND DANIEL MOUSE? So cool that it was sampled for the BAUHAUS song Party of the First Part!