Category: Traumafessions

When I was really small, there was a book called "I Am A Little Pig" by Francois Crozat. It was the strangest and most surreal children's book ever and had many weird drawings. The two pictures that terrified me to tears were of the pig in overalls writing at a school desk and the pig on a unicycle in clown makeup. I would cry whenever I saw it and make my mother skip those parts. The pages still creep me out and I still have a horrible fear of animals on two legs to this day.

Although the horror of the pigs was enough, the most terrifying children's book of all time is famed photographer William Wegman's interpretation of Cinderella with pictures of dogs as the characters. The dogs would have on overwhelming costumes, but still have dog paws and heads. There was one picture that I was especially scared of, the Cinderella dog in a big dress by a window with the Fairy Godmother dog looking in through that window. I would always be scared to look out the window for fear that a freakishly tall dog in a huge dress would be staring at me. When I looked the book up on Amazon, I found out that Wegman had many other children's books out there. What kind of a twisted person is he? I still blame my fear of this book starting with "I Am A Little Pig."

Now to get off the subject of books featuring anthropomorphic animals, I will talk about the amazing Twin Peaks. I think I am the only 12-year-old Peaks freak, but the thing I found scariest about the show was not BOB. I found the scariest thing to be the friendly, Cooper-helping giant. His caved in cheekbones, his pale complexion, and especially his bow tie unnerved me to pieces. But it was more than his appearance! The scene were he appears in Hide-Out Wally's and tells Coop that Maddy is being killed saddened me and it also disturbed me that the giant knew what was happening but couldn't stop it! It was so sad! Another terrifying scene was where Leo woke from his coma and attacked Shelly after his face had fallen in the cake. He looked like a member of the Insane Clown Posse!

Well, this was going to be a Name-That-Trauma but I got good and lucky using IMDB's keyword search. And if you've ever seen this movie you'll already know the one I mean when I say that the keywords were "dead bird."

This was one of those films that would run late, late, LATE at night when I was a kid and 24-hour news and informercials hadn't yet been invented. I'm talking about programming geared for insomniacs and swing-shift workers. Or kids who were awake way past bedtime. I think back and realize I either stayed up that late a LOT or else my melatonin-deprived brain turned anything I witnessed at 3:15 a.m. into a trauma, because I sure seem to recall a bunch of chilling scenes.

This one, though, probably tops the list. It's not scary, really, but it sure is horrible. Moral horror, my favorite kind. Here's the setup:

There are these three teenagers on summer vacation, palling around on the beach for days on end and getting a little too friendly at night for a trio. In the end, this arrangement leads to trouble, but I didn't stay tuned that long. I was too shocked by a scene in which the boys find the girl with a seagull that they'd found on the beach, wounded. They'd nursed it back to health and were going to let it go that day. It was all very heartwarming as the guys made their way up the beach to meet the girl at their little bird sanctuary.

And when they got there, they found she'd crushed the bird with a stone. The reason? She couldn't bear to let it go, she loved it too much and knew it would just fly away and never come back. I didn't know what foreshadowing was at the time, but nowadays that sends up a red flag. I may be a bit fuzzy on the details. I also seem to recall that they DID let the bird go and it got injured again, and THEN she killed it.

The point is, she had a rationalization for her heinous act and explained it without a hint of remorse. And the guys knew she was crazy right then but stayed with her because…well, it wasn't the healthiest relationship in the first place. And that just messed up my young mind in the worst way. Ever since, folks who find themselves doing the wrong thing for the right reason have creeped me out far more than zombies or homicidal maniacs.

The movie's title, BTW, is LAST SUMMER. Not an easy title to research, thanks to those I KNOW WHAT YOU DID movies. And the girl with the borderline personality? BARBARA HERSHEY, who was evidently as disturbed by the aviacidal scene as I was.

And yes, it's on YouTube, so I finally got to see the whole thing. Turns out I was a bit off on the motivation, but it was foreshadowing all right. It's quite a film that manages to scar you twice, in viewings decades apart.

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Dead bird alert at the 8:09 mark:

"He was just a stupid bird":

In the mid '70s there was a movie, which was presented like a documentary, called BEYOND AND BACK. It dealt with accounts of real people who had "near death experiences," and acted out their narrated testimonies of walking down a hall to a bright light, with actors and special effects. I was young and my mother took me along. Since I was in a movie theatre, and I never saw anything but pure fiction on the big screen, watching this documentary was so out of its place that I held onto it as cold hard fact for a long time. I'm not sure what degree of factuality was behind it, and I've never seen it since.

Anyway, I don't remember most of it, which I think were numerous similar accounts of people walking to heaven, only to be turned around since it wasn't their time yet. Doctor's debated the actual weight of the human soul…that was another tangent they explored. All seemed rather mundane to little me.

That is, except for the last part…the shocker. This depicted the woman who attempted suicide, and didn't get the bright light treatment.

Instead, she experiences a hellish vision, which scared the jujubes out of me.

What I remember is she's in some dark bleak place, and is accosted by some "demons" or other, which had human faces with silly putty over their eyes. In my mind now, they appear almost as evil blind mimes. They made no sound. They held her down to the ground and forced her to view her living relatives and friends mourning her, from in the reflection of a mud puddle. After the shock and awe, she repents in horror, and is alive again.

I doubt there was much to it, and it probably was incredibly tame, but it rocked my boat enough for my mom to shuttle me off for ice cream afterwards, as she saw me looking pale. Thereafter came many a soul searching night for me, coupled with nightmares, wondering what I had to do to get the bright light walk….which, although easily the better of the two, still seemed awfully (and eternally) lonely to a nine-year-old….and that was the best you could hope for!

Anybody remember this one?

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Brace yourself Bigwig, and get your pint of Ben & Jerry's ready. The clip of which you speak features a muscle car driving bride-to-be from Gary, Indiana and no expense was apparently spared in recreating her after-life ordeal:

Hey there,

Just wondering if you guys encountered the Send A Mouse To College Fund as kids.

The thrust of the fund was to get elementary school kids to beg for money from their parents and their parents' friends, which would eventually be used to pay for lab mice at, I suppose, local colleges and/or high schools.

Of course, being a kid, none of the grisly truth about what the money's actually for really makes its way to, past the idea that you get iron-ons and buttons for being a mule.

So you end up walking away with a sense of pride for having raised a bunch of money, as well as a new iron-on of a cutesy, cartoon mouse holding a diploma, wearing a graduation cap and gown neatly pressed onto your old, white Fruit of the Loom T-Shirt.

And of course, none of what you've taken part in hits you until you're in your mid-thirties.

Good times.

Just thought I'd share that with you.

Thanks,

Eric McDade

AUNT JOHN SEZ: As an elementary school student of the late '70s and early '80s, I was subjected to brainwashing machinations of the cult known as R.I.F., and its super sexy spokesman ED ASNER:

We were too busy reading books to be bothered with sending cute little animals to death camps. And by the time I got to junior high, we had moved on to peddling Columbia House records and cassette tapes:

Did anyone else out there in Kindertrauma-land "Send a Mouse to College"? If so, please sound off in the comments. And if anyone managed to use the hard sell to convince their Mom to buy The Eurythmics Touch LP, we need to talk.

Hello, guys, Kahotep here, terrific site, and I'm looking forward to exploring every crook and nanny here, and all this Traumafessin' has made me remember a Public Service Announcement I saw once or twice late at night growing up in New York. I'm wondering if anyone else remembers it: it's a face shot of an actor playing a policeman, saying something to the camera along the lines of, "When some of you look at me, you don't see a person, you see a pig."

And then his face morphs or dissolves into that of, yes, a pig. I don't remember much else, but it was in the same style as that Smokey the Bear one where a model unzips her head to reveal the bear underneath.

Good old-fashioned nightmare fuel, that.

Anyway, thanks for listening!

Kahotep

UNK SEZ: Kahotep, I think I know what you are talking about! I remember it being an anti-littering spot. There was this woman's voice that kept saying, "You're the one!" as in "You're the one who throws trash from your car." Each time she makes an accusation the man turns more and more into pig until finally he was some kind of Dr. Moreau-type pig monster. If it's the same spot I'm thinking of, I can attest to how disturbing it was. I may have mentioned how I feel about scary pigs once BEFORE.

Hi KinderTrauma,

The link to this site, found today at Vault of Horror — brought back one of my earliest shocks.

Not long after we moved from Toronto to NJ, I discovered Chiller Theater…Creature Features…my Saturday nights revolved around these shows.

We had an old black & white T.V. in the basement. One side was finished for us kids…our T.V., my drums, our stereo & records were all down there. An open doorway led to the laundry room & Dad's workshop, dark and creepy, and it was a challenge to walk past the doorway on the way upstairs after a movie, sometimes. At the very back of the laundry room there was a small crawlspace a few feet above the floor, warped doors exposing the darkness within…

The floor of the finished side was green linoleum with a black linoleum square in the middle, with a linoleum laughing clown face, right there on the floor. The face was assembled out of pieces of linoleum like a puzzle. I later covered the clown with the rug that my drum set sat on.

The night Chiller showed HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, there was nothing in the room but a small chair and the lamp on the floor behind me, for my dad had just waxed and polished the floor, and we hadn't yet moved our stuff back. My shadow loomed on the wall next to the T.V.

WILLIAM CASTLE's movies always gave me the creeps and I loved them. The eerie piano music, the ghostly female voices going ah-h-h-h-h, the shadowed b&w photography that had that strange presence; I don't know how to describe it. Crystal clear but strangely lit. The opening scenes hypnotized me…the cars arriving one by one as each passenger's story was told…the Frank Lloyd Wright house, which was later used in "Angel"…VINCENT PRICE and the supersexy CAROL OHMART were so lurid…the miniature coffins holding the "party favors"…I was completely absorbed.

Then the attractive young couple, played by RICHARD LONG & CAROLYN CRAIG, hang behind the others in the basement to explore and look for secret compartments where someone playing a trick might hide. Miss CRAIG kneels to listen for hollow areas on the wall while LONG knocks from the room next door. She's alone in the room…she stands up and sees that face leering over her shoulder!!

My face must have gone white, I felt numb, my eyes must have bulged in their sockets for a second when I saw that old hag! It hovered next to her while she screamed, then floated out of the room, right past her screaming face, its hands clutching the air, scrabbly old claws. I couldn't stay down there in the basement all by myself. I ran across the room, pounded up the stairs and then up stairs once more to my parent's bedroom where they were watching CAROL BURNETT. Or was it BOB NEWHART? It was that famous CBS Saturday night lineup.

I tried to casually lean against the door and check out the show but my mom knew something was up…"What's the matter?" "Oh nothing." But she knew what I had been watching. Later I felt angry with myself because I knew I'd missed the rest of a really good movie. To this day, whenever I'm creeping around, searching for secret compartments, I can see that scary face in my mind and I nervously look over my shoulder.

UNK SEZ: Rich E., thanks much for this vivid traumafession and for mentioning one of our favorite joints, THE VAULT OF HORROR!!! Anyone out there interested in visiting THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL can do so HERE.

Greetings!

I'm a big fan of your website and just felt the need to tell you how much I enjoy reading about all the old and/or cheesy horror films I've missed out on in my life. There have been many I've been interested in watching but no one will watch them with me, imagine that! My only kindertrauma is that I didn't have much trauma to begin with. The only remotely scary thing for me was the opening of the TALES FROM THE CRYPT T.V. show, the music would send chills down my spine and have me hiding behind the couch until the opening was over. After that, I was fine with watching the show itself, and I have since become a DANNY ELFMAN fan who actually composed the opening music- imagine my surprise when I first discovered that my favourite rock singer created the one television theme music that used to scare the crap outta me! Apart from that, there were a select few R.L. STINE book covers (IE: Twisted) that gave me the creeps, but nothing too serious.

Thanks to my dad who was a huge fan of scary movies, I was desensitized at a young age to scary movies. At age 12-13 I even developed a strange school-girl crush on WARWICK DAVIS' THE LEPRECHAUN, convinced that I would be able to turn his evil heart and give him the friendship he obviously desperately needed (he was misunderstood after all!)

I just wanted to show some gratification for your site, which also helped me remember/rediscover a movie that I saw only once many years ago and could only remember ONE thing from. THE GATE was somewhat creepy, but the only scene I ever remembered was a kid having an eye in the middle of his palm and he had to stab it out with a piece of broken glass. Thanks to you guys, I can add the movie to my Netflix queue and relive the cheesy, kid-targeted horror that once intrigued me so long ago.

Thanks, Kindertrauma!

To save space in your in-box, I have documented my Kindertrauma through the eternal medium of YouTube video. To wit: in the early 1980s there was a series of dolls called the HuggaBunch. They had huge heads and eerie glassy eyes, and they were introduced to the world via an hour-long made-for-T.V. movie. The scene in the video below has not left my head for twenty-four years.

AUNT JOHN SEZ: To see more musings by quizzicalsphinx, check out her blog HERE.

I, like many other people, like to think that I have always had a high tolerance for horror. "Not so," says the Truth. And lo, the Truth hath spoken, but I'm being totally honest when I say there are very few things that have actually managed to frighten me to the point of H.P. LOVECRAFT-inspired insanity.

Case in point: THE PHANTOM OF THE MOTHERFUCKIN' OPERA. Naturally, the B&W version.

I must've been about four years old—arguably the quintessential age for trauma. The mums and I were down in the basement watching TV, making a mother-daughter connection that only good TV watching can produce when…she turned the channel. And Sweet Allah eating breadsticks, there was LON CHANEY with his sunken eyes, sunken face, and absolutely FUCKED-UP nose. Forget the de-masking, the monster had already been revealed, and all I could do was sit there, scrunched up between my mom and an end-table, scared stiff. My mom didn't notice anything—shoot, I didn't notice anything: I couldn't even shake from the fear. What made it even more terrifying? Sitting there, even when I remember there was no tangible reason for my having to stay there while my mom smoked her Benson & Hedges, reading the dialogue all calmly and quietly. I could've left; I could've taken my beloved Play-Doh with me and gone somewhere else. But no, I chose Hell.

I don't remember how, but afterwards I put two-and-two together and associated the movie with the musical (that's an especially scary thought, considering, y'know, ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER). Two years later, I heard the theme on the car radio while riding with my dad and I became nearly paralyzed with dread. After we got out of the car, it kind of tapered off into a sort-of dull, morose feeling. It felt like it settled into my shoulder blades and would never leave. My dad and I played Frisbee for a while, and I remember feeling so distressed because I consciously tried to get that feeling to go away and it wouldn't. The song was stuck. The image was stuck. I was stuck. Frisbee couldn't save me.

The worst part, for me anyway, was just how popular and recognizable THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA was in its many incarnations. There was an NBA half-time show that featured the infamous duet between the Phantom and Christine. I couldn't fucking believe it. All I could do was bury my little head in the sofa cushions and pretend to take a nap for what felt like HOURS before I thought it was safe. It was in THE MUPPET BABIES for Christ's sake! Gonzo opens a door and BOOM, LON "THAT FACE" CHANEY. I gazed up at the ceiling long after it was over wondering who in the hell thought that was a great idea to broadcast on daytime T.V. It was one thing to be initially exposed to it, but to have it appear in the most unlikely of places? How much trauma can a kid take?

Over the following year, my fear of anything to do with THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA tapered off dramatically. My friend actually burned the soundtrack for me a couple years ago, and I listened to it until I developed a low-tolerance for Broadway musicals. Now I see "THAT FACE" and have the inexplicable urge to get some piano wire and tie it around my face so I can look terrifying. I have been thinking about changing my vocation…maybe I should get into the movie biz? Be the next harbinger of nightmares and kindertraumas? "B.A. in Fucking Scary Shit" sounds better on a resume than "B.A. in Psychology."

Greetings from Mexico City:

First of all I have to say, that your website is one of the best I've ever found on the web.

Keep up the good work, because it seems I´m getting addicted to small bits of forgotten horrors… hehe.

Well, here is my little contribution. It may not be one of the best horror films but back in the day I watched it and it gave me some paranoiac feeling about my schoolmates… haha.

This is an ‘80s Mexican movie that features a small evil girl that will do everything she likes until she gets what she desires.

Its name is VENENO PARA LAS HADAS (POISON FOR THE FAIRIES), even though it's not a typical horror film, I think it slides in the small cracks of our minds.

I found this small but complete synopsis about the film.

Now I will talk about my kindertrauma and just watching that disturbing scene looking for more info to send to you made me uneasy.

When I was a small child, there were T.V. spots from one of the Mexican Government Culture Ministries. They were common stuff during the ‘80s, most of them were about European or art movies. In one of these T.V. spots I got the biggest kindertrauma I can remember.

It was one cloudy afternoon before a thunderstorm (great cliché ) and I was playing with my toy soliders and stuff when I got the glimpse of a weird movie being advertised on T.V.

The image that still give me bumps and nausea is the one where a guy sharpens his razor at his balcony door and tests the razor on his thumb. He then opens the door, and idly fingers the razor while gazing at the moon, about to be engulfed by a thin cloud, from his balcony. There is a cut to a close-up of a younger woman, being held by this guy as she watches in the camera direction. Another cut occurs to the moon being overcome by the cloud as the man slits the girls´ eye with the razor.

I was horrified at what I just watched, and when another of those T.V. spots threatened to appear any time of the day I will switch the channel as fast as I could. At least I knew that those spots only lasted a couple of weeks, so I dared to watch the first seconds of the T.V. spot to see if it has already changed.

Later I made a little research and found out that this movie is one of the greatest surrealistic movies ever made, even SALVADOR DALÍ had something to do with it.

The movie is UN CHIEN ANDALU (AN ANDULUSIAN DOG) from LUIS BUÑUEL and here is the creepiest and scariest scene I´ve ever seen:

UNK SEZ: Dear Alex V., thanks for the kind words and your wonderful traumafession. Before we started this website, I thought I had seen just about every scary movie but thanks to readers like you I realize that there are many more to see and learn about. Tracking down VENENO PARA LAS HADAS is now on the top of my list of things to do. It sounds amazing!

As for UN CHIEN ANDALU, you are not alone in being effected by that little stunner. In fact it even inspired one of my favorite PIXIES tunes! "Got me a movie, ha ha ha hoa, slicing up eyeballs, ha ha ha hoa!"…