Category: Traumafessions

Shortly after I had discovered the horror of JAWS and the irrational fear of even the shallowest of waters, my parents introduced my sister and I to the 1980 film ALLIGATOR. The scene that shook me to the core of my being was the birthday party scene when some bratty kids blindfold an unlucky youngster and took him to walk the plank. The plank, of course, is the diving board of their pool and as luck would have it, the titular beast is waiting hungrily at the bottom. This takes place at night so the kids don't know of the danger until somebody's parent turns on the pool lights revealing 36-feet of alligator badness.

You know how things slow down when you're scared? This scene seemed hours long to my kid-brain. The way I perceived this moment was that the kids KNEW the alligator was in that pool and were trying to kill their friend ON PURPOSE. So what is really just a great scare in a horror movie turned into this long, protracted and sadistic murder scene. Was this a nihilistic comment on the state of children in the 1980s? Probably not, but on the following Monday morning, I viewed the other kids at my grade school in a different and much more suspicious light.

UNK SEZ: Great traumafession Richard! Just what one would expect from the brilliant mind behind DOOMED MOVIETHON and the equally awesome DOOMED MOVIEBLOG!

When I was five, The American Heart Society (Or maybe it was the Cancer Society?) used to run these creepy animated commercials about taking care of your lungs and heart. One was about not smoking cigarettes while shoveling snow (the little cartoon man had over 9000 crammed in his mouth to illustrate, and I think he died) and another listed a bunch of orders about staying healthy: "Don't smoke! Eat right! Keep in shape!" sung in this scary deep voice. Then in the same ad was a silhouette of a human figure, then a bright red heart appeared in its chest, and the figure keels over dead! That used to terrify the crap out of me! Mostly because even at that age, I knew my dad had a stressful job and worked hard and he smoked a lot, too, and I was so afraid I'd lose him…just like the commercials said!

I've searched for these old ads on Youtube but to no avail. I want to see if they still freak me out almost forty years later. Could someone else find them?

UNK SEZ: Ravyn, I didn't have any better luck than you did trying to track down those anti-smoking commercials you mentioned! I did however stumble across this one that stars the late YUL BRYNNER which used to haunt the hell out of me. I bet a lot of smokers put out their butts when this ad aired!

When I was about 11 or 12 (which would've been in the early ‘80s) I got my hands on one of the nastiest pieces of horror fiction my eyes have ever been scorched with, The Cellar. It looked like just another "potboiler" horror paperback you could pick up at any drug store or used book store, and Satan knows I had already plowed through plenty of those in my misspent youth.

But oh no, this was different.

This book was brimming with graphic scenes of violent assault, violent rape, kidnapping, bestiality and sicko perversions. The pièce de résistance however, was toward the end, when the housekeeper of the 'beast house' was getting gang banged….willingly, by a pack of the snarling beasties. Not only that, she was, uh, shall we say… enjoying herself immensely.

My brief synopsis doesn't really do this piece of eye-frigging justice, but it scarred me if not for life, at least for puberty (I still watch and read horror, go figure).

Imagine my horror when I'm cruising the Fantastic Fiction website and run up upon this very book. And not only that, it was a whole series of books. Of course I'm going to read every single one I can get my hands on and probably anything else that sick little twist RICHARD LAYMON has written. If you've never partaken in the "Beast House" series, be warned it's not for the faint of heart, fragile of mind or weak of stomach. Urp.

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Initially, Shannon submitted this entry as a Name That Trauma!:

I've been looking for a book entitled 'Vampire Types' or 'The Vampire Type' but for the life of me can't remember the author's name, and I was hoping maybe you or one of your readers might know it. The book was published around the same time as 'The Vampire Tapestry', and the cover truly gave me horrible dreams when I was a little girl. It had a blue background and a very pale, cadaverous, black haired woman on the cover with a single, very large drop of blood running from one corner of her mouth. My mom borrowed the book from my uncle, and all the way home I was in terror because the book was in a paper grocery bag next to my leg.

Internet searches haven't even been helpful. I'd really appreciate it if anyone can tell me the name of the author.

P.S. – I love your site – it brings back so many memories!

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Thanks to the power of our procrastination, Shannon rolled up her own sleeves and was able to track down not only the name of the book, but also a picture to share with the rest of the class:

After I contacted you last night my son found the book. I had the title wrong – it's 'The Vampire Tapes' (I thought it was 'Types'). We located a copy online. Oddly, it's a bit different from the image I remember but I figure that's because I was so young and terrified of it.

Here is a traumafession of mine. When I was growing up the old TRISTAR, STEPHEN J. CANNELL and UNIVERSAL logos used to scare the living daylights out of me!

I used to think that the TRISTAR horse would charge towards me.

I hated the loud music that came with the S.J.C. logo so I'd always hide during the end credits of THE A-TEAM.

And that UNIVERSAL logo just looked really spooky with all that mist surrounding it! I'm fine with the current COLOMBIA/TRISTAR logo and the current UNIVERSAL logo – it's the old ones that give me the creeps. I still have to skip through them watching UNIVERSAL SOLDIER and DUEL!

UNK SEZ: Don't worry Ally G., you're not ALONE!

I have a Traumafession that may not be a first, but is surely a rarity: a second-generation Traumafession.

It comes from The Giving Tree, the beloved children's book by Shel Silverstein (who also wrote Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue," strangely enough). While the book is a heart-tugging classic, it's the back jacket photo of Silverstein that traumatized me as a child, and now my 5-year-old son Dash.

To put it in perspective, this photo is from a brand-new reissue of The Giving Tree. In other words, they've been using it for at least three decades.

I mean, is this the best head shot they had of this man? The gritty black and white photo, his thick eyebrows, even thicker beard, and an expression that looks more like he's going to chase you through the woods than tell you a children's story.

Even if this was the best photo of Silverstein at the time, that was at least 30 years ago. Horribly scary photo aside, how about a different or updated photo just 'cause? A simple image search on Google easily produces several better options.

So, not only did this photo of Silverstein scare me as a child, it's disturbed my son enough that he actually asked me to take the book jacket with me after bedtime stories one night — he too thought "the man on the back was scary."

NOTE: Be sure to check out FilmFather's excellent blog HERE!

Thank you so much for the gift that is Kindertrauma – every day brings new delights!

I am surprised that no one has yet mentioned a classic P.S.A. from the late ‘60s, and I must confess I'm grateful that they haven't, as I am simply terrified that someone may excavate this childhood horror in video form and post it. Every few months or so I do a web search to see if it has ever resurfaced…to date, nothing.

It was an anti-heroin P.S.A., I believe 15 seconds in length. The camera panned around a wind-up toy monkey playing a drum as a little girl's voice is heard: "They say that people who are addicted to heroin have a monkey on their back – isn't that cute!" Then the kicker – the camera zooms in FAST on the monkey's face. It bares its fangs, and the hellish thing screams. (It may have cut to a shot of an actual simian at this point, but my memory is unclear.)

The speed of that zoom was breathtaking – the child had scarcely finished her last word before the camera moved and the shriek was heard. It was unquestionably the most frightening thing I ever witnessed in my childhood, and despite a steady diet of filmed and written Horror from my youngest days, nothing had prepared my little six-year old psyche for this. Whenever the ad played again, I ran screaming from the room…and since it was only 15 seconds long, I didn't have much time to get away!

A number of years ago, I posted this recollection on a web discussion group dedicated to all things horrific. Days later there was a very angry reply from a respected attorney in Texas, who said he had successfully repressed the trauma of this ad over the years…and my posting had brought the evil thing back into his consciousness and was giving him nightmares. Trust me; this cautionary spot had a profound effect on those of us of a certain age. I've long suspected this might have been an inspiration for Stephen King's short story "The Monkey."

My arms have been covered in gooseflesh typing every word of this. Please – don't find this P.S.A.!

UNK SEZ: Steven S., this is your lucky day because no matter how hard we tried, we could NOT find your P.S.A.!

I heard that Bob Dylan song 'Lay Lady Lay' last night and my brain suddenly flashed an image of Lady Elaine from MISTER ROGER'S NEIGHBORHOOD. A traumatic thing, no doubt. I didn't realized I harbored that association. Needless to say I just had to Google her and that's when I came upon Kindertrauma for the first time.

I quickly posted the URL to Facebook to share with my peeps. Since last night we have all been trolling your web site, revisiting our nightmares. It has been a moving experience.

One thing I looked for but didn't find is THE LOST SAUCER a series included in the SATURDAY MORNING WITH SID & MARTY KROFTT show.

JIM NABORS is a Mr. Creepy (like most biology teachers) and RUTH BUZZI is simply not someone I would want to spend any time alone with. In this show they are in robot suits ('Actually, we're androids.') and piloting a space ship (saucer) that lands on earth. Here they befriend two kids – a white girl who is babysitting a little black boy. White girl is all responsible and wants to go home while little man is all hip and cool and digs the 'flying pinball' machine and is in no hurry to get back home (he knows it will be bed time soon). Before they can turn the saucer around (ha!) and head back to Earth, in comes the scariest fucking thing in TV in the '70.s DORSE! The biogenically engineered half dog-half horse monster!

Dorse was supposed to be this cute lovable robots-best-friend thing but was in fact a very scary beast with rag-mop fur and a velvet covered hobbyhorse head. Yeah, I knew it was a full-grown man in a suit, but that just made it even worse. Somehow I knew that adults who dressed up in costumes to make kids feel 'comfortable' was sinister, I knew there must be an ulterior motive for wanting to make kids feel 'comfortable' (re: distracted, easy to manipulate). This show – that DORSE – scared the crap out of me. Two adults dressed like robots ('Actually, we're androids.') with another guy in a dog/horse suit who KIDNAP two kids on a 'saucer'? C'mon! And wasn't JIM NABORS a Mormon??????

Thanks for the great site!