Category: Traumafessions

I'm not officially a "Trekker" but I grew up with and enjoyed the original STAR TREK series and have been a science fiction fan since I've known how to read.  So, when I was in junior high and STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE came I was definitely hot to see it – it was right on the crest of the wave of spectacular sci-fi movies spawned by STAR WARS and promised to be a much needed updating of the franchise to give it the visual grandeur the characters and stories always deserved.

So, I plop myself down in the theater and the first few minutes are as promised: the visuals are great, the Enterprise has received a refit making it arguably the most beautiful starship in cinema history, and all the characters are back looking great and ready for action.  However, no sooner does Kirk arrive on board the Enterprise, a console blows up in the transporter room and two new crew members die during transport.  Now, anyone who's watched the show knows that death is nothing new to STAR TREK; Red Shirts go down like handfuls of popcorn throughout the series and in some episodes, whole planets get snuffed. But usually the on-screen deaths are quick and easy – "Ensign So-and-So" goes out in a flare of pretty green phaser light or "Yeoman Bazzfazz" gets poison plant darts in the chest or steps on an exploding rock.

Not so in STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE.

The unfortunate crew are turned into living Georges Braque paintings and they are apparently conscious the whole time because while Kirk and others are trying to save them they are *writhing* around in the transporter beam and SCREECHING LIKE BANSHEES WITH THEIR SACKS CAUGHT IN A THREE-PHASE SOCKET!! Grape-flavored Christ on a stick!  It's a good thing the rest of the movie moved along in such a sedate fashion because it took almost two hours for my heart rate to get back to normal after that.  Then it took a couple days to be able to get through the day without imagining what it would be like to have my eye socket displaced by my anus.  Sweet merciful Buddha, what a way to kick off a return to the world of STAR TREK!

UNK SEZ: SBD, one of the great things about that scene is that it relies on the viewer's imagination to supply the grotesque results of the teleportation blunder. When you consider that STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE was directed by ROBERT WISE who proved himself a virtuoso in the art of cinematic suggestion and subtle audience manipulation with 1963's THE HAUNTING it's no surprise. Certainly the mind does reel at what the end result of having all your molecules scrambled up would actually be. WISE must have rightfully surmised that showing such a thing would turn off most viewers… but I guess he did not account for imaginations as strong as yours! (Really, SBD, an anus in your eye socket? Everything would look like crap!)

One might ask himself or herself how a simple song could be traumatizing. Well picture this, you are eleven-years-old just beginning your 6th grade year of junior high, intimidated being in a new environment, and the next thing you know your "old battle ax" of a gym teacher queues up "Sexual Healing" by MARVIN GAYE as you exercise. At this time the gym class was segregated girls and boys did not mix (The only exception was when they taught square dancing. Yes, you read that correctly, square dancing). However, we were all in the same building. I was embarrassed beyond belief to be doing the daily calisthenics with lyrics such as "Baby I'm hot just like an oven. I need some loving" playing in the background. I could just feel the eyes of creepy 8th grade guys watching me. You know the guys that have flunked so many times they are old enough to drive to junior high. This was not an isolated incident. This song was played during our calisthenics many times that year. To this very day, if I hear the beginning lyrics, "Get up get up get up get up. Wake up wake up wake up wake up," I scream and change the station if I am in the car. If I happen to be in a store when the song starts playing, I stifle my scream and leave immediately.  I suppose it is irrational after all these years to fear listening to this song, but I can't help myself.

P.S.: That year was tough music wise for me because "Mickey" by TONI BASIL was a hit, and that was a whole other can of worms. People to this day think it is funny to refer to that song when I tell them my name.

UNK SEZ: Oh, Mickster you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind…sorry I could not resist. Seriously, Mickster you opened the trauma gates with the mere mention of gym class alone. Obviously physical torture is not enough for some gym teachers. There are many who feel the the need to utilize Abu Ghraib-style psychological break down methods as well. As Mr. Gaye himself sang "What's going on?" Honestly, I can't blame you for grudging on that nearly X-rated musical demand for immediate gratification. It's like, simmer down, Mr. Gaye, wear green on Thursday much? Sheez. To be fair, poor Marvin's tragic fate of being shot and killed by his brain tumur suffering father meant he never lived long enough to be introduced to the Divinyl's take charge, DIY solution "I touch myself" Very sad, very sad indeed.

I was about 14 years old.  I used to babysit the kids who lived across the creek from me. The creek was large enough that I had to canoe across it, maybe 40 feet wide and about 6 to 7 feet deep.  I babysat these kids regularly, sometimes as late at 2:00 a.m.  I'd paddle over in the daylight, and I'd paddle back in the darkness.

I then made the poor choice of riding my bike to the neighborhood theater with my friend and watching FRIDAY THE 13TH.  Yes, we were underage, but it was the neighborhood theater and we knew all the ins and outs of sneaking in to R-rated movies.

The movie horrified me. But it didn't really connect with me until that final scene where Jason comes out of the lake and pulls the lone survivor in.  That was it.  I was traumatized for life.

The next weekend I had to paddle over to watch those children.  The trip over was fine, in a sense.  It was daylight, but I still had Jason in the back of my mind.  I somehow convinced myself I would be able to paddle back without any issues.

1:30 a.m. approached and the parents came home.  It was time for me to go back to my home… in the canoe.

I walked to the canoe that was tied to the bank.  I looked to the black water.  I didn't want to go out there.  I was terrified.  My senses were at full alert.  I could see the silhouette of my house.  The window to my parents bedroom was dimly lit as my parents always fell asleep with the T.V. on.  I hoped they would randomly look out the window to watch me, as if that could help.

I slowly crawled into the canoe.  I untied the rope and grabbed my paddle.  I stuck it in the water very slowly, and gently pulled myself through the water trying not to attract any attention.  I was half way to the dock.  Ripples of water projected from the paddle due to my hands shaking.  I was almost there.

I then heard a thud and felt something hit the canoe.  I was in tears. I looked into the water and saw a round black mass floating next to me. It was somebody's head.  I was almost sure it was somebody's head.

I poked it with the paddle and it just bobbed in the water.  I jabbed the paddle into the water and began to paddle home as fast as my arms could move.  I was frantic.  I pulled the canoe close enough to the dock for me to jump from the canoe.  I ran for the back door.  I didn't even tie the canoe up as it floated back out to water.

I made it into my house.  I was still alive.  I went straight to my bedroom and sat on my bed, wiping my eyes, trying to regain control of my breathing.

The next day I used the rowboat to search for the canoe that had floated away.  I found it resting under some trees about one hundred yards away. After that I had my parents drive me to my babysitting jobs, or rode my bike until I was old enough to drive.  I never got back in that water after dark.  My nights of camping out on the dock with my fishing pole were over.  FRIDAY THE 13TH had ruined me.

Oh, and that head… it was a large piece of firewood that had slipped off of a neighbor's dock.

UNK SEZ: Stutz, thank you so much for this beautifully written TRAUMAFESSION! I gotta say it kinda gives me the creeps. It reminds me of all the times I thought I heard a noise in the house or thought somebody was following me in the street, all the times my brain wickedly decided to erase the line between real life and all the movies I've seen and the books that I've read. Just remember, decapitated heads that turn into driftwood are fine, it's driftwood that turns into decapitated heads that you have to watch out for!

UPDATE: Check out Stutz's blog THE MONDAY REPORT!

My parents were generous enough to buy records for me and my two older brothers. I don't know why we got this record, but I can imagine it was for Halloween purposes: "Disney's Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House."

The cover alone is enough to scare any kid. Side One is a bunch of scary stories with effects which were OK but not traumatizing. It's Side Two that terrorized me – it's a collection of really fucking scary effects made by the top Foley artists and effects people at Disney – OF COURSE it's going to be scary! There were human voice, animal sounds, wood creaks, wind, water drips, crashes – and they all seemed EVIL. ORSON WELLES would have been jealous. The fact that there's no narration or anything made it even worse. Your imagination could fill in ANYTHING and in my case, it always did. The back cover has a warning that reads "Not intended for young, impressionable children from three to eight" – that was exactly my age range, and my brothers quickly learned that playing track one on side two ("Screams and Groans") was the quickest way to send me running screaming to my room to hide under the covers with my fingers in my ears. My parents, of course, did nothing to stop this.

The trauma followed me to high school, when a friend of mine produced the same album from her collection. I couldn't hide my reaction and she insisted on playing it, just to freak me out. I went outside where I couldn't hear it and wouldn't come back in till she turned it off. Later in life I needed to use the sounds on side two track ten ("Things in Space", less scary Forbidden Planet-type noises) for a radio show but had to make everyone promise not to "accidentally" play any of the other tracks.

In Googling the album, I found a SITE where someone has uploaded the tracks. I turned the sound off on my computer before I clicked on the link in Google, just in case they'd set a track to play automatically. Will I click on any of the links, just to see if they still scare me? HELL NO.

By the way, I still have the original album in my collection, safely tucked in the back. I hope it doesn't crawl up the stairs one night to terrorize me again. It just might, y'know.

I'd be interested to know if any other readers were traumatized by those bastards at Disney.

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Thanks Lene for the great audio TRAUMAFESSION! To hear more from Lene, literally, be sure to check out the podcasts that abound on her site I Read Comics.

 

In our hometown mall there was always one corner that was a little darker, gloomier than the other and this corner housed our Woolworth's store.  At Halloween time they put on the requisite window display and it was pretty tame considering.  But one year they put out a black velvet cloth and from under was creeping a hand.  No blood, no sharp implements nothing – but my sister saw me gazing at it with rapt attention and then began to tease me that the hand was going to follow me home and hide under my bed, the hand was going to get me. And after that I had months of nightmares where the hand was following me, the hand was hiding just out of my sight.  So one of the most traumatic moments of childhood had to do with the disembodied hand.

The 1974 movie EARTHQUAKE also did me in – I couldn't ride in an elevator for a long time after watching this one.  In one scene they show people in an elevator during the quake and the cables break and it plunges them to their doom. As a special, extra-cheesy 1970's effect they put big red splotches over the scene to ram home to the viewer that yes these people died, were mashed to bits, no more.  I rewatched the movie recently and was amused at how hokey the scene really was – but to a five year old, pure fear. 

UNK SEZ: Fellow LOTTD member Absinthe is the mastermind behind GLOOMY SUNDAY a brilliant spot that takes an exhaustive look at the world of Gothic romances. There's always something new there and besides Absinthe's penetrating observations, visitors are treated to an impressive catalog of those groovy gothic paperback covers of yesteryear. Add a little darkness to your day and drop by!
 

Absurd though it may sound, the Hall & Oates song "Maneater" traumatized me so much that I actually stopped listening to the radio. I used to listen to the radio all the time, but once that song came out, and once I heard it late at night (which, given my age at the time, was probably like 8 or 9pm), it freaked me out so badly that I had to enter a self-enforced radio silence for fear that the song might come on again. I was, of course, taking the lyrics too literally; my metaphor glands had not dropped yet.

UNK SEZ: Dear Nat: I know many people who claim to be scared of John Oates' awesome mustache, but I have never heard of anyone being afraid of the smooth as velvet, blue-eyed soul, pop masterpiece "Maneater." I always thought the song brought in the happy thoughts like NATASSIA KINSKI in PAUL SCHRADER's CAT PEOPLE (which was also released in 1982) or that awesome video game that looked like a shark's face also entitled MANEATER. I do feel your pain though. I've mentioned before my on going adverse reaction to THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT, but it seems your feeling towards "Maneater" more closely resembles my own for Paul McCartney and Wings' horrifically spooky-toned song "Let 'Em In"…you know, "Someone's knocking on the door, somebody's ringing the bell…do me a favor, open the door and let 'em in…" I remember hearing this song on my little transistor radio as a kid and being terrified by who might be behind said door (This being the seventies I was pretty sure it was Satan himself). Some nice youtuber made a mash-up of the song with a Beatles cartoon in which they are confronted by Frankenstein, the Wolfman and a bunch of other ghouls. Although it amounts to exactly zero in the sense making department, I think it perfectly illustrates what was going on inside my wee little brain at the time. (To be honest the song's lazy marching beat still gives me the willies). To experience the creepy horror go HERE, otherwise you can always revisit your own unhappy place HERE. The sad news is, just like with my trauma song, you can be sure that "Maneater," due to its popularity is never, ever, ever, going to go away!

UPDATE: The original WINGS' version of "Let Em In" is no longer scary to me now that I have witnessed BERT PARKS' performance of the same song at the 1976 Miss America Pageant. Only those who do not have residual LSD locked in their spinal cord should venture HERE!!!

Being born in 1973, I came across a barrage of horrifying images on T.V.: The Zuni Doll from TRILOGY OF TERROR, DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW, The "V" TWINS! — but nothing was more damming to my psyche than the WAYLAND FLOWERS abomination: MADAME

Pure terror to a toddler.  When her freakish gaping maw was shut, her face looked like two large people screwing each other.  I quickly would change the channel to let's say, Mr. Rogers, but wait!… There's LADY ELAINE FAIRCHILDE, the lesser freakish sister of MADAME.  Ahrgh! I can't win.

I dare you to try to hold in your screams when you look at MADAME's home site…

I dare you.

UNKLE LANCIFER SEZ: Turnidoff, you are right. MADAME is scary as hell, but she's also notoriously difficult to work with. Based on legends that exist solely within my alcohol-rattled mind, she was, in fact, the first choice to star in the film adaptation of STEPHEN KING's MISERY. Lo and behold, a young moxie-filled, opportunistic KATHY BATES did a bit of an ALL ABOUT EVE number on the aged puppet and snatched that part right out of her puppet hands by seducing a then-naive meathead named ROB REINER.

Shed no tears for MADAME though, it turns out she had more than one shot at being a cinematic legend. Rumors that originate from the bottom of the glass that I am swilling tell tales of her being thrown off of the set of BRIAN DE PALMA's CARRIE and being replaced by a young ingénue named PIPER LAURIE due to hysterical fits over the limitation of the film's budget for TAB!!!!

UPDATE: as suggested by "sbd"…

Although the Cylons have made your Official Traumatizer list, they're not what gave me the heebie jeebies. In the 1978 movie, the Galactica crew and assorted refugees stop off at a supposedly friendly planet. But, no, the aliens aren't friendly–they want to EAT the Earthlings! The scene that freaked me out involved the discovery that the aliens were stuffing the humans into glass fronted drawers, covering them with cobwebs, and digesting them. My aunt took my cousin and me to see the movie, and I was supposed to spend the night at their house, but the dessicated, cobwebby corpses so frightened me that I had my mom come and take me home.

UNKLE LANCIFER SEZ: Tracy, you are correct to be afraid of those nasty Ovions. At least Cylons are absolutely clear about their intentions (when they're not pretending they want peace whilst implementing a holocaust), Ovions on the other hand are downright sneaky. First they set up a gambling joint where you can't loose, then they provide you with awesome entertainment in the form of singers with four eyes and two mouths and then, when you're all relaxed and fattened, they nab you in the elevator and turn you into baby Ovion food! Give me a straightforward Cylon any day over those two-faced, backstabbing rat finks! (They are very good harp players though!)

Kids in this high-tech age don't know how coddled they are when severe weather is forecast!  Today, you've got all these electronic graphics with little maps in the corner, crawls across the screen, and now and then a weatherbabe (or weatherguy) may come on to give logical, reasoned updates.

Not so when I was a kid in the '70s.

Even for a Severe Thunderstorm Watch, the programming would stop, the TV screen would fill with some ominous-looking graphic (still, of course, no movement back in those days) screaming whatever watch/warning it was in all caps, vivid colors…and worst of all, that infernal, screaming, shrill Emergency Broadcasting Service tone!  Then usually an announcer with The Voice Of Doom would come on and provide the "public service" of warning us all of impending tornadoes, damaging winds and large hail that were SURELY going to target the house you lived in and make Dorothy's tornado in THE WIZARD OF OZ about as scary as a silent fart.

Almost as bad were the "ALL CLEAR" statements that would come on-screen when the danger was supposedly past…except that the graphics were usually in more soothing shades of green and white.

The fake warnings created on YouTube are laughable compared to the horrifying simplicity of the bulletins back in the 1970s that made me want to scream running for the cellar – and, worse, my parents made me watch them because it was "educational"!