kindertrauma

Category: Traumafessions

Traumafessions :: Richard of Doomedmoviethon on "Christopher Lloyd's Sewed on Head"

Posted on By unkle lancifer

You remember AMAZING STORIES, right? The mostly schmaltzy and occasionally entertaining brainchild of STEVEN SPIELBERG. Well, my favorite episode, "Go To The Head Of The Class", premiered in November of 1986 when I was ten years old. Oh, it's only my favorite now because the terror it inflicted on me has only now finally subsided. For years, I've hated its director, ROBERT ZEMECKIS, for really messing me up (and for BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III). Luckily, Movieplex has been running the AMAZING STORIES "movies", which are just some episodes slapped together, and I have finally faced my fear.

In the episode, CHRISTOPHER LLOYD plays Professor B. O. Beanes, a dictator of a high school teacher who takes great pleasure in punishing his students. When loser goofball Peter Brand, played by SCOTT COFFEY, starts flirting with bad girl Cynthia Simpson, the lovely MARY STUART MASTERSON, in class, they both run afoul of their jerky teacher. In order to get even, Cynthia convinces Peter to practice a little black magic on old Mr. Beanes. They accidentally kill the guy and then try resurrecting him. But, of course, they screw up while casting the spell, tear the head off the photo of the evil teacher, so he comes back from grave headless and very pissed off.

The promos for "Go To The Head Of The Class" had me bouncing off the walls for its premiere. Looking at it now, I see what I loved about the episode. It's campy, sexy in a teenie bopper '80s kind of a way, creepy in a non-threatening way, and fun as hell. But nothing could have prepared me for the surprise ending (which I'm going to ruin here). When all of the severed head business appears to have all just been a dream, Peter Brand arrives late to class to find Cynthia balancing dictionaries on her upturned hands as punishment. He also finds Mr. Beanes with his head reattached to his neck. Unfortunately for Peter (and for me), Beanes removes his scarf to show that his head has been very messily sewed back on.

This completely freaked me out. You see, I had just had my appendix removed and I still had the staples in so I was a little sensitive about seeing sutures. My imagination starting working overtime as I imagined CHRISTOPHER LLOYD's sewed on head stretching backwards and snapping its stitches in a fountain of blood. This didn't happen but I started thinking about my own scar ripping open and my guts falling out. Now I know it sounds convoluted but in a matter of seconds, I had totally ruined this excellent little one hour horror special for myself. I turned off my TV and sat in stunned silence, afraid to move. Needless to say, I had a very sleepless night ahead of me.

UNK SEZ: Thanks Richard, we always love to hear from you. We here at Kindertrauma are big fans of your DOOMED MOVIETHON! Your traumafession got me thinking about something I witnessed on television around the same time which I thought was also an episode of AMAZING STORIES. After a bit of searching, I found out it was an episode of the new TWILIGHT ZONE's first season back in 1985. It's entitled PERSONAL DEMONS and it is directed by PETER MEDAK who did THE CHANGELING. The story is about a writer named O'Bannon who has writer's block and starts seeing this scary guy and others like him everywhere he goes…

They're sorta like evil Jawas or the guys from PHANTASM except all they do is laugh hysterically and tear all his shit up. They trash his car, attack him in a bar and nobody can see these dudes besides him. Anyhows, I was happy to discover that if you act now, you can view it on the youtube before some dillweed takes it down. Here are parts ONE and TWO. I don't want to ruin the story for anyone, but it ends up being a great analogy of the creative process (whatever you do, make sure you read the closing credits). This episode has stuck with me for years so I'm so glad I got a chance to view it again. Oh, how I love my computer.

Traumafessions :: Reader Carolyanne G. on The Wall

Posted on By unkle lancifer

all in all, you're just another brick in the wall

At six years old, I assumed that cartoons were all for kids. Maybe that's why I was so shocked by what my father had fallen asleep in front of. I walked in on him watching THE WALL right at the start of the trial scene. Just the voices in that song haunted me halfway through puberty, until I finally sat down and watched it. The one scene that really hit home with me was the sequence during "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2" where these little kids were being marched into a food grinder. I think between that scene and the "trial" sequence, it took my dad over an hour to calm me down.


UNK SEZ: Carolyanne, I've been waiting for somebody to mention this one! I love this movie, but I can definitely see how it would freak out a youngster. The whole movie is like being stuck in the head of a crazy person and you can't get much more kindertraumatic than a bunch of kids lining up to jump into a meat grinder! Plus who can forget the immortal lines: "If you don't eat your meat you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?"

we don't need no meat grinder

Traumafessions :: Reader Amanda on Leprechaun(s)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

i want me gold!

My most vivid memories are about things that scared me when I was a kid. When I was little, about 7 or 8, I saw the movie LEPRECHAUN. It completely terrified me. In the middle of the movie I finally got up the courage to leave the room and ran to my bedroom and jumped on the bed from 3 feet away so anything under the bed couldn't grab me. Then I spent all night lying awake terrified that leprechauns would come up the side of the bed while I was asleep. A couple of years ago when I was about 23, I watched LEPRECHAUN on T.V. and I couldn't believe how cruddy it was. It's amazing what crap will scare a kid. To this day I've never been a fan of leprechauns.


UNK SEZ: Agreed! I'm not a fan of Leprechauns either! They really need to start working on their public image, as it stands , even when they are not killing people, they come across as profoundly greedy and woefully prone to obsessive compulsive disorders and Napoleon complexes. If I had magical powers I think I could find something better to do with my time than go on and on about how great my bucket of gold is and how everyone wants it! Get over yourselves, leprechauns! Nobody cares!

Traumafessions :: Reader Eric Z. on Son of Blob (a.k.a. Beware! The Blob)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Back in the mid-'70s, my town library showed movies for kids on Saturday afternoons: rows of chairs, reel-to-reel projector, the screen that you stretch open and hook at the top, etc. One Saturday (I was probably 7 or 8), the librarians walk around before the film with a bowl of candy. Thanks! I'll have a Tootsie Roll, please. Then, the feature started: SON OF BLOB (a.k.a. BEWARE! THE BLOB). Harmless enough for an adult to watch, but when GODFREY CAMBRIDGE sits back in his easy chair, not knowing the Blob is waiting for him…let's just say that the following scene of CAMBRIDGE, covered in Blob up to his neck screaming his head off, traumatized me for years to come.


UNKLE LANCIFER SEZ: While certainly the unfortunate demise of GODFRY CAMBRIDGE, both in real life and in SON OF BLOB, is lamentable, may we take one moment to consider the horrible fate of perhaps the ultimate Arbogastian "One you might have saved." Yes, I'm speaking of this baby kitten whose curiosity gets him yanked out of a nearby kitchen window shortly after an ill-advised investigation of that damn blob with his wee little kitten paw! He never even got to fulfill his destiny of napping all day and begging for food all night. Why even a dog gets it in this movie, is nothing sacred?!!

Traumafessions :: Reader Eric Z. On Kingdom Of The Spiders

Posted on By unkle lancifer

kingdom of the spiders

The cheese-tastic TV movie KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS (1977), starring famed thespian WILLIAM SHATNER, traumatized me in a way that I was only able to shake after revisiting the source last month. There's a scene where WOODY STRODE's character gets attacked by the spiders as he's driving his truck, causing him to roll his truck down an embankment. When Sherriff SHATNER and his partner get to the truck and try to open it, STRODE's lifeless body flops into frame. Either he's covered in spiderwebs or the blood's been sucked from his body. Either way, this image affected me for years to come. I had nightmares of this corpse peeking at me from my bedroom doorway while I was in bed, tiptoeing across the doorway to the other side. I was actually a little scared to watch this clip again as research before I sent you this TRAUMAFESSION. But after revisiting it as an adult, I've been able to laugh it off (thank God).

Traumafessions :: Reader Jessica M. on The Mouse And His Child

Posted on By unkle lancifer

What's glaringly absent from your bucket of kindertrauma fun is a wonderful animated children's movie entitled THE MOUSE AND HIS CHILD. Oh gosh, how can you lose in a movie about a little wind up mouse and his wind up mouse son going on an adventure to become real and have a family? Oh I don't know, how about being beaten and whipped by city rats, enslaved in the gutters of the world, and a delightful scene where a toy donkey is torn apart for being a poor worker, screaming for his life as rats pull his limbs off and kill him.

Fun for the whole family. My father made me watch it because he said it was a "quality" children's story. Only WATERSHIP DOWN is more violent in terms of "delightful cartoons".


UNK SEZ: Sorry I missed this movie but I do remember reading the book as a kid. Besides all the severe hardships those toy mice went through (Now that I think about it they were sort of like the replicants in BLADE RUNNER searching for a way to wind themselves and take control of their destinies.), I'll never forget the illustration of a can of dog food that had a picture of a dog carrying another can of the same dog food that had a picture of a smaller dog doing the same, over and over and smaller and smaller presumably until infinity. That head trip freaked me out more than the rats, and I used to stare at it for hours!

Traumafessions :: Reader Tom B. On Electric Talking Octopus?

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Dear Traumameisters: I don't scare easy. Most horror stuff bores me or makes me laugh. Even back in the day. But there was this one thing on TV… Don't ask me what the show or movie was. I googled and found a couple old movies from the '50s, one by Corman, about octopi that went postal. But all they did was get big and beat on stuff. This was different. I was no more than ten, probably, which puts this event in the late '60s. Broad daylight, some black-and-white movie or show is on.

SCENE: Underwater. Several divers confront a big octopus. Octopus TALKS! Something like "What the hell are you doing in my domain?" or "I rule your sh%t!" Octopus points a tentacle at one diver and shoots LIGHTNING! The man melts to a sizzling skeleton before my unbelieving eyes. Graphic detail. Smoke coming out of eye sockets, if I remember correctly. Octopus says something like "See what happens when you F with me?" All I can tell you is that I went ape and begged my mother to change the channel and make that nightmare go away. I have never seen anything scarier, except maybe ALIEN. Good thing I was 20 when that came out. If I had seen ALIEN when I was ten, I would probably have put out my eyes.


UNKLE L. SEZ: I am stumped to say the least. Does anyone out there have any idea what our pal Tom is talking about? Is he insane? Is he trying to drive me crazy? Is it a waking nightmare or reality that he has witnessed? Please help Tom. I know I can't!

KINDER UPDATE: Our Genius reader Grokenstein solved the mystery!!! The movie has got to be ATOMIC SUBMARINE (1959)! The movie is in black and white and features a squid like underwater alien that shoots lightening and smoke, all while talking smack to his prey. In fact, some believe that the one eyed bully may have been an inspiration for the aliens KANG and KODOS from THE SIMPSONS! Thanks Grok, for being the smartest guy in town and I think I owe our pal Tom an apology for implying that he had lost his marbles!!!! Get ready folks here is a picture of the dreaded creature!!!!

Holy Mackerel ! He kinda looks like this guy:

Traumafessions:: Unk on Vice Squad, Silent Rage, 10 to Midnight and The Exterminator

Posted on By unkle lancifer


While the preteen Unkle Lancifer spent his pale-skinned youth devouring every horror movie available at the local video shop, his older, more violent siblings lived on a steady diet of martial arts and action movies. In the early part of the 1980s, the slasher tide was so high that it couldn't help bleeding into these other genres. Lines blurred and soon throwing a showcase decapitation into a garden variety revenge flick was considered not only appropriate, but also a wise investment. That meant that some of the action movies that my brothers subjected me to were at least as violent as the horror flicks I was obsessed with and some, I must say, were even more so. The high school halls, small town homes and scenic wooded campsite locations of my beloved slashers were positively serene compared to the urban sleaze environments that most of these exploitation pictures took place in. Truth be told, they touched on similar issues of revenge, redemption and empowerment, but their moral compasses were almost always unreliable and sometimes completely M.I.A. Were people really accusing movies like HELL NIGHT where LINDA BLAIR as "Marty" repaired her own escape vehicle of misogyny when in the theater next door, an underage street prostitute was being tortured with a Vaseline dipped soldering iron? Go figure. Ironically some of these flicks had the power to disturb me far more than any of the horror movies I was watching at the time. Although both genres delighted in mayhem and leading the viewer into someplace dark, these guys sometimes left you there without a flashlight!


VICE SQUAD
Directed by DEAD AND BURIED's GARY SHERMAN, VICE SQUAD rarely shows any actual violence but the inevitability of it hangs over all its proceedings like a heavy fog thanks to the tour de force career defining performance of WINGS HAUSER as psycho pimp Ramrod. Relentless, sick and brutal, Ramrod operates like a human terminator with his sites set on ho killing and not much else. Not many films can make the claim of producing their chills by one performance alone, but WINGS' efforts here are so unflinching and seamless that you can only tense up in recognition of his authenticity. He's that gym coach who's about to snap, your friend's abusive father, the weird gun collecting neighbor that keeps vigil at his window just waiting for some kid to step on his lawn, a true blue time bomb built to ignite. Filmed almost entirely on location, VICE SQUAD in general has a raw energy almost as vibrant as HAUSER's. It revels in the dog-eat-dog, kill-or-be-killed red light district nightlife whose denizens wake up knowing each day may be their last. The climax does sort of degenerate into a standard cops and robbers shoot out, but that in no way erases the unquestionable power of all that proceeded. Laced with highly quotable dialogue, ("Blink your eyes and you die in the dark!," a pre-SUDDEN IMPACT "Make my day!"), to die for cameos, (FRED "Rerun" BERRY, CHERYL RAINBEAUX SMITH and first-generation MTV V.J. NINA BLACKWOOD getting the wire hanger treatment!) and a rare opening and closing credits song sung by the movie's villain, (NEON SLIME, download it HERE). VICE SQUAD may not be horror but thanks to WINGS, it scared the crap out of me.


SILENT RAGE
What's to be afraid of when the infallible multi-talented legend CHUCK NORRIS is around to save the day with a few karate chops? Well, thanks to one of the worst decisions in medical history, an insane, dead psychopath who just hacked to death two people with an axe is given a second shot at slaughter thanks to an under-explained experimental drug that makes him invulnerable. (SILENT doesn't insult your intelligence, it just ignores it completely). Cribbing left and right from HALLOWEEN, SILENT RAGE gives us a speechless maniac complete with coveralls and P.O.V. camera shots, and throws in a victim hanging on a door for good measure. By golly there's even a hypodermic needle kill a'la HALLOWEEN 2! Face it kids, this is more of a HALLOWEEN sequel than HALLOWEEN 3 (or 5 for that matter). The CARPENTER cribbing takes a momentary break when CHUCK clears out a local bar full of rowdy raping and pillaging bikers, but it isn't long before we're back in the hack-and-slash saddle again. As far as action horror hybrids go, this is pretty much the pinnacle. Why its formula was not repeated a dozen more times I will never understand. You're basically getting CHUCK NORRIS vs. MICHAEL MYERS here. If you want any more out of life, you're just being greedy. How does CHUCK get rid of this non-stop killing machine? Why he throws him down a well that looks an awful lot like the one our SHATNER-mugged buddy ended up in at the end of HALLOWEEN 4, which SILENT predates by a good six years. Now who's stealing from whom?



10 TO MIDNIGHT
TRAUMAFESSIONS never lie and I have to agree with Richard from DOOMEDMOVIETHON that 10 TO MIDNIGHT really delivered the creeps, at least back in the day. CHARLES BRONSON stars as a cop on the hunt for a Ted Bundy like murderer (he drives a V.W.!) who's got some serious issues with women. Most of the ensuing savagery can be blamed on BRONSON's shoddy police work. Planting evidence is fine, but admitting to it so that the crazy killer is allowed back on the streets is just all kinds of dumb. 10's murders are particularly sadistic and focus on the victims' horror of what is about to happen to them. The scene that Richard cites in his TRAUMAFESSION is exactly the one that gets to me. I'm all for people getting murderized on screen, but when you have to hear them crying and begging for their lives before hand it really takes the fun out! But let's get down to brass tacks shall we? All of this is all the more disturbing because the killer insists on operating completely in the nude. Yes, even your Unkle Lancifer has some sense of propriety. Attacking coed nurses without a traditional mask on is forgivable, but at least put a towel on!



THE EXTERMINATOR
O.K., this vigilante DEATH WISH rip off is one that really got to me, and for the life of me I could not remember why. All I could remember was the gruesome beheading in the first scene that presumably spurs the EXTERMINATOR's revenge driven nature. Now I understand my brain in all its wisdom blocked out the rest because THE EXTERMINATOR is just one f'd up movie. Thankfully, my adult mind can also now decipher that it is also a highly ridiculous movie. That first beheading is still a doozy, credited to both our pal TOM BURMAN and the recently deceased STAN WINSTON, it's just about as realistic as it can get. The way the severed head just flops to the side? It's seriously twisted and it's made all the more grim because it's a war scene and the movie hasn't completely destroyed its credibility yet. I don't mean to be too harsh on THE EXTERMINATOR, but I can't help approaching it like a bully that I have suddenly grown taller than. All the sadistic gruesome kills are present and accounted for, including a death by lowering someone into a meat-grinder, but now that I see THE EXTERMINATOR's apartment I can only chuckle.
Who is his decorater? Henrietta Hippo from THE NEW ZOO REVIEW?

Granted it's still pretty harrowing when we have to witness a prostitute's torture by a fat balding New Jersey congressman or an old lady getting kicked in the stomach and her glasses stomped on, but it's all kind of tempered by the sight of CHRISTOPHER GEORGE cooking a hot dog with a MacGyver device he created out of a reading lamp and two forks. Have I told you lately how much I love CHRISTOPHER GEORGE (GRIZZLY, PIECES, GATES OF HELL)? If I had to see him paired up with someone (other than LYNDA DAY GEORGE and besides myself) SAMANTHA EGGAR (THE BROOD) would be my first choice. Well, here she is folks, but don't get too excited, she shows up to join GEORGE for a late night picnic in the park and to give some absurd medical advice and then she just up and disappears. I thought for sure she'd get tangled in THE EXTERMINATOR's web or at least put in harm's way in some capacity, but no dice. Did she wisely quit mid-production? It makes sense because this movie uses so many weird voice overs and drastic leaps forward in time that it seems they had to just make do with what little they had. Which brings me to my major beef with THE EXTERMINATOR, whenever he wants to kill someone, they just appear before him tied up in some warehouse and the movie never deigns to show you how he got them there. If it were that easy I'd try my hand at being a vigilante too. Ultimately, THE EXTERMINATOR is some pretty shoddy, poorly put together trash, but I have to give it credit for following its strong suits and keeping the shock devices coming at regular intervals. It also has one of the coolest movie posters ever made even though the guy never really uses a flame thrower in the movie…


I'm sorta disappointed that THE EXTERMINATOR over the years has somehow slid into camp. I was kinda hoping for that nauseated, itching-to-turn-the-damn-thing-off feeling that I hardly get any more unless I'm watching SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH reruns at seven in the morning. I was going to say they just don't make um' like these anymore, but then I remembered RAMBO was just in the multiplexes…I love you SLY but you're no CHRISTOPHER GEORGE!


What say you? Do you guys have any action flicks that gave you a trauma-wedgie? Let me know in the comments section and I'll get my big brothers to beat them up after school!

TRAUMAFESSIONS :: Kinderpal Mickster on the Kiss "Blood" Comic Book

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I could do at least a hundred TRAUMAFESSIONS related to things my older brother did to me as a child, but really, who wants to read that? I will just share how my brother's preoccupation with the rock group Kiss traumatized me. It was the ‘70s and my brother was crazy about Kiss, so of course he had all their records, etc. However, it was the purchase of the 1977 Marvel comic book that both terrified and intrigued me at the same time. As many children of the seventies recall, this comic book actually contained blood from all four members of Kiss. At the age of six, I found this concept frightening. Okay, it wasn't really the blood from Paul, Peter, and Ace that I was scared of, it was Gene's blood. I mean, at that point in my life I really thought he was a demon. Naturally, Gene Simmons was my brother's favorite member. He use to stick his tongue out like Gene to freak me out. Anyway, even though I was scared I couldn't stop myself from constantly peeking at this comic book. I would have nightmares about that stupid thing, but then I would find myself looking at it again. Recently I started thinking about the comic book again and found a website where someone had scanned all the pages. Now I can relive my childhood trauma whenever I want.


UNK SEZ: Mickster, we must lead parallel lives, I too remember the salad days of KISS before the airing of KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM OF THE PARK when they were still kinda terrifying. I also remember seeing KISS graffiti when I was a wee lad and thinking they were a mean gang who were going to kill me soon. I was particularly in awe of the album LOVE GUN both for it's awesome COVER ART and this noise making toy surprise inside:

Too bad that they soon got so commercialized that it completely rubbed that mystique clean off. Let this be a lesson to all you aspiring scary rock stars out there, there is such a thing as over exposure. KISS eventually did recover from THIS and THIS but there's no guarantee you will!

TRAUMAFESSIONS :: Reader Amalia on "Higglety Pigglety Pop! Or, There Must Be More to Life"

Posted on By aunt john

Higglety Pigglety Pop! Or, There Must Be More to Life

While Maurice Sendak's more popular "Where the Wild Things Are" involves fanged monsters who are oversized and eyeball-y, it has a brave young hero who is relatable to a four-year-old and also features a happy ending. Unfamiliar British vocabulary, references to pill popping, colorless ink drawings of anthropomorphic animals with giant heads sipping tea, tangible sense of discomfort? Less relatable. An easily deceived, morose dog isn't the way to go when choosing a protagonist for a kid's book. I can still recall the suffocating feeling of terror I experienced while listening to my mom reading it.


AUNT JOHN SEZ: Thanks for sharing Amalia! Although I missed out on this SENDAK chestnut, I do remember being creeped out by his mid-70's collaboration with songstress CAROLE KING called REALLY ROSIE. My elementary school music teacher thought it would be a great idea if she taught us the SENDAK/KING traumatizer THE BALLAD OF CHICKEN SOUP. We ended up performing it, along with a medley of other questionable songs, in the gymnasium at the end of the school year as a special treat for our parents. Imagine the looks on their faces when a stage filled with off-key grade schoolers began pantomiming this ditty: