Category: Traumatizers

Wouldn't it be cool if nice aliens came down to earth with tons of cool gadgets and advanced technologies to share with us? Wouldn't it suck if they were big fat liars with lizard faces who wanted to enslave us and eat all our adorable pet hamsters alive? Such is the predicament in the 1983 miniseries V, a sci-fi action bonanza that fired the imaginations of the playground set and created much speculation and debate around junior high water fountains across the country. Writer/director KENNETH JOHNSON was wise enough to know that you don't have to have a face like a Gila Monster to be a douche and liberally borrows from our planet's own history to show how propaganda, fascism, oppression and ultimately resistance and rebellion operate. Why even as I write this now, I feel an urge to go and march against Lizards! Not only did these jerk's ultimate plan include swiping all our beloved H20, it also turns out they were turning folks into frozen dinners to be chomped on like Hot Pockets on some future date! Two scenes from the original miniseries are particular crowd pleasing traumatizers, one involves the super bitch alien "Diana" doing something to a rodent that would make even RICHARD GERE feel faint, and the other involves BEASTMASTER MARK SINGER ripping off the human disguise of an alien guard to reveal his long slippery snake like tongue. Even those who had an inkling that there was something too good to be true about these visitors couldn't help but be shocked by these scenes that were above and beyond what anyone was used to seeing on broadcast television. Putting aside some outdated dialogue, some giant '80s style hairdos and some less than convincing, mostly matte painted special effects, V and its lizard people still carries quite a punch. Like JOHN CARPENTER's THEY LIVE, it may have you looking closer at the talking heads on your own T.V. set, waiting for their skin to peel off or a fleeting glimpse of a devilish serpentine tongue.

Note: These cool original T.V guide ads were swiped from HERE

UPDATE: Kindertrauma readers are never wrong. It seems the most traumatizing scene in the "V" universe occurs in "The Final Battle" when two little baby visitors are born to a human girl. (Thanks to reader Turnidoff for the reminder.) It really is a great scene that starts with a seemingly normal birth that turns out to be not so normal and a surprise second birth that's even worse. This is all while sweet lullaby music box tunes play on the soundtrack!. Way to turn the screws"V", and props on the expert use of a "To be continued…"

Most horror and slasher fans have a place in their hearts reserved for special make-up effect artists like DICK SMITH (THE EXORCIST), TOM SAVINI (FRIDAY THE 13th, DAWN OF THE DEAD) and ROB BOTTIN (THE THING). This is understandable; their contributions to some of our favorite motion pictures can never be adequately measured. One legend whose name is not mentioned quite often enough in my opinion is TOM BURMAN, whose body of work is like a map of nearly every important horror phase of the last 30 years. The truth is, among his peers, BURMAN may arguably be the most flexible. He's tackled old age decrepitude and rotted corpses like SMITH, grotesque novelty kills like SAVINI and stretched our imaginations with reality bending monstrosities like BOTTIN. His work is consistently up to par with the names mentioned, and yet he never seems to garner the same level of fan boy adoration. Admittedly, through bad luck or wonky timing, many of the films his creations inhabit were not blockbusters upon their release, but most have become worshiped cult classics in the following decades. Woefully, in more than one case, BURMAN's visions never even made it to the screen and we have only photographic evidence to speak for its quality. In conjuncture with Jeff Allard's DINNER WITH MAX JENKE, we here at Kindertrauma would like to take a moment to spotlight this incredible artist. As you'll see below, you may be unfamiliar with his name, but you're certainly not unfamiliar with his work…

The late seventies saw BURMAN's output representing the popular horror themes of that time: nature run amuck movies like FOOD OF THE GODS and THE PROPHECY; possession flicks like THE MANITOU; and sci-fi horror hybrids like THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU ('77) and THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS ('78), the latter two of which allowed animal/human hybrids the likes of which had never been seen to invade theaters.

The slash happy early eighties had BURMAN contributing to two of my favorite all time hack-a-thons. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME had him creating a room full of dead victims each of whose injuries was more outlandish then the last. (Much of it is cloaked in darkness but its jolting depravity impresses nonetheless). Famously, the lion's share of BURMAN's artistry wound up on the cutting room floor in the case of MY BLOODY VALENTINE. Early leaked images of M.B.V.'s gory brilliance, in both FANGORIA and FAMOUS MONSTERS, had fans preparing to be stunned but at least nine minutes of mayhem was excised by PARAMOUNT studios before release. Most agree that the forced edits in some areas of the film are so drastic that it's hard to even decipher what's being shown and this most likely hindered the movie's performance and reception. PARAMOUNT's yielding to the then burgeoning slasher backlash not only hobbled the movie's financial prospects, but further kept BURMAN from receiving the accolades he deserved from those who would have appreciated his efforts.
Moving onward, BURMAN's mid-eighties output continued to expand and again his work reflects then current horror tropes: grandiose body transformations in THE BEAST WITHIN and CAT PEOPLE (where much of his transformation work was edited out); grotesque imaginings of rotting corpses in ONE DARK NIGHT; and presentations of severe, nearly surreal bodily damage as in HALLOWEEN 3: SEASON OF THE WITCH's show stopping blasted face sequence or to bring up CAT PEOPLE once more, ED BEGLEY JR.'s excruciatingly convincing arm severing scene.

As the eighties horror boom waned BURMAN added his magic to the guilty pleasure 3-D sci-fi auctioneer SPACE HUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE (Once seen, who can forget those disgusting blob monsters or MICHAEL IRONSIDE's cyber villain "Overdog"?) and he even designed the much-beloved, iconic character of "Sloth" for THE GOONIES! Tom's resume in the latter half of the decade includes such diverse titles as TEEN WOLF, super bomb HOWARD THE DUCK and SCROOGED. His last proper horror credit was 1993's BODY SNATCHERS.

These days BURMAN works mostly for television both on GREY'S ANATOMY and NIP/TUCK, but happily his son BARNEY BURMAN's name can be found on the credits of more recent horror hits like 2004's DAWN OF THE DEAD. Looking over the complete body of BURMAN's work, I can't begin to fathom how much his art has effected me as a horror fan. Truly, his creations are center stage in some of my favorite movies of all time. Although I'm sure many other uncredited assistants aided in these fantastic cinematic creations, seeing TOM BURMAN's name in the credits usually signifies that a viewer is in for an eye-popping good time.

For more on TOM BURMAN, make sure you check out Jeff Allard's DINNER WITH MAX JENKE!

If your Aunt John learned anything regarding cross-country bicycle reconnaissance missions from 1985's PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE, it would be two simple things:

1. There is no basement in the Alamo.
2. Should you ever find yourself stranded on a deserted highway after falling off a cliff in a convertible with a mysteriously sexy prison escapee, never EVER hitch a ride in a big rig with a corpulent lady trucker who goes by the handle Large Marge.

You see, the Large Marges patrolling the interstates might seem like nice, flannel-clad Samaritans when you first climb into their rigs, but don't be fooled. Sure, they'll drive you to the next rest stop where you might hit it off with a Francophile waitress, but not before they subject you to this TRAUMATIZING tale:

On this very night…
10 years ago…
Along the same stretch of road…
In a dense fog…
Just like this…
I saw the worst accident I ever seen…
There was this sound…
Like a garbage truck!
Dropped off the Empire State Building!
And when they finally pulled the driver's body…
From the twisted… burning… wreck…
It looked like… THIS!!!!!!

Should you disregard my warning and take a such a ride, please don't introduce yourself at the next rest stop restaurant by brazenly announcing, "LARGE MARGE SENT ME!" You'll be coldly greeted by gasps and sideways stares.

Cylons really have evolved. For those not familiar, Cylons are cybernetic beings bent on mankind's extermination in both the 1978 television space opera BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and the current successful RONALD D. MOORE reboot. Today's mostly more humanoid Cylon is verging on sympathetic; sure, they kill infants in their carriages, but there is a method to their madness all the same. Retro Cylons had one track minds and no room for introspection. Both make fascinating foes but only the earlier model can claim the title OFFICIAL TRAUMATIZER. Children's love/hate response to the original series' bad guys was instantaneous. What kid could resist something so damn shiny? Cylons had really cool robot voices ("By your command…") drove ships that looked like manta rays and had awesome clear plastic bayonets to stab you with. You almost wanted to join them on their mission to rub out the less flashy (earth tones were "in" back then) Colonials. Cylons owed much of their hypnotic power to a digital red cyclops eye that bounced around like a Pong game under their metallic Trojan warrior inspired helmets. Admittedly, sometimes you did catch their pants falling down or walking into a wall or two, but that's alright, they looked great on bubble gum cards. They may seem hackneyed and quaint by today's standards but be honest with yourself, who would be scarier to bump into in a dark ally, the va va voom TRICIA HELFER or these guys….THE IMPERIOUS LEADER was a fabricated facsimile of the original Serpentine Cylon race that died out(a fact that is news to me and proves I'm not as nerdy as one would think). He's usually shown only from the back or in long shots because creator GLEN A.LARSON thought his face looked like crap.CYLON CENTURIONS were programmed to traumatize. The silver ones wanted to kill you and the gold ones (CYLON COMMANDERS) super wanted to kill you. There was one nice Cylon centurion named "Cy"(GALACTICA 1980's ep: "The Return of Starbuck") but he died (weep!).LUCIFER was an I-L series cylon who couldn't fight but hung out in the background making snarky comments. (Naturally he is my personal favorite.) He was voiced by JONATHAN HARRIS (Dr.Smith of LOST IN SPACE) and was nearly as gay as C3-PO. He had a horrible jealous streak and really hated a fellow I-L series guy named SPECTER. Check out those cool blinky lights in his brain!The classic Cylon model may have been hibernating for decades but, as THIS COMMERCIAL warns, payback time is imminent. With several RECENT CAMEOS on the new series under their belts and a promised prequel-y spin off on the horizon, these OFFICIAL TRAUMATIZERS' finest hour may be yet to come! SO SAY WE ALL!

As a child of the ‘70s, your Aunt John has super fond memories of wearing footed-pajamas, chowing down on Count Chocula and getting totally lost in the cartoon offerings of ABC each and every Saturday. Without fail, between airings of CAPTAIN CAVEMAN and JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS IN OUTER SPACE, the normally enjoyable morning was marred by the unwanted appearance of the insanely self-righteous, stovepipe-hat wearing freak of nature known as TIMER. Shaped not unlike a colostomy bag with a set of toothpick legs, TIMER's platform was all about the importance of nutrition. Tellingly, the bloated TIMER never seemed to practice what he preached and spent most of his time singing the praises of cheese (Note to TIMER: A generation of undiagnosed, lactose-intolerant kids know a good place where you can stick your "wagon wheel"). Like many mad-with-power, wish-granting linguistic Nazi warlocks before him, TIMER liked to feign confusion while turning innocent children who wanted to EAT banana splits into actual banana splits. Whether these banana-split transformations were permanent is unknown, but the level of mental and physical pain these narcissistic whims caused his victims can be read on their shocked, banana-split denied faces. TIMER was never shy about exploring internal organs (Who thought this was a good idea?) and initially got his start in the 1973 ABC AFTER-SCHOOL SPECIAL: THE INCREDIBLE, INDELIBLE, MAGICAL, PHYSICAL MYSTERY TRIP (starring kinder-fave KIM RICHARDS), where two kids are taken on a nauseatingly intimate journey through the plumbing of their Uncle Carl. Gross, right? TIMER then followed up this chestnut of a traumatizer with 1974's THE MAGICAL MYSTERY TRIP THROUGH LITTLE RED'S HEAD, which was even more disgusting. I hate you TIMER, and all of your promises of "Sunshine on a Stick." It never worked… you twisted, hypocritical Fig Newton wannabe! For those interested in more of TIMER's shenanigans, please check out the highly informative EDUCATION, 80's STYLE (be warned… it's pretty old school, and you will need Real Media Player).

Brothers SID and MARTY KROFT were responsible for creating a multitude of alarmingly psychedelic, trauma-packed universes in several children's programs televised in the seventies. One suspects LEWIS CARROLL himself would be humbled by their uncanny gift for turning the family television into a rabbit hole to push unsuspecting toddlers through. In 1974 they upped the ante, shelving their previously more colorful and cartoony palette with a Saturday morning offering entitled LAND OF THE LOST. Although L.O.T.L. may look dopey and low tech by today's standards it was a giant leap forward in sophistication both on a technical and a storytelling level for the KROFTS. Concerning a widower and his two children who thanks to "the greatest earthquake ever known" are propelled into what seems at first to be our world's past, but later reveals itself to be a alternate dimension altogether, L.O.T.L. was ripe with threats its young audience had never been exposed to before. Its half hour running time was an invitation to an avalanche of prehistoric dinosaurs with diverse dispositions, pre-Wookie, mini Sasquatch beings with formidable brows (and a faux language created by a linguistic) and most notoriously and horribly, the dreaded creature known as the Sleestak. (Note: You do not want to say the word Sleestak to a child of the seventies when they are drinking a glass of water or you will have a spit-take dampened face to contend with, …the word carries that much awesome fright power!)

Sleestak are lizard-skinned, seven-foot-tall creatures with giant insect eyes and three pronged pincher hands. They have a single nubby horn on their head, a little nubby tail, and presumably internalized genitalia. They carry crossbows, slink about in caves (they don't like light!) and introduce their presence with the most horrible slurpy hissing sound that's ever been heard outside of a dentist's office. It has come to my knowledge that the more you learn about Sleestak the more atrocious they become. They sacrifice humans to their gods, they feed live animals to their recently hatched young, they hibernate in cocoons and, perhaps most disturbingly, they communicate with a "library of skulls" which is a grouping of their previous leaders' heads that death can't even shut up.

In the interest of full disclosure I have to admit that there is one Sleestak who is polite enough to wear some clothing, speak the mother's English and can the hissing. His name is Enig (originally spelled Eneg as an anagram tribute to STAR TREK creator GENE RODENBERRY), he's an "Altrusian" with golden skin, and of a more reasonable height. You have to feel sorry for the guy because he originally believes the barbaric Sleestak are his ancestors but comes to find out that they are his peace loving people's inevitable future selves instead. (THE LAND OF THE LOST's mind-fucky time collage at work once again.) Enig spends a lot of his time in a lost city working on a time matrix table chuck full of shiny stones trying to get the hell home and really, who can blame him? Good luck with that Enig, let us know how that works out.

Go ahead and laugh at the Sleestak, just don't underestimate the tightness of their pinchers grip on the psyche of a generation. You can find them lurking in paintings, used as icons for rock bands and skateboard hubs, lampooned on ROBOT CHICKEN and infiltrating slang with alternate spellings and meanings. As ridiculous as they sometimes appear, they have an astonishing primal power that viewers respond to immediately. What is that power? Does it come from the fact that with their round dark eyes, non-existent nose and slit grimace mouth, they more than slightly resemble our most innate and ancient symbol for death, the human skull? Or is it their reptilian nature that gets our dander up? Lizard men in general have existed across the globe in many mythologies from the beginning of time. In the present they loom in the form of alien abductee stories and conspiracy theories that claim our leaders are hiding some green scales of their own ala the famed miniseries "V". Do they represent a primitive version of ourselves or a cold callous being we are afraid we're becoming? To a kid, the question when seeing these threatening creatures is a simple one: fight or flight? I think we all know the answer that every child of the seventies formed in their heads as soon as they heard that first horrible "Hisssssssss."

So here's to you Sleestak, you really don't get enough respect. Sure you starred on a show that displayed some of the worst and most often repeated blue screen effects in television history and, yes, most of us noticed that there was a limited supply of you on hand (the KROFTS had only 3 Sleestak suits and they had to represent many more) but I can tell you from experience that whenever you entered the television screen in my house you could hear a pin drop. And yes, I admit that the foolish day that I tied a rope onto the back of my brothers bike and forced him to pull me around on my roller skates in the basement that when I inevitably bashed my head into the cement that the first thing I saw was not a circle of chirping canaries but a circle of hissing Sleestak looking down on me (true Traumafession!) You, my dear Sleestak may have been kicked out of the boob tube decades ago, but there is a cave in my and many other peoples' heads where you still roam hissing, and naked with a crossbow poised and aimed.


KINDER UPDATE: Here is how the Sleestak will look in the upcoming tongue-in-cheek LAND OF THE LOST theatrical MOVIE starring WILL FERRELL

An entire generation is still trying to cleanse itself from the creepy psychological residue left behind by a two-part "very special episode" from the multiple shark-jumping sitcom DIFF'RENT STROKES' fifth season entitled "The Bicycle Man". GORDON JUMP, who was well on his way to being remembered fondly as the simpleton station manager from WKRP IN CINCINNATI, erased his entire previous incarnation in one fatal swoop when he appeared as a pedophiliac bicycle shop owner named Mr. Horton on the alleged comedy. To make a real dent as a traumatic presence in the DIFF'RENT STROKES universe is no small feat. The alternative dimension that the Drummond family resides in is a perpetual seething cesspool of various terminal illnesses, near constant attempted kidnappings, seizure prone pan handlers, extortion, evil alternate sex doppelgangers from Holland, and school visits from Nancy Reagan. Armed with an arsenal of cheap wine, Boston cream pies, and cartoon mouse porn the suspiciously attentive Mr. Horton lures young Arnold Jackson (GARY COLEMAN) and his long suffering pal Dudley (SHAVER ROSS who fared better battling Jason in FRIDAY THE 13th: A NEW BEGINNING) into the back of his creepy bike shop. Once alone with the boys, Horton introduces them to a world where jumping on the bed is no longer forbidden, horsey rides are mandatory, and out of date THREE STOOGES jokes run rampant. Arnold is able to escape before he is introduced to Horton's ominous sounding final game "King Neptune" but not so "collateral damage" Dudley, who the DIFF'RENT STROKES writers have no problem throwing to the wolves teetering drunk and partially clothed. More frightening still is the show's diabolical insistence on milking the grotesque situation for would be chuckles that would never occur without the existence of it's notoriously unconvincing and trigger happy laugh track. Hiding behind the veil of public service, the episode is book-ended with a universally ignored call to arms for parents to talk openly with their children about the abomination masquerading as entertainment that they just witnessed, a fate perhaps more traumatizing than the episode itself if any parent were insane enough to take it seriously.

Not content with their stranglehold on Christmas programming, doll-mation kingpins RANKIN & BASS followed their usual holiday recipe when they concocted HERE COMES PETER COTTON TAIL:

• One past-his-prime entertainer as the narrator (DANNY KAYE as Seymour Sassafras)
• One flawed protagonist who must overcome insurmountable obstacles in order to save the holiday (CASEY KASSEM as Peter Cottontail) and a coterie of anthropomorphic animals and/or inanimate objects to assist said protagonist in his quest
• One disfigured and/or misunderstood villain who wants to prevent children from enjoying the holiday (VINCENT PRICE as Irontail)
• A quantity-over-quality quota of songs to move the action along

When all the elements come together, R & B can really knock it out of the park with an instant classic like RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER or SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN. As discussed in these very pages before, following the formula doesn't always ensure fireworks, and R&B delivered a real dud with HERE COMES PETER COTTONTAIL.

Thankfully, VINCENT PRICE makes the most of a mediocre script as January Q. Irontail, resident bad ass and hindquarter amputee of April Valley. Perpetually embittered after losing his original tail to a child's roller skate, Irontail mounts a vicious campaign against Peter Cottontail in his bid to be the chief Easter Bunny. Aside from having a metal tail that clanks every time he wiggles it, the sharply dressed Irontail gets around on his trusty bat Montresor, and is best friends with the ghouls that populate Halloween town. Sadly, R&B chose to devote more screen time to the boring Peter Cottontail, his French caterpillar sidekick, and a shrill Easter bonnet named Bonnie.

 

While the world has been busy being needlessly bludgeoned to death by J-horror's non stop barrage of evil appliance flicks (Yikes my VCR!, Eek my computer!, D'oh, my cellphone! et al.) not to mention America's brain-dead on arrival "torture porn" cycle, Spain and Mexico have been quietly producing the best horror films of the past decade. Filmmakers like GUILLERMO DEL TORO (THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE), ALEJANDRO AMENABAR (THESIS) MATEO GIL (NOBODY KNOWS ANYBODY) and JUAN ANTONIO BAYONA (THE ORPHANAGE) form an unofficial horror club whose existence recalls the early eighties horror boom in America. Of particular interest is Spanish Director JAUME BALAGUERO whose track record reveals an artist inspired by imagery and themes that can only be described as "Kindertraumatic." Let's take a look at the evidence thus far…   THE NAMELESS (1999) A missing girl is found dead in a well, her body burned with acid and punctured with needles. Years later her still grieving mother receives a phone call from somebody claiming to be the child. Based on a novel by British Author RAMSEY CAMPBELL, THE NAMELESS is a disquieting puzzle whose solution concerns an almost unthinkable evil.   DARKNESS (2002) A much maligned haunted house tale with satanic rites and child sacrifices at it's core. Visually arresting and subtly staged, there may be giant gaping holes in the script but what's on the screen is serenely haunting.   FRAGILE (2005) A hospital night nurse is horrified by excruciating supernatural attacks on children that result in broken bones. The kids inform her of a "mechanical girl" who is dead set on keeping the little ones immobile. It's as creepy and weird as its alarmingly tolerable star CALISTA FLOCKART.   [REC] (2007) Those who are not fans of BALAGUERO's restraint should be advised to be careful what they wish for. The gloves are officially off. Can you handle this in-your-face, no-holds-barred, unfettered howling rampage of a zombie film? Don't be so sure! 

UPDATE: Read about JUAME BALAGUERO's contribution to the television series 6 FILMS TO KEEP YOU AWAKE HERE!           

Hey kids, would you like to go on a magical trip with MARK TWAIN through time and space? Sounds a bit boring doesn't it? Sounds kinda learn-y right? Well, what if I told you that Ol' MARK was going to scare the living crap out of you? And what if I told you that he wanted to introduce you to a friend of his by the name of…wait for it… Satan? In the 1985 full-length claymation movie THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN, children found a brand new level of hell to experience thanks to a visit from everyone's favorite fallen angel the devil himself. Director WILL VINTON, who is also notably connected with notorious trauma devices RETURN TO OZ and THE CALIFORNIA RAISINS, doesn't seem to get that combining psychedelia with morose nihilism is a recipe for kiddie suicide. We're not questioning the guy's artistic genius; his work makes the RANKIN & BASS canon look like a bunch of paper bag puppets and we realize that he was just giving a shout out to Twain's unfinished work THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER. We're just wondering how he sleeps at night knowing he's blown little underage minds to smithereens. Isn't Satan scary enough with his red underwear and twisty tail? Where'd that morph-y mask come from? And what's with all that creating of little people just to destroy them bit? That type of crazy, power-hungry behavior is usually reserved for the big head honcho himself…God! Depicting Satan as an evil dude who wants to take over the Earth, now that's what we can get behind. This Satan not only doesn't want the dump, he's convinced it's not real, and that it's only an illusion, a dream. There's a fun concept for a kid to mull over! If nothing else, we certainly could have done without the sight of the little cow falling into the pit, now that was just plain mean!The brave among you can check out the offending scene HERE!