Name That Trauma :: Reader Rachel R. on a Mannequin Maker & a Stony Statue

I'm hoping your wonderful website can help me identify a couple of my Kindertraumas:

The first movie would have been shown on HBO or Showtime in the early 1980s, and would have been made in that same era. It involved the typical group of stupid young people, and they go into a large white plantation-type house or hotel. The building is being used by a creepy man who makes manikins. There are also manikins and manikin pieces stored there. The horror element is that the creepy man actually turns people into manikins, then dismantles them. He can make the manikins, and even just the pieces, come alive and turn inanimate again. He can put the pieces of different people together. I seem to remember him removing one girl's arm while she was alive and it turned into a manikin arm before her eyes.

The creepy man picks off about half the group one by one. Further toward the end of the movie, when the creepy man is going after the last 2 or 3 young people left from the group, all hell breaks loose. Two things really freaked me out:

1) The hanging, jointed, very fake looking manikin arms suddenly turn alive and very human looking and start grabbing at the remaining young people as they run out of the building.

2) The creepy man is chasing the remaining young people. I can't remember if it is just from creepy man's touch, or if he's actually cutting off body parts with something, but one young person's arms and head fly off. You see the body parts flying through the air and landing on the ground and they have turned to manikin pieces. The pieces then turn alive again, but are obviously not attached to each other any more. The head is crying and screaming. This scared the bejesus out of me. I turned it off at that point and switched to a nicer movie so I could go to sleep MUCH later. It was absolutely horrifying to me to think about that head being alive and knowing what had happened to it. Far more scary than just being turned into a manikin head.

I have no idea when this other movie was made, but I watched in the early or mid-1970's, very late at night, I think as part of "Creature Feature." I think it was in color, but I'm not positive.

I remember a statue of a woman, maybe even a Medusa, that turned people to stone at night. I remember the statue's face would be shown very close-up and then the people would turn to stone. I also remember close-ups of bushes and vines. I think the statue was deep in a large garden or park. People would walk through the vines and run into the statue. I seem to remember a striking cuckoo or Black Forest-type clock being shown right before or during the attacks. I think maybe the statue would only turn you to stone at midnight, but I'm not sure.

I was pretty young when I saw it and never came across the movie again, so I may not be remembering that part correctly. I know this is not much to go on, but I'm hoping it rings a bell for someone.

Thanks in advance,

Rachel R.

UNK SEZ: Rachel R., thanks for the NTTs! Even though all the details don't fit snug, I think the first movie you're talking about must be 1979's TOURIST TRAP. I can't think of any other movie as mannequin crazy as that one. Check out the trailer below…

My guess for the second trauma would be the 1964 HAMMER flick THE GORGON but that seems almost too easy. There is a simple way to confirm that one though, you can watch THE GORGON in its entirety HERE or check out the trailer below! Let us know!