This one is borderline stinky but I feel like it's been far too long since we've watched a movie in which a gaggle of young folk take a trip to an isolated place to be killed off one by one by a crazed maniac. SAVAGE LOVE aka DEADLY MANOR is not as consistently entertaining as say, ICED, DEMON WIND or THE MUTILATOR but it has some enjoyable flashes here and there if you scrounge. The all too familiar opening is worthwhile as you anticipate the possibilities and adjust to the idea that none of the characters are capable of speaking like a normal human and the climax after the killer is revealed is wonderfully off its rocker; there just happens to be a half hour in the middle where you might have to slap yourself to stay awake. It's worth the torture though because there is a comedy relief guy who is incredibly unfunny, the soundtrack sounds like it was provided by "Keyboard Cat" and you get to walk away feeling smarter than anyone who would stay the night in a abandoned house with empty coffins in the basement, a closet stuffed with scalps, scrapbooks filled with photos of dead bodies and a blood stained car crash shrine in the backyard. It's far too dark and far too bloodless for sure and yet it's not without a spooky setting and you have to give the killer props for working a white Laura Brannigan-style "Self Control" mask to semi creepy effect. Give it a try and feel free to curse my name later. I can take it.
Name That Trauma:: Xaero on a Purple Puppet Swallowed by a Whale
Hi, it's Xaero again. I'm the one from way back who was traumatized by the hamster in acid on Celebrity Deathmatch. There's something even more elusive bothering me this time. I'm not sure if you guys accept old 90's edutainment games as traumatizes but that's exactly what's been bothering me.
I want to say this game was based off of a TV show because there were live-action puppet clips interspersed with the games and craft ideas. I recall there being a lighthouse and a purple or maybe white bird puppet. The scene in question that traumatized me at a very young age (now I just find it cool and want to see it again) was the purple bird had somehow gotten swallowed whole by a whale and was singing a song in its stereotypically cartoony ribcage stomach. I want to say the song was slower paced. If it helps any, the types of games were all ocean-related (I remember one where you had to dodge 3 electric eels to grab a treasure) and two of the crafts were "Ugfuzz" (A kind of egg-carton and lint monster) and "Dinosaur Eggs" (Basically nasty, vinegar-soaked Easter eggs).
I search through my storage nearly every weekend and can never find it. I've never seen a computer game as a NTT before and it appears my own mother has gotten rid of it at one of her garage sales. If anyone, anyone at all could help me find out what this was, or what show the clip was from, I would be eternally grateful.
Name That Trauma:: XX on an Cook Cracking Egg
I am wondering if you could help me find this clip. I remember some time between 1983 and 2000 there was a Sci-Fi channel ad for the channel that featured a cook and an egg. There is an old song playing in the background and some of the lyrics were "On stormy sea"… The cook nervously takes an egg out of the fridge and places it on the counter and starts to chop something up. The egg wobbles on the edge of the counter and he has a look of horror as the egg falls to the floor. He tries to catch it but falters and then the guy falls to pieces instead of the egg.
Did this exist or did I imagine it? I would love to see this short clip again. Thanks for the help.
Traumafessions from Lord Pariah!
Greetings all:
Kindertrauma is a cross between a fan site and a support group, isn't it?
Anyhoo…at almost 50 years old I have a lot of Traumafessions from the "classic" (cough) days of horror movies.
My parents bear some of the blame. We had a drive-in theatre (remember those?) that would play maybe one first-run movie ("Smokey And The Bandit," "Cannonball Run," etc.) and then some Grade Z horror stinkers, like "Grizzly," "Schizoid" and "The Toolbox Murders"…and sometimes really late, they would have bad European soft-core skin flicks (dubbed or subtitled) but those weren't listed on the marquee!
On top of it, this drive-in was in northern Indiana, directly across the road from where the Ford Pinto got rear-ended and exploded in the late '70s! I remember an aerial shot of that on the NBC Nightly News with John Chancellor showing the theatre and this big black burnt splotch across the road. Don't tell me that area wasn't cursed! The theatre doesn't exist anymore; it was torn down and a Walmart built (still cursed with bad service the last time I was there about 15 years ago).
That was the only place my mother would consent to go see movies…and it didn't matter what they were, and my young, impressionable butt got dragged along. The only time I think I won out was when the aforementioned "Grizzly" was being shown. My mother thought it was something like the then-popular Dan Haggerty "Grizzly Adams" TV show (so help me, it's true!), but I'd seen the trailers (oh, the impact trailers had on my life!). I finally persuaded my dad to call the theatre box office and they confirmed what I said…and dad said "no, we're not going to see that." He was the sensible one – he wouldn't let me see "Jaws" at 9 years old in the theatre. He said "it's rated PG, Parental Guidance, I'm your parent and I don't want to see it so you're not either!"
I think the movie trailers were in some ways worse than the actual movies! They would pop up on TV when you weren't expecting them, even in the middle of something like "Hogan's Heroes" or reruns of old Looney Tunes cartoons…you're watching Porky Pig, and then you crap yourself over one of those horrible trailers. The worst one for me, beyond a doubt, was "IT'S ALIVE." I still can't watch that!
Other Hall of Shame trailers:
1. "Suspiria." That scene where the woman with the beautiful long hair turns around and has a decaying, rotted skull of a face…
2. "Magic." That grotesque ventriloquist dummy, "Fats," should have been turned into kindling wood!
3. Even the first, original 1977 trailer for "Star Wars" was kind of spooky in the beginning, with the logo in outer space and someone's creepy voice talking over it.
4. "Carrie." My parents did go to see that one (I persuaded them to let me go elsewhere!) and it scared hell out of my diesel mechanic, former Army soldier dad.
5. A qualified mention for "Alien," as that actually became one of my top films! I remember the very first trailer with just the egg without scenes from the movie inserted.
6. "Phantasm." That horrible, evil silver ball…
Theatre owners were devious. They'd even slip those in as "COMING ATTRACTIONS!" when I would go to see something innocuous like "The Bad News Bears!" A pox on them for eternity!
Of course, there were the tried-and-horrible TV episodes like the Hallowe'en "Little House on the Prairie," and "The Day After," though I was older then and it really didn't get to me…and I ended up joining the Air Force!
Sunday Viewing:: Final Jeopardy (1985)
Yikes, the day is almost done and I forgot to pick a Sunday movie to view. I know, how about one of my all time favorite TV movies that never gets nearly the love it so richly deserves, 1985's FINAL JEOPARDY? This movie made zero sense back in the day and it makes even less now but it's so darn entertaining anyway. RICHARD THOMAS (THE WALTONS) and MARY CROSBY (DALLAS) star as a couple of country mice who get trapped in the big city overnight and face a zillion unlikely obstacles trying to get back home. It's absurd and it's awesome and it must be seen even if only for John Boy's killer mustache. Hurry, the city closes at seven!!!
Sleepstalker (1995)
I'm still trapped inside some kind of mid-nineties nostalgia spiral. When will it end? I've lost all respect for myself and that was probably the draw. My latest disgraceful conquest is 1995's SLEEPSTALKER, a movie that I turned off after about 20 minutes when I first tried to watch it 20 years ago. SLEEPSTALKER is exactly the type of movie I rallied against back in the day, it's yet another feeble attempt at a Freddy Krueger-type horror icon complete with magic comic book fantasy powers and a penchant for ham-handed, fey bon mots. You know the type. To add another layer of degradation to the affair, the flick is directed by TURI MEYER the unrepentant monster behind the cinematic slap-in-the-face known as CANDYMAN 3: THE DAY OF THE DEAD (another movie I could not sit through and yet own). Have I developed a taste for dishonoring my previous self? I can't help it! It's fun. Plus there's always that chance that I'll like something I used to hate. In any case, I've surely discovered that all decades are better once I'm no longer living in them.
Turns out, SLEEPSTALKER is still pretty lame but I won't complain because I knew what I was signing up for. Instead, I'm going to talk about a few enjoyable things that made it worth a second view for me. First of all, it's a full-bodied, stuffed to the gills nineties time capsule. For example, slackers are awkwardly crammed into conversation, the cast lives above a FRIENDS-inspired coffeehouse and our protagonist Griffin (THE BOY WHO COULD FLY's JAY UNDERWOOD) sports a goatee, wears a vest and aspires to write an in-depth article regarding the leader of a street gang named "Dog." We learn that Griffin's parents were killed by a serial killer named "The Sandman" who is about to be executed and "executed" in a film like this means granted incredible posthumous powers thanks to stumbling, baby stage CGI. Of course with special powers come special loosely followed "rules", the main one concerning Sandman's logical yet hoary aversion to water. Eventually Sandman is offing Griffin's pals and we come to find their connection is deeper than previously thought.
It's all pretty humdrum but occasionally the soundtrack hits you with worth your while lightening bolts like the track below…
There's certain sloppiness to the storytelling and the plot feels caged into following a well-known pattern but I can't say SLEEPSTALKER doesn't hit some strange original tones at points. There's an ethereal glow throughout much of the film and a few effectively off-putting moments. At various times we jump back to learn the killer's origin story and it's all kinds of Kindertraumatic. The poor guy was raised in what looks like the surreal set for an early music video, his lips were sewn shut and he was beaten nightly while a horribly creepy song played on a child's record player. Worse still, much like your poor Unkle Lancifer, the young Sandman slept in a room with a hideous clown painting on the wall! Look at this painting! I don't fully approve of this movie but I can't deny the yikes of this…
And that song that the record plays! It's repeated again over the closing credits and it is genuinely and inarguably freakishly haunting. So, in closing I can't say I changed my mind about this one because "The Sandman" truly gets on my nerves whenever he slowly spews out word salad before a kill…BUT I am glad I checked this one out again for the weirdly twisted flashback sequences and the super awesome soundtrack, most particularly the insane song that's apparently never going to stop slithering around my poor head…
Name That Trauma:: Lennart on a Late Ex-wife in a Laboratory Basement
I'm trying to remember a movie. Well, I probably have never known the title of the film due to the fact that I was very little (like 5-10 years old) when I saw it. I don't remember much of the film and the things I do remember are pretty much horror movie clichés, making it harder to figure it out, but I'll try to describe some of it as best I can remember. Here it goes:
Firstly, it was a semi-crappy B-movie. It could have been a ‘60s or ‘70s film as well as an ‘80s film. I remember it was a black and white flick but then again there was one scene (I'll explain later) where the police lights shined trough the window and that seemed to be in color, so let's say it was a color film. The plot was that a young(ish) woman was hired in a house to help out or maybe she got lost and asked for shelter there. In the house there lived an old man, a middle aged man (who started killing everybody or just held the woman captive) and there was at least one more character who was the man's brother/friend or neighbor.
One of the plot-twists was that the man kept his late wife in the basement. He might have had a laboratory-like basement and maybe he wanted to revive the dead wife somehow (maybe using the new female character for "parts"?) Then again I'm not sure about what the purpose of the basement was. All I remember is, that the dead wife was still wearing clothes (a white dress?) and the fact that the woman saw it, made the man angry and that meant that he could not let her out of the house to tell anyone about that.
As for the old man in the house, he was probably the man's father or maybe the owner of the house. He was very ill. He was on the bed, all the time and he could ring a bell (or push a button?) to down stairs to call for help. Maybe the woman was hired to be a nurse to the grandfather figure? At one point the old man asked to see a woman naked once before he passes away. I don't remember if the woman was forced to do so, or if she did it out of pity, but at one point she was mostly (maybe completely) naked, just standing there in front of him. There is a possibility that the nurse and the woman who was new to the house were two different people.
Later in the movie people started dying. Again, I don't know who the killer was or why he killed but it was probably the man. The old man was killed also, the call for help button was pushed and when the woman got up the stairs to see what's wrong, the old man was dead. At one point the woman tried to call for help with the phone, but somehow got in touch with the man's brother or neighbor who was also in on it, I guess. The woman saw the police lights through the window and thought that the help was on the way, only to find out that that was just the man's brother/friend with a pickup truck with the police-like lights on it. There was no escape. The brother/friend was in on the killing/harassing as well.
Sorry that was as much I could remember. This movie has haunted me almost my whole life and was the first movie that caused me nightmares and every now and again I remember some image of it. I am frustrated I can't remember the name of the film and rewatch it. I have read a bunch of plot summaries; none have been close to what I remember. Many of them are without spoilers so it makes things even more difficult.
If you can help me, I would be so very happy. It should not be a very rare movie since it was shown in my home land- Estonia in the (very) late ‘80s or early ‘90s.
PS. English is not my first language.
Thanks,
Lennart
Name That Trauma:: Jared M. on a Grotesque Morphing Head
Hello,
I've had this haunting memory of a scene stuck in my head for over twenty five years. Not sure if it was a movie or TV show. I still can't figure out what I saw, but perhaps you or my fellow readers can remember. I was a little kid when I saw it. Here I am at age 32 and still hunting.
Here's the scene…
A guy and a girl sit down on what I believe was the edge of a bed. They're obviously about to engage in some adult activities (didn't comprehend that at the time). The guy is talking and gets distracted — I'm not quite sure. He turns away for a moment. As he turns back around, the girl's head has morphed into something grotesque. I believe it was insectoid, but I'm not positive. She then proceeds to eat the guy's head.
Thanks for whatever help you could possibly provide.