kindertrauma

Traumafessions:: Bill S. on Soap's Possessed Baby & Alfred Hitchcock's Special Delivery

Posted on By unkle lancifer

One of the earliest TV memories I have, is of the show, 'SOAP'.

I haven't thought about this for years, but the episode that totally freaked me out, was the one where the baby became possessed by the Devil.

Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode 'Special Delivery'

This is online somewhere. Can't locate where. A little boy orders a kit for growing mushrooms. Slowly, the boy's personality changes and his behavior becomes odd. I think what freaked me out about this episode, is that it was one of the few times on television that something strange like that .. would happen to a child. Which definitely doesn't happen these days.

Thanks! Great site!

Alien Abduction Triple Feature:: Intruders (1992), Progeny (1998) & Visitors of the Night (1995)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

 

 

I remember years back talking to a friend on the phone in my old apartment. We were yacking about creepy things you shouldn't yack about if you don't want to get the creeps. Suddenly all the lights went out and I stood in blackness. The phone spit out some garbled non-language that couldn't be the voice of my friend and then went dead. I couldn't see a foot in front of me but I could hear loud multiple foot stomps pounding down the staircase outside my door. "This is it," I thought. "They're coming for me and this is the end. How did I forget that this was going to happen eventually?"

 

 

Then the lights went back on. It was just some citywide blackout. Nothing was happening. There was nobody in the hall. What was all that stomping though? There's only one apartment above me and the floor-quaking racket I heard sounded like a dozen bulls charging down the stairs. It was nothing to worry about. I called back my friend and joked through the sticky paranoia. The thing I couldn't shake was how quickly my mind traveled from alpha to omega and the weird sense that the world disappearing beneath my feet was something inevitable, that part of me was secretly resigned to or prepared for. I went to bed that night knowing that with the drop of a hat my sense of security could vanish and that Crazy Town was just a curtain drop away. Maybe I can better explain the episode by comparing it to a terrifying dream that when recounted, sounds terrifically lame.

 

 

Anyway the above non-incident returned to my brain while I was watching the 1992 alien abduction miniseries INTRUDERS. Anyone who has seen FIRE IN THE SKY (1993) can tell you just how scary alien abduction can be but this movie has something even more unsettling. I'm talking about faceless dudes who disguise themselves as telephone repairmen (!) and have no problem walking through walls. These guys get under my skin because rather than fly in ships, they just skip through dimensions and probably pal around with the likes of THE MOTHMAN.

 

 

I'm just saying if I get abducted, I'd prefer a straight forward U.F.O. deal complete with large-eyed, skinny grey beings over that weird reality warping jive where there are no rules or boundaries and you're likely to find out your whole existence is fake and part of some experiment and you don't even have a body and are just a brain in a box somewhere being fed nonsense through an electrode. If something like that is going on, I don't want to know about it. Furthermore, if any extraterrestrial shape-shifting shadow creature out there is thinking about enlightening me with trippy COMMUNION-style mind-fuckery in which I have to talk to a doppelganger of myself wearing a magician's outfit they should stand warned that I will simply cover my ears with my hands and go "la-la-la".

 

 

Let's change the subject. INTRUDERS is extra special because it was directed by the undisputed super king of wonderfulness, DAN CURTIS, who enriched all of our lives with such delights as DARK SHADOWS, THE NIGHT STRANGLER, TRILOGY OF TERROR and the traumadelic BURNT OFFERINGS to name a few. INTRUDERS was originally a miniseries, so it's a little on the lengthy side but what are you in such a rush for anyway? Stars? You want stars? How's about some RICHARD (THE EVIL) CRENNA as a crow eating smarty-pants, MARE "BEST peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I have had in my entire life" WINNINGHAM as a convincing abductee and MONKEY SHINES' own JASON BEGHE as a guy who is not a quadriplegic and doesn't have a monkey nurse that's in love with him. You also get ALAN AUTRY who played a cop in HOUSE and SUSAN BLAKELY of MY MOM'S A WEREWOLF fame. Remember that one? With RUTH BUZZI? It's practically TEEN WITCH 2– so good.

 

 

Because it takes place in the ancient days of 1992, INTRUDERS is chuck full of psychological mumbo jumbo like hypnotic regression therapy and the theory that folks dream up alien abductions to cloak repressed memories of sexual molestation. Remarkably, it tries to get away with switching gears near the end and painting the entities as good natured and kind even after we have witnessed them raping, stealing babies and shoving painful metal objects up people's noses for three hours. I'm sorry but nice creatures don't steal you from your bed, drug you, shove who knows what into you and then dump you like trash thirty miles away from your home, forcing you to do a walk of shame in your pajamas.

 

 

INTRUDERS is kind of all over the place but CURTIS knows how to create a dark creep-tastic off-kilter scene when he wants to. There's one bit that finds MARE's character remembering an early encounter from her youth. It's all gauzy and dream like and ends shockingly with a scowling mutant alien hybrid kid turning to face her. It's alarming as only CURTIS could pull off (sort of like the ending of the "Bobby" segment of DEAD OF NIGHT) and I stand shocked that nobody has ever sent in a Traumafession for it. No, I wasn't bowled over by the entire affair, as there's one too many cliche ridden "open your mind" diatribes but there are at least a half dozen successful scenes that will make your house seem darker than you remember.

 

 

 

 

Not soon after INVADERS was done I realized that I had to re-watch 1998's PROGENY. This is a movie directed by the sometimes brilliant BRIAN YUZNA (SOCIETY) and written by his frequent cohort STUART GORDON (RE-ANIMATOR). It seems like most folks hate or dismiss this flick but I can't resist saluting its colorful freak flag. Due to its subject matter it's easy to poke fun of but its never not entertaining and that's good enough for me. I realize normal genre fans will not be equally over the moon over the idea of COMMUNION's LINDSY CROUSE (!) playing a psychiatrist or THE MUMMY's ARNOLD VOSLOO rampaging against invisible people in his boxers but certainly THE THING's WILFRED BRIMLEY as a gynecologist and CHILD'S PLAY's BRAD DORIF as a nerdy U.F.O expert sweeten the deal.

 

 

PROGENY is an alien abduction version of ROSEMARY'S BABY that is a perfect mate to INVADERS as it touches many of the same bases including forced impregnation, baby swiping and shoving metallic objects up people's noses that self destruct when you remove and attempt to analyze them. It's far-fetched, cartoony and histrionic (VOSLOO is like RAY MILAND on steroids and that's a compliment) but let's give it credit for braving toward gooey uncomfortable places that many a dry alien flick avoids. This is no way as thought provoking as YUZNA's SOCIETY yet it's somehow more consistent and feels a little more complete.

 

 

Like YUZNA's INITIATION (aka SNDN 4), it sort of plays like CRONENBERG for dummies and yay on that. YUZNA returns to collaborate with wildly creative make up effects artist SCREAMING MAD GEORGE and that's good news too. The alien beings depicted here have translucent, white flesh that reminds me of spring rolls and twisty tubular forms that are like ugly balloon animals made from condoms. At one point there is an abduction flashback that contains an awesome giant LOVECRAFT-ian super monster and it's wonderfully laughable and horrifying at the same time. This may be the sillier side of abduction but its sweet lunacy tastes great after INVADERS.

 

 

 

 

Let's do one more! How about a LIFETIME movie called VISITORS OF THE NIGHT from 1995? This one stars everybody's dream date MARKIE "the mullet" POST, PET SEMATARY's trustworthy DALE MIDKIFF, PONTYPOOL's scarecrow- faced STEPHEN McHATTIE and singer of the international smash hit "lollipops & gummy bears" CANDACE CAMERON. This was a semi-facetious watch for me that totally paid off in that it features an evil Christmas tree with impeccably placed glowing eyes and worse, a devious grin (perhaps only myself and anyone crazy enough to trip on acid while watching a MARKIE POST movie will catch this subtle feature).

 

 

This is an evil Christmas tree! Please tell me you see the face!

 

 

This last slice might be my favorite but only because I watched it the most recently. It's noteworthy because it concerns not only man vs. alien but mom vs. teen! Sadly it gets super duper schmaltzy toward the end and acts like a LIFETIME dog whistle howling about a mother's love knowing no bounds. In doing so though, it kind of reveals the key to all three movies and how they're all really about people feeling powerless and worrying about the fact that they have zero ability to insure the safety of those they love. I'm not saying I don't believe in U.F.O stuff, just that after watching these three flicks back-to-back ,I wonder if the real fear trying to be expressed is the fear of doctors, hospitals, operations and faceless authoritarians that can snatch you away at any time. I'm going to have to look further into that. Suffice to say all three of these movies involved childhood trauma, lost time and elusive memories of some sort so they are ever so welcome here.

 

 

If you've been abducted recently or simply like watching other people being abducted while sitting safely on your couch this triple feature is for you! Check ‘em out before they disappear like an alien implant under investigation!

 

 

 

 

Name That Trauma:: Philip W. on a Minimalist Animated Nuclear Devastation Short

Posted on By unkle lancifer

One fine afternoon in the early '80s, I zipped my cable box channel indicator to the left, locked on to HBO and caught part of one of the most depressing and bizarre bits of animation I've ever been witness to.

It was done up in a very minimalist style, simple colorless line drawings against a blank white background. There were no character voices, only a narrator with a British accent. I don't know how long it had been on, but here's the part I caught:

A plane was zipping around the sky, out of control. It was apparently being flown by an outdoorsman who had his team of sled dogs on board. The plane crashed and everyone on board perished.

The next bit involved a child who needed an operation. You saw him standing alone in the middle of the screen and then an arm snatched him off-screen. It was then revealed that due to complications he died during surgery.

There was then a scene featuring a family huddled together. The scene switched to a shed and the narrator revealed that the family sought shelter inside but had no food. It was some sort of storage shed filled with containers of chemicals, and all the family members ended up drinking them and dying. This was represented by several bubbles rising above the roof that then turned into question marks.

At this point I had decided to forgo the ending of this ever-so-joyous offering and quickly zipped right, desperately hoping to catch an episode of "You Can't Do That On Television" or possibly "Danger Mouse" and forget what I had seen. But it's stayed with me ever since, and despite searching for clues online, I have never found out what it was.

Given the tone and the times, I figure it had something to do with the after effects of a nuclear war. There wasn't much more to the narration than descriptions of what was happening with the various characters. And given the narrator's accent, I assume it was made in the UK. Perhaps the BBC or some film company didn't want kids to miss out on all of the fun adults were having when watching "Threads" or "The War Game." So did anyone else out there happen to see this?

Traumafession:: Tomb on That's Incredible! & the Horror of John Davidson

Posted on By unkle lancifer

One of the staples my misspent youth was enjoying, "That's Incredible!". It was a kitschy hodge-podge of stuntmen, magicians, psychics and other dentally challenged fraudsters looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. I loved it! Sometime this show would slip in some really disturbing stuff, and this is prime-time TV mind you. One segment was about this lady who died and had this vision (near death experiences was a T.I. mainstay btw) of Jesus and the Devil battling for her soul! The cinematography was creepy! It was filmed in black and white, and if I remember correctly, they used this low camera with a fisheye lens looking up at these two hooded characters writhing about. And the scenery was like this burned out hillside with a dead tree. Very nightmarish! I wasn't prepared for that kind of imagery on a Monday night! Might have been the inspiration for the cult art film, "The Begotten". But who knows. Anyway, the next day, I remember a schoolmate being equally disturbed by that segment as I was. Wish I could see it one more time.

Oh and hey! While we're on the subject of Creepy and That's Incredible!, let's talk about John Davidson! I mean, what's going on behind those eyes? That smug smile! (Cue psycho shower scene music) My Dad never liked him, ever since that streets of San Francisco episode where he played a cross-dressing (as Carol Channing) murderer, he didn't want anything to do with him! I later learned that Johnny Depp is also afraid of John Davidson…. so there! I'm not afraid as the aforementioned, but I wouldn't want to meet him on a lonely road at night.

Traumafession:: Senski on Zest Soap's Living Lather

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Well, I've done it, fellow KinderCats and KinderKittens; I have found what I believe to be my earliest childhood trauma inspired by the media, going all the way back to when I was three or four. This required a bit of YouTube digging, but at long last it has been exhumed. It's pretty silly, but for my parents, this one was oft-mentioned to friends.

From a very early age, my folks took pride in my fondness for scary stuff. This was linked with my early ability to read, and since I was a straight A student, they saw no problem with encouraging my macabre tastes. Typical parental bragging would usually ensue, but it was frequently linked with this observation:

"And to think that when he was a baby he was scared of a commercial for Zest soap!"

It was true. I was a pretty placid little kid, but during the handful of times this spot hit the airwaves, I would cry like the hordes of Hell had been unleashed against me:

To me this is a kindertrauma in the purest sense of the concept – an otherwise innocuous something that, for whatever reason(s), pushes buttons that set off a chain reaction of fear. Seen in retrospect over four decades later, it has absolutely no similar effect, but it's easy for me to identify three elements that came together to make this commercial terrifyingly toxic to my very young sensitivities:

1) Bars of soap should not unwrap themselves. I was three, what did I know of the world? Was this something that could happen anytime to the bars we would pass in the supermarket aisle? Or even worse, to the ones Mom kept in the hallway closet? And once unwrapped, could said bars…

2) produce lather that was ALIVE? Those suds were out to get me, and I'm pretty certain I associated lather with getting it in my eyes and stinging like hell. Stephen King has often remarked that the purest form of a monster is that of the blob – mindless, hungry, consuming anything in its path. Some primal fear was resonating here, people. But the worst of all by far was…

3) The voice. That "…ooooOOOOH" grows out of nowhere as the soap exudes from the unwrapped bar, the sound made by ghosts, the wordless siren-song of all things spooky. (I'll even go so far as to assume that as a child I thought the female singer was dead, spectral; after all, we couldn't see her, right?) She has the oversold quality that's common to 50s and early 60s singers of being just a bit too emotive, too enthused about that shampoo lather. I think it's something David Lynch nails whenever he employs music from this period. Hearing it now, I recognize that "voodoo lounge" quality to the melody that was popular at the time. Plus, the tune is neither major nor minor but modal, a relative rarity in pop music that makes it more eerie and exotic.

I've found a couple of other Zest ads from subsequent years that use that four-note "Oooh, what lather" motif, so this commercial must have done its job at branding. But none of them had the effect this one had upon me. It was my first clue in life that I was hardwired to detect the horrible and the haunted.

And to answer the obvious question: Yes, I occasionally use Zest.

Traumafessions:: MaryR on Fire Safety & Anti-Smoking PSAs

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Like most ‘70s kids, our television selections were the three networks and PBS so my television viewing was pretty well limited to educational stuff like Sesame Street and Electric Company with the occasional avant garde kids shows like the almost counter-cultural Zoom and the elusive Hodge Podge Lodge. Since children's educational programming was in its infancy, things that have since been deleted or would never even make it past the censors was common fare. Psychedelic scenes, barely toned down music and dances (I remember one African themed dance group that would have made Katie Perry's short skirt and cleavage look tame- this one prompted my grandmother to change the channel) and frankly scary clips dominated this new genre of television.

The one clip that scared me the most featured the word "Burn" with a spooky female voice saying, "Burn" and then the letters bursting into flames. I don't know why this terrified me so much but since I had accidentally seen a show about spontaneous human combustion that had kept me awake with screaming nightmares for weeks, anything with fire in it was horrifying to me. I'm actually not sure if "Burn" was on Sesame Street or Electric Company but I would close my eyes and plug my ears when it came on. A YouTube search hasn't produced any results either.

A fire phobia didn't stop me from smoking as a teenager and young adult. That is until the horrific anti-smoking PSAs started coming on around the mid 1990's- by then Joe Camel and any advertisement that could possibly induce kids to smoke was banned but commercials better suited to the horror genre started showing up. As an adult I felt sorry for the horribly afflicted people but I was still horrified by the ads, which generally showed up after 10pm.

One showed a lady (now deceased) smoking a cigarette through the hole in her neck which gave me cold chills and another featured a lady who had numerous surgeries and treatments that left her with a bizarre sounding robotic voice and sadly disfigured face. One night I woke up to the spot- thinking it was some sort of sci-fi horror film, something like a human machine hybrid like the Borg on Voyager or something- to my half asleep brain it was terrifying. I was almost disappointed to find out it was a sad terminally ill human who has since exited from her pain. I quit smoking after that.

MaryR

Five Hidden Hulu Horror Gems

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Today's picks are all available to stream for free on HULU. I'm not sure if HULU is available everywhere so if you don't get HULU, seek out these flicks anyway. HULU is pretty annoying. You gotta deal with commercials, pathetic attempts to convince you to upgrade to HULU-plus and the generally loud and unappealing look of the joint. It's like the place is lit with industrial florescent lights. Have I mentioned I loathe the color white more than hydrangeas? Who cares because they have FREE movies and we're all about that! Here are five flicks that deserve your attention.

ENTER NOWHERE (2011)

I took this one out from the library a while back (support your local library!) and now I'm so glad I can share this find via HULU. The only reason I wanted to see this was because of THE INNKEEPERS' SARA PAXTON but I ended up liking everybody in it and digging it more than I expected. It's about three strangers who inexplicably find themselves lost in the woods. I was all convinced I was being set up for ye old "We're already dead!" routine but ENTER NOWHERE has a whole other batch of tricks up its sleeve. There's a very interesting TWILIGHT ZONE vibe going on here and I found the limited setting and the eventual camaraderie between the characters highly enjoyable. PAXTON is predictably charming, KATHERINE WATERSON is genuine and convincing and SCOTT EASTWOOD is exactly the right level of handsome to get away with clunky acting every one in a while. The camera loves him like it loved his pa CLINT circa THE BEGUILED, and that goes a long way. ENTER NOWHERE is so story and character driven that it could easily work as a stage play and I'd put it up along with THE DARK HOURS (2005) and DEAD END (2003) as a worthwhile head-trippy independent keeper.

ISOLATION (2006)

This one was recommended to me a while back (review HERE). It was something I could have very easily passed over and I'm so thankful I didn't. You'd never know it but ISOLATION is an engaging, wonderfully slimy monster movie.

TESIS (1996)

Released the same year as SCREAM, TESIS did not make anywhere near a comparable impact but it's amazing what a better predictor it is of themes that are popular in horror today. It's also interesting to consider it predates THE RING and BLAIR WITCH with its preoccupation with VHS/found-footage horror. Director ALEJANDRO AMENABAR would go on to deliver OPEN YOUR EYES and the hit THE OTHERS, but the darkest road he has traveled remains this quietly influential debut.

YELLOWBRICKROAD (2010)

I have quite the love/hate relationship with this movie (full review HERE.) As much as I refuse to outright like it, here I am still thinking about it. I don't get it. It's very possible that this movie just has some real, undiluted crazy in it and therefore I shall never truly be capable of fully scraping it off of my shoe. It may be more fun to think about than it is to actually watch but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

TOWER OF EVIL (1972)

We previously covered this one in our SEVEN FROM THE SEVENTIES post. I love me some seaside horror and this movie has the coolest seventies clothes, deliciously grisly death scenes and plenty of fog infused atmosphere. The original story comes courtesy of GEORGE BAXT who's responsible for another favorite I can always count on to put me in the desired creepy mood, CITY OF THE DEAD (1960). This is a must see but you might want to wait till its dark out to get the full effect.

Hope you guys enjoy these and try not to let those pesky commercials ruin the fun!

Name That Trauma:: Dustin in Minnesota on a Sneaky Stepmom's Summer Camp Switcheroo

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I was watching "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" one night recently, and it reminded me of a TV-movie trauma I saw in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

As best as I can remember, it involved a girl (possibly Eve Plumb, but I can't find this in her filmography) whose new stepmother was committing her in a psychiatric hospital, under the guise of taking her to a summer camp for near-sighted girls. I do recall the girl said, "Great, we'll all be bumping into each other."

At the asylum, the girl didn't "play ball", so the staff tried various methods of breaking her, one of which was putting her into the same cell as a violent inmate, hoping she'd get beaten up – but the two girls became friends instead, playing patty-cake when their cell was opened later.

I didn't get to see the end, as it was past my bedtime, but I was told the nurses there wanted to sterilize her – but she was rescued in the nick of time, possibly by her father.

The concept of being institutionalized frightened and fascinated me at the same time, and I have always enjoyed movies involving psychiatric hospitals. Does anyone else remember this TV movie? I am guessing it aired sometime between 1979 and 1983.

Thanks!

Dustin in Minnesota