kindertrauma

Name That Trauma :: Reader Jonathan on a Fishy Finale

Posted on By aunt john

Greetings Kindertrauma,

I watched a movie with my parents when I was very young that has haunted me to this day. It was not a horror movie but I think more of a dumb action movie.

I cannot remember anything except for the end where the ‘bad guys' are chasing the ‘good guys' in some kind of animal reserve or something and one of the guys dunks another one's head into a thing of water where he is then eaten alive from the chest up by piranhas.

That scene has scared me for years and now I think its time to face those fears.

If anyone can help that would be awesome!

Regards,

Jonathan

Traumafessions :: Kinder-treasure Senski on Super Chicken Toupee

Posted on By unkle lancifer

OK, guys…this one is strange.

When I was a tyke, I hated, HATED getting my hair cut. In the small town where I grew up, our barber actually made house calls to cut the hair of small children, and it was always an unpleasant experience. I can recall the hideous sound his antique electric clippers made, and the way they overheated and filled the kitchen with the sickening scent of burning hair. And I just wailed like a banshee through it all, watching my hair fall on the floor in big, blond clumps. To my mind, that hair was a part of me that was being lopped off, no different than a hand or limb, and now it was on the floor, dead. And I also was very upset by the trope of sudden baldness as a source for T.V. comedy. (In fact, as I write this, I'm recalling seeing either a sitcom episode or a movie about a beauty parlor full of beautiful women, all having their hair burned off by malfunctioning hair driers, and being played for laughs. I'll have to do a Name That Trauma search on that!)

But my adverse reaction to disembodied hair reached its apex in an episode of SUPER CHICKEN, one of the other animated series that accompanied installments of GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE in 1967. In it, Super Chicken and Fred combat a giant living toupee, growing to Kong-like proportions and wreaking havoc across America. My brain didn't register it as animation, and I had nightmares for months about that writhing, ferocious mass of hair. And how did they kill it? By causing it to shed! This just verified what I thought — that my life was endangered every time I had a visit from the barber. (Add the fact that in the cartoon they use the deceased scalp for a practical purpose, and that just layered a whole 'nother level of weirdness on for me.)

This wasn't a trauma that lasted long; by the time I was seven, I was going to the barber shop without incident (and to his credit, he invested in new clippers). Now I just consider it a prescient flash-forward, as male pattern baldness made me its bitch starting in college. Maybe I was screaming and carrying on because I should have been sweeping up my precious locks and saving them for a follicle-challenged day!

UNK SEZ: Thanks Senski for the wonderful traumafession! If any of you out there have not visited Kindertrauma legend Senski's fortress of smartitude HEART IN A JAR then remedy your folly right quick YONDER! Biggie thanks to clucking awesome DAVE'S UN-OFFICIAL SUPER CHICKEN HOMEPAGE for the hirsute capture above!

Ghostkeeper (1981)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

There ain't no cure for the summer time blues but 1981's GHOSTKEEPER works as a mighty fine placebo. Director JIM MAKICHUK thankfully resists gilding the lily and permits the frozen Canadian landscape to play its own chilly tune. There's no spray-on frost on these windowpanes. Snow encrusted trees tower like glittering skyscrapers and we're shown that walking a few feet through the accumulation is a feat in and of itself. Filmed on location in a preexisting lodge/hotel, the devil's in the details everywhere you look. Some accuse this movie of being a poor man's THE SHINING but you'll find no clean, calculated imagery here, it's all very worn and haggard and the dark, damaged indoor photography reads like bad memories better left avoided. There's a vibe established and it's pretty powerful even if the spine of GHOSTKEEPER is frustratingly brittle.

Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before; malfunctioning vehicles result in the seeking of shelter in a seemingly abandoned whatever. Hoary as it may be, this is my jam; this is my favorite song on the radio. Let me introduce you to Jenny (RIVA SPIER) an introverted doormat-in-training who lives in fear of losing control like her insane mother once did. Then there's Marty (MURRAY ORD) her too casual boyfriend who understands that ambivalence is the sharpest knife in the drawer when tormenting your partner. Our "three's a crowd" trio even comes complete with a bubbly flirtatious blonde ripe for punishment named Chrissy (SHERI McFADDEN). I think we're meant to dislike Chrissy, but thank God she's present. Sure, she's a floozy and macking on Marty but at least she's lively. It's New Year's Eve gang, lighten up!

These characters don't sound particularly likable because they're not but their dysfunction adds to the grim mood. There doesn't seem to be any space for gallantry and we sense early on that Jenny stands alone. The three eventually encounter the caretaker of the hotel, a foreboding older woman (an invaluable GEORGIE COLLINS) who apparently buys her apparel at "Gap for witches." The crone wastes no time sprouting ominous warnings and suggestively compliments Jenny on her "inner strength." I don't want to give away the ending but there's a bit of a lift from THE HAUNTING going on here. Jenny is being groomed and her so-called "inner strength" seems to be her advanced ability to stay tight-lipped while catering to others. The point is made that Jenny is a seasoned pro at keeping certain monsters at bay and that the old woman is getting a bit long in the tooth for whatever her mysterious racket may be. I should also mention that the hag has a son who runs around with a chainsaw and that there is a weird igloo prison in the basement housing a ghoul.

Now I know that all sounds inviting but don't let's everybody jump on the GHOSTKEEPER train just yet. Exactly half of you will hate it. There's zero gore and it loses some major steam toward the end. In other words, you need to put two quarters in for every gumball you get out of this machine and I don't think everybody is going to have the patience for that. It's really rather frustrating because it does such a fine job of setting you up and then just when it has you where it wants you, it loosens its grip. It whispers in your ear, expertly tunes your fork and just when you're preparing for the bite down it mumbles something about Indian legends and lets the moment pass. Still, somehow some of the seemingly throw away imagery (for example: a long line of empty chairs facing windows filled with nothingness) wedge their way under your skin and set up camp there. A chase scene through the attic is not exactly miraculously staged but the attic itself is an authentically unnerving space where you'd never want to be.

The ultimate ending is gratifying enough but things do get murky just as they should be crystallizing. If you happen to favor misty ghost stories that linger rather than jack in the box scares though this is a true find. Personally, I've never met an early eighties Canadian horror film scored by the guy who did MY BLOODY VALENTINE and edited by the guy who did BLACK CHRISTMAS that I didn't like. It's true that I craved for it to gel and be less gentle but the apprehension it inspires (at least for awhile) is pretty impressive. It's hard to forgive a film for not dropping the hammer when it has you in the position to do so, but it certainly deserves some credit for getting you in that position in the first place. So O.K., maybe my snowshoes were not exactly blown off but I did feel a chill in July during a hellish heat wave and that my friends is pretty darn cool.

NOTE: Thanks to Amanda and Taylor for pushing me to see this one!

NOTE 2: The above video has nothing officially to do with GHOSTKEEPER but who cares. I think they make a good team.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Patrick Walsh on a Walled Weirdo

Posted on By aunt john

Hey there,

My buddy Jason from the Wrecking Crue podcast has been bugging everyone lately trying to recall this movie from his youth. Normally, I'm pretty good at hunting down obscure flicks based on only a scant bit of memories, but this was a little too scant for me. So, the first thing I thought to do was turn to the collective wisdom of the Kindertrauma community!

Here's his description:

This young blonde girl moves into a building that if I recall is like a warehouse type building? Anyway she lives there alone, I think, and there are only two main characters in the film: her and a guy who I think is a cop.

There's something about a person in the walls and secret passages, and I distinctly recall a scene where she pulls down the bathroom mirror and finds a passage.

I want to say she had some sort of mental problems in her past but again not 100%.

It wasn't a horror film so much as a thriller and I think it would have been mid-'80s when it came out.

Any guesses, 'cuz I am STUMPED!

— Patrick K. Walsh

Name that Trauma :: Reader bdwilcox on a B&W Bipedal Beastie

Posted on By aunt john

This Japanese monster scared the living crap out of me as a kid (late '70s, early '80s) and visions of it still do.

It was a man in a rubber suit, so the monster was bipedal and man-sized. It had a giant eye on its stomach, webbing for ears on its head and claws it used to kill the men who came after it. I can remember it on a ship running around killing people. The movie was in black and white.

I've searched in vain for this demonic apparition for years and no one knows what I'm talking about.

—bdwilcox

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Kinder-treasure senski solved it with EVIL BRAIN FROM OUTER SPACE (a.k.a. ATTACK FROM SPACE)!

Traumafessions :: Reader Bluegrasslass on A Christmas Carol (Animated)

Posted on By aunt john

I just remembered a huge trauma from my childhood, associated with what should be a happy time – Christmas. Every year my sister and I were encouraged to watch whatever version of Charles Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL was being screened on T.V. that year (this being England in the '70s there were only three channels) as our parents were big on getting us to read and understand lterature.

So, I'd seen a few different versions, the old black & white film with ALASTAIR SIM, and probably one or two others. Being only young (7–10-ish) I was terrified of ghosts, but I knew the ones in A.C.C. were not THAT type of ghost (except the last one who was in a cowl and a bit creepy, but it all ended happily so I was O.K. with him.)

This year it was a cartoon – "even better" thought I (what kid DOESN'T love cartoons, right?). Oh dear, what a terrible lesson was this little girl about to learn; the animation style wasn't at all Disney, and was rather dark. Then Marley's Ghost appears, looking scary indeed with his head thrown back at an unnatural angle, then six minutes in, he removes the bandage around his head and HIS MOUTH GAPES OPEN AS IF TO DEVOUR THE VIEWER!!

I found in on YouTube and just about had kittens! I'm 40 years old for goodness sake!!

I had nightmares for years where he came into my room, for some reason in my dreams he was a white outline, but he ALWAYS had that gaping maw.

Watch part one below – but don't say I didn't warn you.

A re-traumatised Bluegrasslass

Name That Trauma :: Reader Chuckles on a Clan of Cannibals

Posted on By aunt john

Chuckles here in need of help.

I was visiting my grandparents in New Albany, Indiana (a town that is, incidentally, loaded to the gills with creepy lore) when I happened upon a television broadcast that kept me up until dawn. This would have been around 1980. It was a late-night showing on one of the local UHF stations – oh, how I miss them.

I am fairly certain that what I saw was a British horror film, but I might be wrong on that detail. However, I recall clearly that it reeked heavily of ‘70s fashion. The plot involved cannibals – not the kind that ate Michael Rockefeller but instead the kind that would invite their victims in for a game of cards before dispatching them. I remember that the main cannibal was an older woman but at some point she was joined by her daughter. One of the main conflicts involved a man – maybe the father or brother – who tried to cover up the crimes of the woman and her daughter.

The details are fuzzy but the two most traumatizing scenes are fairly clear: In the first, the older woman murders another woman by stabbing her with a flaming, red-hot poker and then starts to eat her. The second is the end of the film – a person (can't recall gender) goes to the cannibals' house and goes up to the attic. There we see the woman and her daughter with the body of one of their victims – possibly getting ready to chow down. In the final moments, the mother and daughter are closing in with a pitchfork or meat cleaver. The ending was very grim, very bleak – I'm not sure that I had ever seen anything like it before.

I have searched around for 1970s cannibal films but all I can seem to find are references to the more typical cannibal exploitation films – CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, etc. This film could be very obscure – UHF stations were not picky about what they showed on the night shift.

Can my fellow Traumaniacs help me out, or will I be left forever baffled?

UPDATE NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Thanks to kinderpal VicarOfVHS for the assist with FRIGHTMARE.

Ask Millie!

Posted on By millie the typewriting psychic cat

Dear Millie the Typewriting, Psychic Cat,

I'm in quite a conundrum. My beloved sister is getting married next week and I can't think of a gift. It's hard to find something for the girl who literally has everything! Recently I was watching the film FLASH GORDON and I found myself enchanted by the green and gold eggs that were presented to Ming the Merciless as gifts. You know the eggs I mean, Flash used one as a football to battle the palace guards. Where can I purchase such lovely things? They would be fantastic gifts for my sister as she loves eggs and her soon to be husband is a football freak!

Signed,

Desperate in Duluth

Dear Desperate,

Simply travel to the small town in SUPERGIRL that FAYE DUNAWAY tried to demolish. They sell those very same green and gold eggs at a department store there! Good Luck!

By the way, tell your sister NOT to marry that awful man! My psychic kitty senses tell me that he has been having a revolting affair with YOU for over two years and that he secretly collects both Nazi and ANNIE THE MOTION PICTURE memorabilia!

P.S. Get that thing on your lip looked at. It's not what you think it is!

Millie