kindertrauma

Name That Trauma :: Reader Rachael on a Backwards Beheading

Posted on By aunt john

Hi guys,

I absolutely love your site, and it brought to mind a childhood trauma I'd finally managed to forget (thanks!) I must have been around 5 years old at the time, so this happened somewhere around 1994, but I get the feeling the movie was maybe a good deal older than that. I also don't think we had a VCR at the time, meaning this was a T.V. broadcast.

So, on to the trauma! My parents were watching a film, and all I remember about it is this particular scene that scared the living hell out of me at the time and for many years later. I have a pretty spotty memory but even now I can vividly recall the scene – this woman is strapped into a guillotine, but she's put into it the wrong way around – she's laying on her back instead of her stomach so she can see the blade about to descend.

There's this terrible tension as she's looking up at the blade, then suddenly it drops and decapitates her. I can't remember a single other thing about the movie, though I get the idea that it was definitely a modern setting despite the guillotine, and it may have had some weird religious theme.

My parents have denied ever watching such a thing when I've asked them recently, and no one else ever seems to know what I'm talking about.

Help me kindertrauma, you're my only hope!

-Rachael

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Tip of the hat to kinderpal Taylor who knew that the beheading in question came from A THIEF IN THE NIGHT.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Magired on a Slashed Stuffed Animal

Posted on By aunt john

I really hope someone can solve this for me. It's a made-for-T.V. movie from either the late eighties or early nineties. All I remember is that it's about a boy with a stuffed dinosaur toy that comes to life. I think there is some sort of monster under the boy's bed. If I remember right, the dinosaur toy is attacked and has claw marks across its chest. Towards the end the boy hides under the covers and finds a tunnel that leads to a cave where the monster awaits.

It sounds a lot like NEW NIGHTMARE but this was definitely a made-for-T.V. and was family friendly.

Any ideas?

magired

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Kudos to Unk for coming forward with LIVING WITH DINOSAURS!

Traumafessions :: Reader Scott T. on Rampage

Posted on By aunt john

I was 9 years old in 1992 and I was at home with my mom while the rest of my family was at school or work. My older brother worked at a video store and he would pick up VHS copies of movies every night on his way home from work and leave them on top of the VCR at home. It's early in the am and my mom is out front tending to a garage sale. Being the bored kid I am I grab the first film in the stack of tapes left on top of the VCR from the night before by my older brother.

The film was WILLIAM FRIEDKIN' s RAMPAGE.

As I recall the film opens with a nice, good looking man standing on the street of a nice suburban community in a red jacket. My first thoughts are "It's Martin Riggs from LETHAL WEAPON…cool"

Negative!

The man waves and smiles at passing residents while crossing the street to perform a violent home invasion on an unsuspecting elderly couple. He knocks on the door of their home, one which looks ideal for raising a family in. A sweet old lady answers the door and greets the nice young man in the red jacket. After forcing his way in he shoots her in the forehead with a Lugar handgun. The husband of the now dead woman comes rushing to investigate and meets the same horrible demise. The killer then recons the kitchen for a large vegetable knife and carves them to pieces.

I am watching this in pure horror. Attempting to escape the psychological trauma that has been inflicted on my pre-adolescent mind, I drop the Batman Arctic Freeze Karate Chop action figure from BATMAN RETURNS and quickly cut the ground between myself and the control panel on the VCR to push fast forward. Why I pushed fast forward? Not sure. I press play and see MICHAEL BIEHN (investigating cop) and the forensics team show up. I feel a small hint of comfort as I recognize him as Hicks from ALIENS.

Now a mere foot and a half from the television, the glimmer of hope I had for a comforting explanation of the images I was previously shown by the image of that dude that kicked ass in ALIENS is ripped away while forensics picks up carved remains from the victims and places them in bags. I couldn't take the images shown and scrambled to turn the film off. Frantically I took the tape out and hid it so no one would know I watched it.

This film left a serious impact on my psyche. For the next few years I would dread everything about this film to extreme measures. Avoiding this film in movie isles at grocery stores and checking the TV Guide to see if it was on and what time. If it was on I would drink warm milk or cough syrup and try so hard to sleep before it started even though my parents were watching LARRY SANDERS on HBO.

Sometimes I would work up the courage to go to the isle of the video store it was in and look at the cover as a feeling of dread and panic would come over me. Not to mention unpredictable midday crying spells that earned me the right to stay home through the last half of my fourth grade year by suggestion of a psychiatrist. I since then have gotten over the torment that this particular film existed and have seen it here and there more for the interest of what it did to me rather than entertainment.

It's not a bad film but, in a nut shell, this movie FUCKED ME UP!!!

Name That Trauma :: Reader Ian C. on Hunted Housemates

Posted on By aunt john

Hello,

I'm really hoping your very excellent site can help me find this movie. I believe it's a horror film from either the ‘80s or early ‘90s (possibly late ‘70s but doubtful). My memory of it is vague and incomplete, but I remember certain parts of it.

I believe it takes place mostly (or at least it reaches its climax) in a nice, suburban-ish house, where a family or group of people resides. The movie features multiple killers, who are creepy (demented in some way), but I don't think they are supernatural or anything.

There are two scenes that stand out for me: one is a scene in a bedroom where a couple are in bed, possibly after having sex, and one of them is stabbed from under the bed by a killer, while another killer is in the closet. The other scene takes place outside the house at night, immediately outside the house, where a man (I think a plain-clothes police officer or some sort of authority figure) is shot with an arrow by one of the killers and I believe stuck to a tree, while the family/group of people watches fearfully from inside. I think the climax of the movie occurs soon after that scene, and while I'm not totally sure about this I think there's a fire and/or explosion in the house.

That's all the information I can recall, and I hope it's enough. I have been trying to remember the name of this movie for the longest time. It is definitely a kindertrauma for me. Your help is much appreciated.

-Ian

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to lottie_of_millhaven for knowing that this comes from ALONE IN THE DARK.

Kinder-News:: Suck and Moan!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Kinderpal and noted handsome cat JOEL BRYANT, star of the film BABY BLUES, has alerted us to a brand new web series that he's got his paws in called SUCK AND MOAN (not to be confused with the film of the same name that Aunt John starred in to pay for his textbooks books back in college.)

SUCK AND MOAN (yay, that title should bring us a bunch of Google hits!) chronicles the misadventures of a group of vampires that find their food source dwindling when a zombie outbreak sweeps the globe. If we know our JOEL this series is going to be a hoot and a half and then another half, so really two hoots.

Ever spend hours and hours staring off into space trying to decide between watching a vampire flick or a zombie movie? Snap out of it and reclaim your life with the one stop shopping of SUCK AND MOAN!

Check out the trailer below (which guarantees vampires with zero sparkles) and then read more about the series on its official site HERE.

You Can't Stop Freddy Downer!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

You want to have a blast, revisit fun from your past, but along comes Freddy Downer…
Directed by a music video hack, every time he speaks you take a micro-nap
You'll beg, you'll plead no more CGI crap!
But you can't stop Freddy Downer!

Did you know that after seventy hours of staying awake that insomniacs will begin to experience micro-naps? It's true, it means you're dreaming but you don't know it… even if you're awake…BWAH-BWAH!

Did you know that the brain keeps working for seven minutes after the body dies? It's true. I guess that means I still have about six minutes to keep talking…BWAH-BWAH!

Did you know that in the early eighties hundreds of lives were destroyed because of false accusations of child sexual abuse? The McMartin Preschool trial for example, lasted seven years, cost 15 million dollars and produced zero convictions. Many people compare the hysteria, which included allegations of satanic ritual abuse and testimony that claimed that the accused could fly, to the Salem WitchTrials.

I too was falsely accused but I never got a trial, instead, I was burned alive by an angry mob of parents…just kidding, I really AM a child molester…BWAH-BWAH!

Did you know that a sequel for 2010's NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is in the works? Yep, it's going to be presented in state of the art 3-D…BWAH-BWAH!

Traumafessions :: Charles Pieper of Young Monsters on Pet Semetary, Aliens, Thriller, & Night of the Lepus

Posted on By aunt john

Hello! My name is Charles Pieper, and this is my traumafession.

When I was a little kid I LOVED horror movies. I saw my first R-rated films when I was just in Kindergarten! They were AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and PUMPKINHEAD. They blew my mind, and I was forever changed for the weirder. I was an instant weirdo, in love with gore and monster effects. The film's effects didn't scare me at all, for I knew they were made by the effects artists, who became my first role models/idols. In fact I met TOM SAVINI at my first Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors when I was just in the 1st grade. I also recall buying an artist made, full over the hand wearable reproduction of Freddy's glove from NEW NIGHTMARE, there which I proudly wore while at the convention.

I became so obsessed with monster movies that I began adapting them into the stories I drew in elementary school, much to the chagrin of my often terrified and confused teachers. I've been chronicling those drawings at YOUNG MONSTERS.

I also started making movies at home with my family's VHS camera. My first film was a mystery called 'Murders at the Halloween Hotel!' I still make movies today, specifically stop motion music videos, but it all started back there in my living room with some fake blood and a VHS tape!

My childhood bedroom was covered in posters of Freddy Krueger, GODZILLA, and CRITTERS. Every trip to the local video-store brought me to the darkened upstairs horror section, which was behind a roped off area, up a rickety staircase. The room itself was covered top to bottom in old VHS tapes, the type with the plastic sheet over the actual video that you had to squeeze at the bottom to release the VHS with that singular sort of skritchy sound. It was from this store that I rented all the sequels to NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, FRIDAY THE 13TH, and THE HOWLING, and that was how I learned my Roman Numerals!

My love for horror and gore grew and grew. Nothing seemed to phase me! My friends and family would freak out and I'd simply explain that it was only a latex head filled with meat or the like.

But then, some random things horrified me out of the blue, much to my parent's and my own surprise. First was PET SEMETARY. I became so shocked watching it that my parents actually turned the tape off before we finished it. This was unheard of! What had scared me so much? Me, who didn't bat an eye at zombies, devils, demons, and decapitations? Well, it was that damned cat! That's right, I was afraid of the hissing cat.

The same went for good ol' Jonesy the cat in the dream sequence in ALIENS. Gah! That sound! I became so frightened by cats that I convinced myself that my house was being haunted by a ghost cat, and that, at night, I had to sleep in bed in a special position with my head focused at the door so as to prevent cat attack!

The next thing to scare me was…MICHAEL JACKSON's 'Thriller.' Me, who loved all and every werewolf movie whole-heartedly, was terrified of that Jackson werewolf…Was it the whiskers that made him look cat-like perhaps? Hmm…

And then came the big one….And believe it or not, it was one of the worst horror movies ever made that reduced me to a quivering mass of fear. It was….drumroll please…..NIGHT OF THE LEPUS. Yes, you read that right. NIGHT OF THE LEPUS, the infamous giant killer bunny rabbit movie. Something about it just floored my young self. Those slow motion shots of rabbits leaping over cardboard cars shook me to my very core. I remember going to bed after seeing that film and dreaming that a giant fanged rabbit with wide swirling eyes was standing at the foot of my bed, grinning and beckoning to me, like the skeletal host of CREEPSHOW!

In the end I came to realize that what got me so frightened about these things were that they were all REAL. Cats were a real thing. MICHAEL JACKSON too, was, more or less real. And rabbits were also certainly real! The fact that these things actually existed was what scared me, no matter how irrationally presented they were in these movies or videos. Real life was way more scary to me than any imagined monster in a movie ever could be!

And, all these years later, it certainly still is!

Candyman :: The Last Temptation of Helen Lyle

Posted on By unkle lancifer

The film CANDYMAN is highly regarded but not highly regarded enough for me. Not only is it the cream of its decade, I'd say it deserves to stand among the best of all time. Director BERNARD ROSE's obsessive, God's eye geometric visuals are positively KUBRICK-ian, the score by PHILLIP GLASS is gloriously inspired and the acting, most particularly that of VIRGINA MADSEN is award worthy for any genre. Based on the short story "The Forbidden" by CLIVE BARKER, CANDYMAN hides a bee's hive of intricacies behind a deceptively basic slasher coat. Perhaps the reason many don't appreciate the film's full exquisiteness is because they walk away overpowered by the mythos of the title character. The figure of Candyman, as in the tale itself, is a dynamic catch-all Rorschach sponge of urban fears but inside his shadow lies an even stronger presence, that of MADSEN's character Helen Lyle.

When we first encounter Helen she is working on a thesis involving urban legends. She is particularly drawn to the story of Candyman, a murderous phantom that can be summoned at will. We learn early on that her relationship with her husband Trevor (XANDER BERKELEY), a university professor, is important to her yet strained. There is a competition of sorts at play as Helen's research coincides with her partner's expertise. Helen clearly suspects infidelity and Trevor hides his fears of being challenged and surpassed with condescension.

As Helen learns more about Candyman, she subconsciously builds a springboard away from her marriage. Just as Trevor seems to yearn for a more submissive, child-like partner as represented by his flirtation with his student Stacey (CAROLYN LOWERY), Helen desires something deeper and more spiritual as represented by Candyman (TONY TODD). You can find characters like hubby Trevor in just about any romantic comedy, he's the shifty, superficial "Mr. Wrong" that the audience wills away from the protagonist. Strange as it may seem, Candyman reads as "Mr. Right", he is more than able to accept the entirety of Helen, which includes her attraction to darkness and her burgeoning desire to unearth the unpleasant. (Candyman may offer chocolates spiked with razor blades but hey, they're chocolates just the same.) Helen's research into his legend is really a bid to be taken as an equal. As frightening as Candyman may be he also offers validity and ultimately even immortality to Helen.

Don't worry, there's a pyre being constructed for all this lovey-dovey romance stuff. The fire that Candyman fans within Helen, even he won't be able to contain. If you're at all dubious of the film's connection to romantic melodrama though, take a gander at the snapshot of MADSEN below, lit up and oozing like a DOUGLAS SIRK heroine…

As Helen progresses forward on her path (spurred in one instance by a dismissive male colleague of Trevor's) she becomes more and more socially unacceptable and less useful as an ornament for her husband. She's publicly viewed as a possible murderess and written off as completely insane. After breaking free from a mental hospital and journeying back to her home (whispering pleads to herself that Trevor will be there) she walks in to find him shacking up with his chippy in the wings and painting their apartment PINK!

The color pink (which Helen vehemently and vocally hates) perfectly captures the mandatory traditional feminine values that Trevor requires but there's something bigger here too. This is a whitewash of a different hue, the conscious smudging out of the undesirable truth, the blatant opposite of what Helen has committed herself to. Helen surpassed her husband's capabilities the moment she stepped foot in Cabrini-Green, the hell's nest where she gathered her information on their shared interest first hand. Trevor wants to play house, he's an academic and an armchair researcher. Helen has learned to get dirty; she has learned to look into the mouth of the beast. Unlike Trevor, Helen is no longer a poseur, she has accepted a wider variety of color into her world (think of the graffiti in Cabrini-Green!) and some of the colors aren't pretty.

This is the height of feminist horror but it also speaks to the innate power and subversive bravery of the horror genre itself. In my opinion, Helen speaks for every horror fan, every true artist and every minority poised to shove back when she utters this next line to her happy to paint the whole world pink, bourgeois husband…

"What's the matter, Trevor? Scared of something?"

If he were capable of honesty or any self-awareness Trevor's answer would be, "Yes" and well it should be.

So Helen and her schismatic shadow suitor Candyman now get to walk hand in hook into the sunset right? Listen, this movie is NOT about Candyman, I don't care what the title tells you. Candyman says it himself…

"It was always you, Helen."

In case you didn't hear him, that sentiment is also painted on the wall clear as day. Now, I know that some read this sentence as confirmation that Helen is the reincarnation of Candyman's past love or evidence that everything is in her head and that she is guilty of the bloodshed we've seen. To me though, this movie is all about fables within fables and the power of legends and storytelling. The viewer can read this line anyway they like, but I believe it literally means "Hey Helen, this story, this legend, is ABOUT YOU not Candyman!"

We can give the iconoclastic Candyman some props for being a catalyst for change in Helen's life but she's the one who births him in her mind after all. He's really nothing without her. With every story she hears she adds to his vigor, but make no mistake about who made who flesh. In fact, Candyman uses Helen's desire for meaning against her. He claims that he will free an infant child he has stolen if she will sacrifice herself and become legendary alongside him. This turns out to be a rouse, a way for Candyman to in fact subjugate and shadow Helen just as Trevor wanted to, a way to keep her latched to his coattail.

Instead, Helen kills Candyman (no sequel can tell me different) and crawls THROUGH FIRE to save the child. She dies a martyr's death, hair aflame like JOAN OF ARC. Her journey has been a solitary one, understood and acknowledged by few. Poetic justice prevails though, as the residents of Cabrini-Green somehow understand what she has sacrificed and accomplished. Perhaps finding a hook amongst the rubble was proof enough or maybe they just instinctively recognize that Helen raged against the same machine that they must. As her whispered story spreads she is finally able to surpass not only Trevor but also Candyman. Like a true hero her journey ends when she transforms into what she was seeking.

Trevor ends up haunted by the memory of Helen. (Like Candyman once did, she now lives in the minds of many.) The safe, unchallenging world he has created with Stacey is unsatisfactory and Stacey clearly feels the same. Without Helen as the monstrous other to seal their complacency pact, life seems quite the bore.

The last scene of the film shows Helen's full metamorphosis into her own creation, her own deadly phantom. She now IS Candyman. She's not working for him, they're not in love in some spectral plane, Candyman does not exist anymore; she has made him obsolete. Helen has absorbed Candyman's strength and now stands alone without a partner or crutch. Her first order of business is to eradicate Trevor completely (repeating the ten thousand dollar question "Afraid of something?") and then frame Stacey for the crime (perhaps sending her on a similar path.)

I don't mean to shortchange Candyman, our one truly vital African American horror icon but in the singular universe of the first film, and considering the romantic mechanisms bubbling underneath, the smooth talking psycho doesn't offer Helen much more than her husband. In other words, "Thanks for showing me the ropes on how to be an immortal, tall dark and dangerous, but maybe we shouldn't see each other anymore!" (By the way, speaking of CM's romantic undercurrents, guess who was first in line for the role of Helen if MADSEN should decline? Can you believe the then unknown, future queen of rom-coms SANDRA BULLOCK?)

As I said before, the film's fascination with urban legends and oral history is constant. History is written by the winners and stories and recollections are known to mutate as they pass from person to person (as in the game "telephone" a.k.a. "Chinese whispers".) Candyman is an undeniably seductive presence but let's not let his magnetism drown out who really carries this film, on her back, through the flames.

We all know I'm prone to hyperbole so stand back because as far as I'm concerned understatement is anesthesia. VIRGINIA MADSEN as Helen Lyle delivers what should be considered one of the best performances in the history of horror film and it's a travesty that it is not more widely regarded as such. There's never a false note that I can detect and she's asked to travel emotionally from alpha to omega and back again. She shows us everything from the absolute physical pain her character must plow through to the deep guilt and remorse she suffers as her lone confidant Bernadette (KASI LEMMONS) falls victim to the demon Helen has conjured. She convincingly conveys both authentic intelligence and earned bravado and she is able to flash from stunned awe to whimpering mental collapse within a heartbeat. How the living hell does this performance go unmentioned so often? Yo horror fans, you've gotta frickin' JESSICA LANGE level performance in your midst, you wanna do so something besides dust room off your shelf for your TONY TODD action figure?

Put aside the performance now and let's look merely at the character of Helen Lyle again. You people don't want to celebrate a horror heroine of such fortitude? Egad, what, she's too complicated for you? Forget "final girls," Helen isn't "final." She's eternal and she sure as hell ain't a girl, she's a fully realized being. She did more than conquer her boogey man for crying out loud, she leap-frogged over him and swiped his mojo. She encompasses all of the qualities that horror fans purport to hold in high regard and then some and yet her name is rarely uttered.

What's the matter fanboys, afraid of something?

Let's wrap this up before I crush the wine glass in my trembling rage fueled hand. CANDYMAN is some super fine sweets for the sweet. As for Helen Lyle (and by association VIRGINIA MADSEN) consider me among the residents of Cabrini-Greene who walked en masse to testify at her funeral. It's an ironic shame that although the film allows her character to scale over the forces that seek to dilute her that the outside world of horror fandom continues to succumb to Candyman's hypnotic spotlight stealing gaze. I love you Candyman, don't get me wrong; I'm just saying that there's a sleeping giant of a horror icon in your movie and it's high time you stepped to the side and let her get her rightful due.

Traumafessions :: Reader Larry H. on Sesame Street's "There Once Was a Hand"

Posted on By aunt john

there once was a hand!

Okay, sure. There were many things found on T.V. that gave me many sleepless nights as a child. But how unfair was it that of all the things that could send me running and screaming from the room, the one thing that had me running the fastest and screaming the loudest was from, of all things– SESAME STREET. The segment was called "There Once Was a Hand."

Now at the time, I couldn't say exactly what it was that terrified me so badly about this clip. I just knew I didn't like it one bit. To add insult to injury, my family thought it was funny. They got quite the chuckle from it. Something got me to thinking about that the other day; I'm not sure what. But I thought I would look it up on YouTube just to revisit this appendage that haunted me so.

My God, no wonder I was so creeped out! Of course I am now 43 and can watch this clip without covering my ears and screaming from the room. But still I was sitting there watching it with a slight turn in my stomach and an unsure desire to look away.

Seriously, is this guy the best they could get??? Try educating small children about a hand that is first of all disembodied and self motivated, and secondly, is pissed off because it doesn't know how to make a sound. Its fingers are unusually long and bony and its skin is ghostly pale. Back all of that up with creepy organ music and the narrative of a man with the unsettling voice of a pedo on Prozac. Hell that's all enough to scare an adult LET ALONE a small child.

Anyone remember this?