kindertrauma

The Ghost of Flight 401

Posted on By aunt john


Continuing with the theme of '70s made-for-television movies set on unbelievably roomy commercial airplanes comes the ERNEST BORGNINE-led THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401. The opening credits feature a flight crew of pretty stellar actors (RUSSELL JOHNSON of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, HOWARD HESSEMAN of WKRP fame, and the lovely and talented KIM BASINGER); however, save for BASINGER, none of the aforementioned icons survive the routine flight from New York to Miami and all perish when their plane crashes in the swampy Florida Everglades.

Of course, a major airplane disaster is no match for co-pilot BORGNINE, and he manages to make it out of the bog and to the intensive care unit where he flat lines in the subsequent scene, but not before telling his wife that he loves her and their two small children. Cut to the obligatory graveyard scene, followed by some reminiscing over the loss of Papa Bear BORGNINE, and the lives of those that work at the airline seemingly return to normal. The salvaged pieces of the crashed plane are used as replacement parts for other planes within the fleet and BASINGER eventually finds herself passing out peanuts and reminding passengers to return their seat-back trays to the upright position.


Alas, BASINGER is not the only flight crewmember from the doomed Flight 401 to return to the friendly skies; the ghost of BORGNINE joins her. At first he only appears to the female stewardesses in the galley, and their claims are dismissed as hysteria by smarmy airline pencil pusher GARY LOCKWOOD. In fact, he sends BASINGER off to a company therapist before allowing her to fly again, and she delivers one of those over-the-top, Emmy-baiting monologues about her dead Mama worthy of recitation by MARY CATHERINE GALLAGHER. The supernatural cameos by BORGNINE continue to escalate, and after the male pilots begin to substantiate the stewardesses' claims, LOCKWOOD begrudgingly agrees to attend a séance to rid the airline of its in-flight ghost once and for all.

As far as séances go, THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401 features a real snoozer. No crystal balls, no Ouija boards, just two really dull mediums who tell us that the late co-pilot is attached to the repurposed parts of the plane and he wants everyone to be safe. Even BORGNINE skips this scene and it anticlimactically ends on a dull note with a stock shot of the clouds and a voiceover saying that the ghostly appearances promptly stopped after the séance.


Based on a book based on the actual crash of an Eastern Air Lines plane, THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401 pales in comparison to THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET. It tries too hard to be serious, and sidesteps it full potential. With BORGNINE haunting the plane and a young BASINGER pushing a drink cart, one should expect first-class thrills, not cramped, coach chills.

Traumafessions :: Unk on The Ghost of Flight 401 (The Book Cover)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Your Unkle Lancifer has never had much love for the television movie THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401. It's not a terrible movie, but it could never live up to the exaggerated expectations in my mind. You see, I remember the paperback book lying about in our house when I was young and its cover scared the living crap out of me. The image of the dead pilot, his eyes glowing white with imagined evil power seemed to fry itself into my skull and promise a demonic tale not unlike THE EXORCIST or THE OMEN. Based on the book's cover my young mind conjured up a story of vengeful spirits that pounced on passengers and strangled stewardesses rather than an ambiguous apparition eyed in an appliance; ERNEST BORGNINE was the furthest thing from my mind.

Looking at that book cover again as an adult still brings me back to the horror taunting mind frame of my youth. With the author's name in a tombstone font, the jet black ominous background and yes, of course, those horrible blank eyes, it reminds me of just how concrete and real the supernatural seemed to me back then. I recall imagining unknown forces around every corner waiting patiently for the slightest misstep on my part. In reality the tale of FLIGHT 401 is more eerie urban legend than outright horror tale. It's popularity was probably due more to its implied promise of an afterlife in which the dead might return to issue warnings to the living as opposed to offering them glimpses of hell as in the equally ubiquitous seventies paperback THE AMITYVILLE HORROR.

Much as with the AMITYVILLE case there are many who still question the authenticity of THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401, but it's of little concern or comfort to me either way. In both cases it's not really the details of the story itself or the question of its validity that terrified the young me. The truth is, both legends, regardless of how familiar I was with them at the time, had the power to ignite my unknown fears and let loose the dark beast of my imagination. What kept me up at night were the phantasms that they merely inspired but that I myself planted and sowed. Consequently, even now when a film or book fails to send those harder to come by shivers down my spine I am left asking is it the art of storytelling that has died or is it just a little piece of my imagination itself that is resting in pieces? THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401 may have never existed at all, but something tells me that the entity that book cover's illustration created within my mind still waits, biding its time…

Traumafessions :: Reader Alex B. on Little Monsters

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I'm pretty sure the 1989 FRED SAVAGE film LITTLE MONSTERS hasn't been brought up on Kindertrauma yet. I honestly can't remember much about the plot anymore. Maybe I was too scared of the monstrous HOWIE MANDEL as a four year old to even watch the entire movie. I remember it was supposed to be a film for kids, but what were they thinking?

From what I recall, the climax of the film takes place in this perverted children's playroom (always creepy), where the heroes are confronted by a child-like monster. Then they shoot something at his face, and it rips off, exposing a horribly disfigured face underneath. I think the idea was that the monster was just wearing a "human mask," but to a four year old such as myself, it was as freaky as the end of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

Who greenlights projects like this, anyway?

A Cold Night's Death

Posted on By unkle lancifer

A while back we received a "Name That Trauma!" of a television movie that took place in the arctic and featured monkeys. That movie turned out to be 1973's A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH (A.K.A. CHILL FACTOR). Well if there is one thing I like better than a snowy setting it is monkeys, so of course I had to track this baby down! Directed by NIGHT GALLERY alum JERROLD FREEDMON, and starring none other than ROBERT CULP (SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT 3: BETTER WATCH OUT!) and ELI WALLACH (THE SENTINEL), A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH is one made-for-television movie that literally delivers the chills.

The action takes place at an isolated research laboratory in Antarctica and involves pretty much only the two leads mentioned (unless you count those cute monkeys). CULP and WALLACH have come to replace the last scientist who worked at the outpost who apparently went mad and killed himself by leaving a window open and slowly freezing to death. The more time our inquisitive friends spend in the outpost, the more paranoid and suspicious they become, both of their surroundings and of each other. Something is definitely amiss and each night brings them closer to the truth behind what really happened to their predecessor.

It's a privilege to watch the events unfold slowly but surely while the director takes time to really get into the heads of our opposing leads. You might be tempted to choose a side between these two men who have widely divergent approaches to rationalizing the ongoing occurrences, but it's nearly impossible to do so. Both actors deliver straightforward, admirable performances and it's difficult to understand why this movie is not far better known for that reason alone.

The bleak snowbound atmosphere and palpable anxiety between the two characters will be familiar to anyone who has seen JOHN CARPENTER's THE THING, but here the action is almost exclusively psychological and there's nothing and nobody around to break the formidable tension. It's really astonishing how much is done with so little here, just two men slowly unraveling a mystery, but thanks to the sincerity of its leads and the director's deft hand at blanketing everything in dense atmosphere, this film leaves you with a sense of dread that is pretty hard to scrape off your snowshoes.

Although we mentioned the film's shocking reveal and startling final moment in that previous "Name That Trauma" post, I won't do it again here, but even if you are already privy to COLD NIGHT's final twist, the film holds up strongly as a thriller regardless. CULP, who at one point is locked outside the station in the freezing snow wandering about like a zombie with icicles hanging from his face presents an image of a man who has somehow transformed into a monster in a monster-less film.

The real enemy here, ultimately, is the human mind and its sometimes soulless search for more knowledge. Ironically, we come to find that the research on the monkeys inhabiting the ice station involved recording their responses while encountering fear, but by film's end it is our two scientists and the audience itself who might have more experience in that field. This is a quiet, subtle venture and the severity of the isolation shown will get to you eventually whether you resist it or not. I can't think of many films television or otherwise that so convincingly portrays the tightening noose of cabin fever or takes such cunning advantage of mankind's natural fear of the unseen.

Traumafessions :: Reader NiNi on Rockwell's "Somebody's Watchin' Me"

Posted on By aunt john

After seeing that people were traumatized by HERBIE HANCOCK, I'm surprised there's no mention of one-hit-wonder ROCKWELL, whose video for "Somebody's Watchin' Me" used to freak me the hell out as a kid. Highlights include the shadowy floating head, the zombie guy in tighty-whities carrying a roast pig (wtf??) and the shower spouting blood (a particular childhood worry of mine). But these weren't the real traumatizers of this video; I'd been on a steady diet of horror movies practically since birth, thanks to a horror-loving mother.

No, the kicker was in the last moments of the video, where the creepy grinning mailman is seen to have a horribly deformed and strangely slimy-looking left arm, poorly concealed behind his mailbag. I suspect that it was scary because he looked otherwise normal (if a bit serial-killerish); making it worse is the way that poor ROCKWELL walks up to him in obvious relief after dealing with all the rest, only to be faced with this misshapen horror. Let me tell you, it made me suspicious of mailmen for quite some time! I would eye them surreptitiously, on the lookout for a disgusting withered claw, and all because of ROCKWELL.

Traumafessions :: Reader Amy on The Waltons

Posted on By aunt john

O.K., this one is weird but there was this one scene from THE WALTONS where the young girl is playing on a tall triangle shaped woodpile. She is told that it is dangerous, but keeps playing. The next thing you know she falls, and she gets hurt. I don't know why I obsessed about this but I would re-enact it with my paper dolls, Barbies… whatever I could get my hands on!

The Horror at 37,000 Feet

Posted on By unkle lancifer

An airplane disaster flick from the seventies is a guilty treat all its own, but grafting a pseudo-satanic supernatural crisis upon this sub genre, in my opinion, takes it into the entertainment ambrosia zone. Directed by DAVID LOWELL RICH (who would later helm CONCORD…AIRPORT '79) THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET is a schlock-adelic, made-for-television movie from 1973 that still soars high after all these years. Put simply, it's pure Kindertrauma gold; no adult could take it seriously and no child could ever possibly be immune to its potent dose of uncanny insanity.

Like any proper airplane movie, we are first introduced to an assortment of the cartooniest individuals imaginable all wearing their personal bugaboos upon their sleeves. Unlike most airplane movies, these stock characters soon find themselves contemplating the benefits of sacrificing humans to "the old ones." Blame the cargo, someone thought it would be a good idea to transport ancient druid stones from an English abbey to the U.S. to be reassembled, but said stones, once utilized in black masses, beg to differ. Before you can say "Silver Shamrock!" a dog is frozen mid bark and more goopy ooze than usual is pouring down the aisle in coach.

Now, I said that no adult could take this stuff seriously, but not fitting into that category exactly myself, I have to say that THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET does indeed weave its own kind of unnerving spell. The soundtrack, mostly seventies era cicada chirps (which are eerily similar to the sounds emanating from the creature in JOHN CARPENTER'S THE THING, particularly when the beast takes its first victim, a hapless caged dog) garnished with ambiguous cult-like chanting brought me right back to the television horrors of my youth (albeit between snickers). A hooded figure even appears for a brief glimpse; c'mon you don't have to be into heavy metal to know those guys are scary!

I'm not sure there is enough room to go into how spectacular the cast is. WILLIAM SHATNER is an alcoholic priest questioning his faith, (it takes all my will power not to go on and on about the SHATNER but for the sake of my marriage, I'll move on); BUDDY EBSEN is some kind of rich tycoon guy (I've always wanted to mention EBSEN on these pages so I can bring up how crazy-cool his "Jed Clampet" paintings are, CHECK THEM OUT HERE); the unsinkable TAMMY GRIMES (who is so creepy she gave birth to AMANDA PLUMMER) is on board to play a dowdy doom saying occultist; and ROY THINNES (AIRPORT 1975 and SATAN'S SCHOOL FOR GIRLS) is the dude responsible for the whole mile high horror club. I could go on, but I think you'll get the idea when I inform you that the plane is co-piloted by TOURIST TRAP's Easter Island-faced CHUCK CONNERS and none other than RUSSELL JOHNSON "the Professor" from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND (naturally).

The best scene, out of literally dozens, involves the dumbstruck surviving passengers' attempts to appease the evil presence on the plane with a sacrifice. Flirting with becoming a vicious mob, they grab a doll from a little girl (thank God there is always a little girl on these doomed flights) and decide to go voodoo crazy on it and repurpose it as an effigy. They glue fingernails onto the doll, hair, and even draw some kind of crazy clown face on it. It doesn't make much sense (I'd like to think the evil was smart enough to detect the difference between a living human and a doll), but the scene is just too lunatic not to love. Further joy is found when the mock sacrifice begins to bubble with brown ooze as it is rejected by the unappeased spirits.

To say they don't make 'em like this anymore is to put it lightly. There's a real swingers lounge atmosphere that prevails here with much of the cast chain smoking, guzzling booze, and making chauvinistic advances to pass the time between attacks. Eventually though, it is SHATNER who has been spewing dramatic monologues about his lost faith in God and humanity who holds the key to their dilemma. Ultimately he comes to the conclusion that the presence of evil itself signifies that there is also "good" in the world and he plows forward to sacrifice himself and save the day. His cheap, unconvincing, blue-screen martyr-death resembles a Colorforms version of Ripley's swan dive suicide in ALIEN3 combined with the opening hat plunge from SID AND MARTY KROFFT'S LIDSVILLE. It will likely be etched in my mind for all of eternity.

I thought that I had pretty much seen all the truly remarkable television horror flicks from the seventies, but I'm glad to say I was wrong yet again. One can gripe about the inconsistencies and the silliness that abounds (check out the super fake model airplane!), but THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET is savvy enough to never waste any time (Let's hear it for 73 minutes!) and personally, I found it consistently captivating in one way or another throughout. I have no problem declaring it a trash masterpiece (trash-terpiece?). I'm truly sorry I missed this one back in the day of its original airing because there's no question in my mind that it would have freaked me out to no end and possibly had me assembling voodoo sacrifices out of my BIG JIM action figures (as with SHATNER, don't get me started on BIG JIM's "The whip"!)

UNK SEZ: Read More about THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET at our pal Amanda's MADE FOR T.V. MAYHEM!

NOTE: HORROR AT 30,000 FEET is not currently on DVD but I found this priceless film and many others HERE.