kindertrauma

Traumafessions :: Eric a.k.a. FilmFather on the Legacy

Posted on By unkle lancifer

The setting: A gathering at my aunt's house, circa 1979 (I'd be about 10). As I walk through an empty living room, I come across THE LEGACY playing on the TV (HBO, I guess). It's a rather weak horror film about 6 people drawn to an old British mansion where they are killed off one by one by nasty deaths: a swimmer drowns when the pool won't "let" her resurface, a man's shotgun backfires in his face, etc.

But the death I stumbled onto that fateful evening was a Trauma-Scene in three parts: First, the older man of the group in the mansion dies when the fireplace near him blows a gust of flame that consumes his body. Then, we see one of the mansion's workers dump a bag of the man's steaming, charred remains on the grounds outside. And then, after SAM ELLIOT (I think) escapes a pack of rottweilers chasing him on the mansion grounds, the dogs double back and EAT THE REMAINS OF THE MAN in sloppy, gnawing, big-dog chomps.

Thanks for letting me get that out.

UNK SEZ: Eric Thanks for that traumafession. You are correct that was SAM ELLIOT running away from those dastardly pooches! I myself will always remember the T.V. ad for THE LEGACY which showed a creepy old hand coming out from behind a curtain in a sick room and forcing a ring on KATHERINE ROSS' finger! You're right though, the movie as a whole is a bit dry and lackluster. No matter, as long as it has at least one trauma-scene that's good enough for us and you found several! By the by folks, Eric's blog FilmFather is a great resource for dad's looking to make sure their own kids don't get too traumatized by what they watch (Hey wait a minute, should we really support that?!!). Check out FilmFather HERE.

Trauma-Scene :: Garfield: His Nine Lives

Posted on By unkle lancifer


Et tu Garfield? In the 1988 television special based on the popular 1984 book GARFIELD: HIS NINE LIVES, we are, for the most part, delivered what we have come to expect from the ornery orange feline: wise-cracky humor that's about as deep as a lasagna tray. It's important to note that before becoming a corporate tool, the bug-eyed Garfield was snarky and sarcastic way before it was considered hip. Back then it was called being "a jerk" and most kids felt a fondness for the guy for voicing (through telepathy) his unwarranted repulsion toward his loving owner and caretaker. As in the book, the television show reveals Garfield's previous lives throughout the centuries and it actually goes so far to suggest that he was not only once a caveman, but also a jazz playing court musician.

As if this propagation of disinformation was not enough, the seventh life of Garfield seems to have been created solely to traumatize any straggler children who were smart enough to pass up seeing PLAGUE DOGS. The story opens with the cat being given experimental shots in a government science research facility.  Apparently the sight of the obnoxious Garfield as we know him being dissected is not traumatic enough, so through the magic of animation he is transformed into a Disney-esque kitten. We never do get to see his innards though because the about to be mutilated kitty smashes through a glass window and escapes (a feat that my own beloved cat Gato Malo can tell you (telepathically) is impossible after many failed attempts!) After hitching a ride on a helicopter and swimming across a stream, the plague cat suddenly suffers every cat's worse nightmare of indignity; due to the experimental drug in his body, he morphs AMERICAN WEREWOLF-style into a dog!!! Not just any dog mind you, but a dog with glowing eyes! This would be a perfect time for the filmmakers to stage a cathartic bloody revenge scenario, but satisfying the viewer is the last thing on their minds. Hapless kiddie viewers are left with the image of a likely possessed dog, a bounty of lingering questions, and a severe case of the creeps.
Watch the horror HERE.

P.S. The ultimate blasphemy is yet to come. By this show's conclusion it is revealed that God himself is a feline when Garfield finally kicks the bucket! It is also outrageously suggested that our lord and savior is gullible enough to be fooled into not only giving Garfield an additional unearned nine lives but also awarding Garfield's tag along non-cat friend Odie nine lives as well. How this got on the air, I will never know. I am lighting up a torch and forming a mob as we speak…

Kinder-News :: Jim Henson Continues Posthumous Reign Of Terror

Posted on By unkle lancifer

JIM HENSON LA CHOY CHOW MEIN NOODLES

Who is this dragon and why is he such a demanding, loud-mouthed bully? Sources say repeat traumatizer JIM HENSON is directly responsible for his existence. You'll have to visit CARRIE WHITE BURNS IN HELL for ACTUAL FOOTAGE of this destructive beast in action as he brow beats a clearly mortified mother who fears for her child's safety into buying LA CHOY CHOW MEIN NOODLES. While you're at CARRIE's pad, do yourself a favor and ignore her dirty pillows and take a gander at the awesome KILL BABY KILL lobby cards instead… they go great with Chow mein! JUMP TO CARRIE

kill baby kill lobby card

Name That Trauma :: Reader Amanda on "A Kids' Book Where Bears & Crocodiles Attack Royals!"

Posted on By unkle lancifer

name that trauma!

I have a story about a book my mother bought at a yard sale when I was a kid. It was a fairy tale story that started innocently enough, with a king and queen having a wedding anniversary. They both want to give each other gifts, so the queen hires a hunter to kill a bear and she makes a fur cloak out of the bear's fur. The king kills a crocodile and has a purse made out of it. The big anniversary party arrives and everyone in the kingdom shows up to watch the gift exchange. The king loves his cloak, the queen loves her purse. THEN…all of a sudden, the king starts choking because his cloak has come to life and is crushing him with bear arms. Meanwhile, the queen is being swallowed whole by her crocodile purse. I wish to stress this was a picture book. Meaning there was a full page illustration of the king being crushed into a pulp, and the queen's lifeless foot hanging out of her purse in a puddle of blood.

After my Mom saw this, she threw it out, but its memory remains. I guess the author was trying to make some commentary about killing animals for fashion, but he could have used a medium that wouldn't result in years of nightmares for little children. I have never been able to find that book again, even on the Internet. I remember being totally horrified, but liking the story up to that point. I used to read it and skip over the bad pages before my Mom saw it. If anybody knows the title of this book, or the author, could you let me know?

UNK SEZ: What a stumper! I have no idea what book this may be and let me tell you, I have looked high and low. How about you readers out there, does this vengeful animal tale sound familiar to you? One thing is for sure, anyone who read this book as a child will remember it! It certainly makes me think twice about buying that raccoon hat I've had my eye on all summer! Please leave a comment or email us at kindertrauma@gmail.com if you can help our dear friend Amanda!

Kinder-News :: An Interview With Lana of Starts Today!

Posted on By unkle lancifer


When your Unkle Lancifer was a wee critter, he had many a mad obsession. One was that he collected horror movie ads from newspapers and put them into giant photo albums. The truth is, I could not be stopped and wherever I went, I was always sniffing around for old newspapers to ravage. I remember coming across some old lady whose house had piles of newspapers on her back porch, ringing her doorbell and telling her I was doing a project on "current affairs" for school and asking her if I could go through her papers. (I got the ALIEN ad that day!)Every Friday I stole the newspaper from the house in front of my school bus stop. I was on a mission, causalities were to be expected. Theoretically these photo albums still exist in my parent's attic, but if they do not, I would rather not know about it. I'm telling you kids, this stuff was cool; I even had a full-page ad of THE BEYOND, when it was called SEVEN DOORS OF DEATH! Anywhoozles, the other day I was over at the Myspace and I noticed that someone left a nice note to Kindertrauma with a lovely ad for THE PROPHECY right next to it. This person was really speaking my language, so I went to her my space page and frankly, it was like walking into Unk's idea of heaven on earth. It was all full of horror newspaper ads with promises of more to come. HERE'S WHERE IT GET'S WEIRD… happily I spy an ad for SCREAMS OF A WINTER NIGHT, a PG-rated movie that I went to see with my cousins that really freaked me out (I was a soft touch, you know!) I glance down and one of the theaters listed where it's playing at, is the actual one I saw it in…BUDCO GATEWAY 3!!! In fact, all the ads are from around my neck of the woods. This isn't just the history of horror; this is the history of cinema in my home town!!! Some of these are the very ads from my books! Well, I had to contact this person immediately, for as far as I was concerned, this was the find of the century! The Myspace page is appropriately called STARTS TODAY! and the mastermind behind its wondrous existence is named Lana. Lana was kind enough to field some hard hitting questions from cub reporter yours truly and here are the results:

UNK: First of all can we get a traumafession out of you? What was the first film that really scared you as a kid and why?

LANA: There were many films that traumatized me as a child but the first one I can vividly remember is 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY which my mom took me to see in the theater when I was three. And it wasn't just one part of the movie that traumatized me, it was the whole thing. The apes, the monolith, Hal, the giant fetus floating around in space…all of it! I remember crying when it was over because I was so freaked out. I don't know how that film got away with a G rating. It may not have any gore but it definitely contains some disturbing imagery.

UNK: Can you tell us a little bit about your history collecting these ads how did you start?

LANA: I use to love looking at horror movie newspaper ads when I was a kid. Especially the gruesome stuff like MOTHER'S DAY and SCANNERS. Advertising was much different back then so if a film featured taboos such as cannibalism and rape, it was promoted as a must see event. And truth be told, the more demented the ad was the more you wanted to see the movie. So one day about six years ago I had a conversation with my father about my love of movie ads from the 70's and 80's. After that I started to wonder if there was any way to track the old ads down. I was fortunate enough to find a library with an amazing microfilm collection dating back to the 30's. I felt as though I had hit the jackpot because not only could I find the ads I grew up with but also the ones that came out before my time. I've spent the past six years collecting them and I probably have about 1,000 of them by now. Maybe more.

UNK: (after picking jaw off the floor) Are there any ads that you don't have in your collection that you wish that you did?

LANA: There are several ads that I'm still looking for but the ones I am most interested in finding right now are SATAN'S CHEERLEADERS, MATANGO (aka 'Attack Of The Mushroom People')' and a 3-D film called ROTTWEILER: DOGS OF HELL.

UNK: Which one is your all time favorite?

LANA: I'm a huge fan of gimmick movies so any ads that involve 3-D, barf bags, surgical masks, Sensurround, and William Castle would have to top my list of favorites. I also love teaser ads. The AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979) is a great example. Several weeks prior to the film's release there would be these little ads that featured a picture of the house with messages like "The Flies" or "The Unnatural Cold" and that's all it would say. But you knew damn well what movie it was for and those kind of ads would really get you pumped up to see it.


UNK: Do you still collect horror ads? How do you think contemporary print ads stack up to these classics?

LANA: I am still collecting but not just for horror. I also have several ads for sci-fi, action and porn films.

As for the contemporary ads…

The quality and creativity of print ads started to decline during the late 80's. By then grindhouses and drive in theaters were dying out so that pretty much made exploitation and double feature ads obsolete. A lot of horror films were being made exclusively for home video so you saw fewer and fewer ads for them in the newspaper. Then we had the horror drought of the early 90's and there were no ads which really sucked. Horror films became popular again in the late 90's but the ads for those weren't very imaginative. They usually featured some lame actors from the WB lined up "smallest to tallest". And so far I haven't seen anything this decade that has impressed me.

UNK: Hallelujah to that ! Thanks Lana, not only for the interview but for diligently collecting and sharing these awesome artifacts. You've really got me missing those old ads and it's great to know there's a place that I can go to find them in the future. If my parents did throw out my albums, it's good to know you've got my back!! Keep up the good work and expect to find me stopping by STARTS TODAY! on a regular basis!

Kinder-Link :: Mystic Places & Max Jenke

Posted on By unkle lancifer


Do you remember those creepy TIME-LIFE series of books like MYSTIC PLACES, MYSTERIES OF THE UNKNOWN and THE ENCHANTED WORLD? I actually have a couple of those volumes that I've found over the years second hand. I had forgotten all about the weird commercials for them though, that is until your pal and mine Jeff Allard reminded me on his blog. They used to play those things all the time and it seemed they were particularly shown late at night. Watching them again after all this time, I find I can still almost recite them word for word. If you're in for a slice of nostalgia with a dollop of observational wisdom, as always, I recommend DINNER WITH MAX JENKE where it's routinely served. Jeff's post had me longing for the days when there was more than cosmetic ads and celebrity gossip shows on late night T.V. and the biggest thing I presumed to be threatening my safety was little green men. JUMP TO JENKE.

Traumafessions :: Reader Danny R. on the Death(s) of Kenny

Posted on By unkle lancifer

SOUTH PARK has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid. It was always edgy, rude, and grossly entertaining, even if I didn't get some of the more sexual jokes as a kid. However, at about twelve years of age, I saw an episode that will haunt me forever.

Now, all fans of the series know that Kenny dies fairly regularly. At twelve years old, it was an accepted fact of life: Kenny was made to make muffled sounds, wear a pimpin' orange, white trash hoodie, and die. However, it was always O.K. when he died, because it was usually in some silly, comedic way, followed by the famous line
"OH MY GOD! YOU KILLED KENNY! YOU BASTARD!". Kenny would be back next week, and we all knew it. He was like Freddy or Jason; no matter what you did, you could never kill him for real… until the second to last episode of Season Five.

(more…)

Traumafessions :: Reader Maritsa on Chainsaws, Chili & Vampire Kids

Posted on By unkle lancifer

My parents weren't the type to take my brother and I to Disney movies. I am scarred for life; I'm 34 and still sleep with a night light. My parents took us to the movies to see films like THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, THE LEGACY, PSYCHO 2 and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. I will never forget when we got our first VCR. The first two movies we rented were THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and CREEPSHOW, try eating a bowl of chili and drinking a Malta while watching those movies. I lost my appetite and never ate chili again.

The one movie that really traumatized me was SALEM'S LOT. The scene where the vampire shows up at that kid's window was torture for me. My bed was up against the window in my room. My father would say, "Good night kids. God Bless you and remember if the guy from SALEM'S LOT shows up, don't open the window." Then he would shut off the lights. I'd put the blanket over my head and it would be 90 degrees out and I'd be sweating. I swear those nights I must have only slept because I passed out from heat exhaustion.

Trauma-Scene :: Plague Dog "Snitter" Shoots Man in Face!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

plague dogs

Thanks to trauma-picture over achiever WATERSHIP DOWN many kiddies learned the hard way that not every animated movie is appropriate for all ages and psyches. But what about PLAGUE DOGS which is based on a book by the same author, RICHARD ADAMS and directed by the same director, MARTIN ROSEN? It can't be as bad… just look at the theatrical poster that sports two adorable pooches frolicking with a happy helicopter! PLAGUE DOGS is sure to bring the fun, right? Well I hate to break it to you, but those doggies are not so much frolicking as they are running for their very lives. And that helicopter? It's filled with evil experimenting scientists who want to squash man's best friends as if they were bugs. Sure, the animation is gorgeous and the storytelling is intense and meaningful, but I really wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they were seriously prepared to crawl through the most depressing of trenches or had an extra box of Kleenex they simply had to plow through. Of all the hope shattering scenes supplied within, one stands out as being extra horrific and I mean King Kong sitting on Santa Claus horrific. In it a pleasant looking hunter calls to one of the dogs, the cute small one named Snitter. Will the hunter be a new friend? Will he take Snitter home and feed him? The dog runs to him with high hopes and expectations, but as he leaps to give the traditional doggie slobber greeting, he accidently steps on the hunter's rifle's trigger and oops….SHOOTS HIM IN THE FACE! I don't know if you have ever shot someone in the face before but, take it from me, it can destroy a friendship! The poor doggie runs away confused and, I can say from experience, probably feeling a bit guilty as well. Don't worry, there are more horrible atrocities waiting for him and his doggie pal around the corner. If you have a dog I think you should sit him down and force him to watch this movie, not only will he become extra grateful for his pampered lifestyle but he also just might learn a little thing about gun safety. Check out the devastation HERE.

Kinder-News :: Charlotte Rae's Psycho Screen Test

Posted on By unkle lancifer

It's not everyday that you come across an artifact that is of equal interest to both ALFRED HITCHCOCK and FACTS OF LIFE fans, but find such an item your Unkle Lancifer did. While cleaning out the attic of Kindertrauma Castle the other day, I stumbled across a box left behind by my dear Great Unkle Beleeza-Bob marked simply "Charlotte Rae, Psycho."

I have to admit that I, at first, mistook those words as observational graffiti rather than a description of the box's contents. When I opened the box, I found that it contained a canister of film. Excited, I jumped into the nearest dumbwaiter and rode it down to the Castle's basement theater secretly hoping I had stumbled across my Unkle's legendary stash of MARY PICKFORDankle-porn. What I found, instead, was an early screen test for the film PSYCHO that starred, yep you guessed it, THE FACTS OF LIFE's own CHARLOTTE RAE. I have no idea where it came from or how it came to be made or even why HITCH chose JANET LEIGH over RAE for the actual film, I just know that cinema fans everywhere have a reason to rejoice today and that they now owe a gargantuan debt to my dearly departed Unkle's pack rat nature.




BONUS: Early mock-up of scrapped movie poster art. Note that it does indeed include RAE in the cast!