First off, your site is so completely awesome and words can't express the amount of pleasure I've had over the years scanning through all of your articles saying, "Oh wow… I remember that!" For this… I thank you.
For my first trauma confession ever, I present to you an episode of the late '80s show FREDDY'S NIGHTMARES. This was an anthology show where Freddy Krueger introduced horror tales of the terrible things that happened in the cursed town of Springwood. Sometimes, he even appeared in the tales.
I was very young (maybe 8 or 9 I think), and was over my Grandparent's house in their basement at the time. My Grandfather was flipping through the channels, when all of a sudden, he stops on this one particular program that looks like a game show. The host keeps looking at this timer and telling this totally frightened woman that she doesn't have much time left on the clock. She is being asked questions, and the camera switches to her husband who is tied up with a blade above him that keeps swinging closer and closer to him. The host (with an unsettlingly happy grin) keeps asking her questions. The woman then says out loud to herself something like, "If I win, HE DIES!" or maybe it's the other way around (I'm at work as I type this and can't check on YouTube unfortunately).
Anywho, the blade finally starts piercing his flesh and you see some blood. The gagged man starts to scream. My grandmother happens to come into the room and she says "Lee, turn that off!". My grandfather just sits there laughing. "Lee, turn that off now!" she says again. My grandfather finally turns the channel.
Of course by then, the damage had already been done.
My poor little brain was now trying to erase those images for the rest of that trip I'm sure. Later on in life, I became an absolute horror fanatic and received a bootleg set of the entire series of FREDDY'S NIGHTMARES in great quality. Imagine my surprise when I watched the episode "Judy Miller, Come On Down". It was the infamous scarring episode!!! It had, through the hands of fate arrived back to me after years of searching for it, wondering if it was but a dream! Not only that, but I could now see all of the "wonderful" ways Judy was tormented on that sick gameshow including her relatives being covered in man-eating ants!
It's up on YouTube now I believe, so you fellow kindertraumers can go see it in all of its sick glory. '80s nighttime T.V. was never so good! Hehe.
Hi Josh, awesome Traumafession. I have many fond memories of Freddy's Nightmares on a Saturday night in the late 80's. Although it never really had a traumatizing effect on me, I do remember the ending of one episode where a woman was chained up (to a coffin if I remember correctly) in a basement or something, and no one knew where she was. Her captor is killed, taking her location to his grave. The last scene shows her screaming for someone to hear her but the camera just pans out leaving us with the thoughts of what a horrendous, slow death she will experience. As I remember it the woman wasn't exactly a sympathetic character so it wasn't like seeing an innocent person about to meet that fate but still, it stayed with me. Any idea what episode this is?
I forgot to mention that we did get another "Freddy's Nightmares" traumafession a while back…
Actually it just took me forever to track it down… I can never find anything on this site!
https://www.kindertrauma.com/?p=312
Stevil,
From what I could find from the episode guides online the one you are asking about may be "Prisoner of Love" from season two.
That one does end with somebody buried alive in a coffin…
"Ms. Richwine is a death-row inmate who gets strapped to an electric chair in a dream sequense. Ms. Buckman plays her rival who is chained to the chair and subsequented bound, gagged and locked in a casket."
I can't seem to find it on youtube though!
"Beat the Reaper"? Did they steal that title from the Firesign Theatre?
Awesome1 I'm gonna have to try and track those episodes down.
Hey, it's Josh K. Here! Thanks for your comments everyone!
Whoops. I meant to type killer ants, not killer bees. That's what ends up eating her inlaws.
Josh, I changed it to ants for ya! Thanks for the traumafession.
Stevil, I wish this series was on DVD!
and
Good Catch Nathan!
Some Trivia: Judy Miller, Come On Down" was directed by Tom DeSimone who also directed HELL NIGHT!
To this day the one that gives me the most chills – the one that's a sequel to the babysitter who ends up getting locked in the basement where a couple keeps their psycho daughter. In the second half we see what happens to the psycho when she escapes and it ends with her locking her parents up while she goes after her baby brother. Since she tried to kill him once….
Little kids getting killed or suggested they'll be killed is like killing the dog in a horror movie. You can kill everyone else, but once kids or dogs are involved you hope the director dies and burns in Hell.
That was an odd show, a combination of The Twilight Zone and a sitcom. I remember this particular episode ended with the woman winning a bunch of money on the game show (the whole husband getting the ax was a nightmare), and then meeting her future self. The future self had spent years in prison for killing her husband, who was having an affair. The episode ends with the woman walking toward her husband with a weapon, unable to prevent her fate…