More proof that just because I look like a nice person doesn’t mean that I am one comes in the form of yours truly forcing your poor, long suffering Aunt John to watch THE UNINVITED. No, I’m not talking about the classy black and white ghost jam with RAY MILLAND and nope, I’m not talking about the inexplicable A TALE OF TWO SISTERS re-don’t starring ELIZABETH “WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER” BANKS…I’m referring to the stowaway mutant house cat debacle of 1988. In case there is some kind of point to your life and therefore you have not stumbled across this feline focused fiasco, let me fill you in on why it’s so rub your eyes, double take atrocious…

IT STARS MY CAT

When I first met my cat “GATO MALO” in an alley I knew very little about his history. Naturally I assumed he lived the typical homeless cat lifestyle of jumping trains, eating canned beans and carrying his few belongings in a bandana tied to a stick. Imagine my surprise to find out my little schnookums was actually an accomplished thespian that had rubbed shoulders with the likes of ROB “SILK STALKINGS” ESTES. The sad news is no matter how much I grill the bastard, he will not reveal where he hides his royalty checks!

GEORGE KENNEDY

I know video stores don’t exist anymore but if they did, it should be mandatory that each and every one has a well-marked GEORGE KENNEDY section. That way I would not have to waste time digging through crap that stars TOM HANKS and that platypus lady. Not only is GEORGE KENNEDY the most handsome man who ever lived but he also starred in DEMONWARP!

CLU GALLAGER

Nearly unrecognizable in JERRY LEWIS false teeth and mumbling like a madman, CLU “RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD” GALLAGER comes off as a dangerously psychotic PETER SELLERS wannabe. Isn’t this the same weirdo character he played in THE OFFSPRING? CLU, you scare me sometimes.

THE LADIES

As if wearing shredded x-tra large T-shirts over their bikinis was not classy enough, these two broads have discovered the ultimate culinary combo of champagne and ice cream sundaes! Parents of gay teens, don’t waste your money sending your kid to “straight” camp; just pop the UNINVITED into the DVD player and voila! Yowza and zowee.

SPECIAL (as in short bus) EFFECTS!

Where do I start? So there’s this mutant cat and when it opens it mouth, a smaller cat (or a rat?) jumps out and attacks people. I have no idea why this was attempted in the first place but there is absolutely no way to describe it. There is no consistency in the size of the beast from one scene to the next. The rules of time and space are not only outright rejected but given wedgies and laughed out of town. The only crumb of logic that is thrown is at film’s end when we discover all the events took place on a toy boat in a bathtub. Try not to notice that the cat is a completely different color in the final shot.

GREYDON CLARK

I have no idea what the hell director GREYDON CLARK could have possible have been thinking while directing THE UNINVITED. His earlier films SATAN’S CHEERLEADERS and WITHOUT WARNING (1980) are hardly masterpieces, but they do, for the most part, resemble movies.

In other words, this is a must own and I’ve been dragging around a frayed VHS copy for years. The new DVD (a double feature with the suddenly competent looking MUTANT (1984)) is not much of an upgrade in the picture quality department but really, why should it be? This is a real bottom of the barrel disaster that needs to be seen under the worst of circumstances, preferably under some level of inebriation. Now if only I could get GATO MALO to autograph a copy…

I’ve been trying to figure out what the name of this movie was. I think it was a short film that showed between features on HBO or Cinemax in the very early ‘80s. It was about a kid who moved from Earth to another planet where it rained all the time. I can’t remember the gender of the Earthling, but he or she was always drawing pictures of the sun. Anyway, the kids on the rain planet didn’t believe the protagonist’s stories about sunshine, and they taunted him or her, chased them and locked them in a closet.

Wouldn’t you know it, right then it stopped raining and the sun came out and all those jerks were running and playing having forgotten about the kid they’d locked up. I know I didn’t dream this but I haven’t found anyone else who saw it.

Maybe one of your readers remembers it?

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Actually, this is one I remember! It ran on HBO in the early/ mid-’80s and it was based on the RAY BRADBURY short story “All Summer in a Day” and, from what I recall, it always was shown in tandem with the other BRADBURY inspired short “The Electric Grandmother.”

Dig out your sunglasses Erin, ’cause here it is in its entirety:

One of my childhood trauma inducing characters (along with STEPHEN KING’s IT – God, that movie made going to the toilet/taking a bath/cleaning your teeth/walking past drains terrifying for years!) was from an Australian T.V. advertisement in the late ‘80s. Most likely between ‘86 and ‘89 when I was at my most impressionable.

I saw the ad broadcast on a 6pm nightly news program, as at the time it was considered quite controversial. I remember the newsreader forebodingly saying, “If you have young children you may want to ask them to leave the room now.” I looked sidelong at my Mum and she didn’t respond, which I was quite happy about. I don’t remember specifics but I believe it was in black and white and set during a funeral at a graveyard. There were sobbing relatives and the camera was following the coffin being carried by two men into the back of a hearse. I remember thinking at this point that it was totally lame and not scary at all and that I was obviously pretty awesome for not being affected, but then it happened! The driver of the hearse turned around and he was some kind of horrifying werewolf-esque monster!! This shocked me more than pretty much anything, ever. I think it was a warning ad of some kind, maybe smoking, AIDS, cancer? I’ve tried searching the web with what I know and turned up nothing.

Obviously, I pretended that I didn’t care so my Mum wouldn’t think I was a wuss bag and went to bed as normal not long after. For that night and many, many after I would lie awake in a state of absolute terror seeing the werewolf hearse driver and IT standing in my bedroom doorway, casting long ominous shadows into my room from the hall light, waiting for me to fall asleep so they could come and get me.

I’ve never really lived down this fear although now it’s been replaced by more grown-up fears like demonic possession (thanks to an UNEXPLAINED MYSTERIES style documentary when I was 11), RINGU-esque Japanese yokai stalkers and this bloody image that I know is probably faked but still scares the crap out of me if I start thinking about it in the dark. (See the freaky escaped-mental-patient looking ghost child in the background.)

Thanks for all the great movie recommendations – you guys have horror movie viewing persistence to be admired! xxoo

UNK SEZ:: O.K. kids, you may have seen this lil’ slice of genius elsewhere today but I’ve got to post it anyway. Nobody deserves to miss this and it’s a great way to start the weekend. (Plus, the “Get away from her you bitch!” portion is borderline orgasmic.)

UNK SEZ: We had so much fun with our pal Amanda by Night last week that we asked her to stop by and host the Kindertrauma Funhouse once again. She’s got some real toughies for you kids this time. After you’ve made some guesses, make sure you stop by her home base MADE FOR TV MAYHEM for even more made for television fun!

Hey, thanks for all the retro-trauma, and thanks for linking my blog in your sidebar.

I’ve just spent some time looking back at every “Name That Trauma” post from your most excellent site, and was unable to find any reference to my film in question. I saw it at the theater in 1975 or 1976 as a five or six-year-old, and I’m assuming it was first-run. It was a matinee, but not a kiddie film, as I recall some PG-level sexual content. The most traumatizing bit was a woman with white hair and white skin who was out in the woods and threatening some people in a cabin. She had no lines, but just snarled at the camera. More specifically, there was a Native American Shaman-guy who had some magical powers. At one point, he dumps some powder out of a small leather bag on his belt to create a line across a road. A car drives up and smashes into it, as if it were an invisible wall. That’s about all I remember.

I’m sure this movie actually happened. I’d love to see it again to check if that white-skinned woman is as horrifying as I remember, or just laughable in retrospect. Won’t someone help?

When I was 4-ish (1978), the big thing for me to watch was public television. WETA Channel 26. MR. ROGERS, SESAME STREET, and THE ELECTRIC COMPANY.

I don’t think we got cable until 1981 (when I was 7) or so… Back when A&E and Nick were the same channel, there were 5 movie channels (everyone knows about HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, and even The Movie Channel, but few people remember the Home Theatre Network), and HBO wasn’t descrambled but was set at the tap for your house. (Meaning I could get it in my room via a cable split without a cable box, unlike the descrambled channels.)

You know what the most memorable moment of all that programming was for me? Not a specific show, but the period of silence between SESAME STREET and THE ELECTRIC COMPANY; the period of time where the screen is completely black for an unpredictable amount of time (TV programming was not necessarily run by computers back then, and WETA 26 was, after all, a local public station), followed by someone insanely screaming “HEEEYY YOOOOUUU GUYYYYYYYSSSSS!” and THE ELECTRIC COMPANY logo.

Anyway… The silence between the two shows scared the shit out of me. I wasn’t scared of the “Hey You Guys!” scream as much as the anticipation of waiting for it to happen. It filled my adrenal gland and my soul with a sense of dread. The same sense of dread I feel today if I wake up and notice that the music has inexplicably stopped playing. Is the power out? Did my computer fry? Will I be able to sleep without anything to entertain me enough to keep my thoughts from madly racing?

I’ve never been a fan of silence. I listen to music 24/7/365. I don’t sit in silence. Period. Ever. Even if I’m sitting outside in the middle of the woods, alone, I’m going to be projecting my hearing as far as possible, trying to hear as many different sounds as possible. It took me awhile to realize that my dislike of silence goes all the way back to the 1970s. At least I’m consistent.

— Clint

I recall that when I was in high school, there were a variety of educational, “after school special” kind of shows that would air on one of the local public access channels. They were all pretty old (from the ‘70s and ‘80s, and they dealt with the subjects that one would come to expect from such programming (alcoholism, dating, illness, friendships, etc.)

When I was 18, in the spring of 2000, (maybe a little too old to be scared by a public access show??), I was home early from school after exams. I happened to flip to the public access channel, which was airing a show about a young mother living with HIV. She had two young children, and I believe she had moved in with her sister so her sister could help care for her and her kids. This all sounds fairly innocuous, and at first it was. However, during the last 10 minutes or so, things began to change. First, there was a scene where the kids and their mother were playing a board game (maybe Monopoly?) because they were stuck inside due to the rain. The scene cuts to the kitchen, and all of a sudden one of the kids runs into the room and yells, “Aunt so-and-so, mommy cut her hand in the living room and there’s blood everywhere!!” Then you see the mother with her bloody hand wrapped in a towel or something.

Things became even more unsettling in the next scene (after the bleeding had stopped). It’s the middle of the night, and the mother is sitting alone in her bedroom with the lights on, and she’s staring into a mirror, covered in sweat, and sobbing. The camera then zoomed in on her face, all sweaty and teary, and lingered there for about ten seconds before her sister came in and consoled her. That scene really freaked the shit out of me. What added to the creepiness of this show was the face of the woman who played the mother; she had a really nasty, curly brown rats’ nest of hair, and her features were very harsh and angular. I recall that her lips were very thin and almost pursed as well.

The last thing I remember is that the show ended with the woman and her sister saying the rosary on the porch, and during the credits, the name of some Catholic production company came up. I don’t know if anyone out there has seen this, but it really disturbed me at the time I saw it. I really love the site, and I hope someone out there has seen this show and was also disturbed by it. Thanks!

I guess every horror movie dealing with religious themes born after 1973 must get up in the morning, brush its teeth, look in the mirror and say solemnly to itself, “I’m not THE EXORCIST.” STIGMATA’s morning ritual must be more disheartening than most; “I’m not THE EXORCIST, CHUMBAWUMA plays over my opening credits AND I take place in Pittsburgh.” Keep passing those open windows STIGMATA!

Actually, me thinks this flashy fin de siecle spooker merely masquerades as an EXCORCIST wannabe, what it secretly wants to dress up as is THE THORN BIRDS. Seriously, the “will they or won’t they?” electricity between wacky hairdresser/inflatable chair connoisseur Frankie Paige (PATRICIA ARQUETTE) and pasty and chastey smolder-boulder Father Andrew Kierman (monolith beaked, black Irish centerfold GABRIEL BYRNE) is of such wattage that I couldn’t stop hearing the theme from MOONLIGHTING in my head.

I’d loved to delve into the horrific aspects of STIGMATA, but they are virtually non-existent. My advice is, break out the Häagen-Dazs and sweat pants; this is a sexually repressed girly-girl goth fantasy on par with TWILIGHT. All the supernatural elements on display here seem tailor made to allow Frankie to get all googly eyed and date-rapey over an unavailable man without ever having to worry about loosing face. First her wrists begin to bleed (every cutter knows this is a great way to catch your dreamdate’s eye) then she gets possessed (the perfect excuse to say inappropriate things without ever being accountable) and needless to say, ultimately an outdoor café is involved. Hey, I’m not judging, we are talking about GABBY BYRNE here.

Sadly for horror fans Frankie doesn’t even bother getting possessed by Satan, instead she is forced to be the spokesperson for a dead priest who’s got a super secret message from Jesus that the church would rather you not hear. Yes, the church is EVIL in STIGMATA! Apparently Jesus meant to tell you that you can worship him from home and that you don’t even have to bother going to church. Wha-wha-what? Nice going Jesus, while you’re at it, why not just tell everybody that McDonald’s secret sauce is really just Thousand Island Dressing? Some of us are trying to make a living down here, ya know!

STIGMATA is indisputable trash, hardly horror and very noticeably uninterested in its own subject matter yet it does possess a certain come hither Lifetime movie charm that’s difficult to completely renounce. Director RUPERT WAINRIGHT (who would later take a dump in a handbag and call it a remake of THE FOG) goes completely overboard with the visuals, so much so that much of the movie feels like being trapped in a very leaky URBAN OUTFITTERS, but oh, doesn’t 1999 look sparkly and adorable in its naiveté? Maybe I’m just a Mr. Softy for MTV flavored tales sprinkled with unrequited love, but I’d slap the hand of anyone who tried to turn this shit off. I kinda always knew I had the heart of a teenage girl but STIGMATA proves that I have the heart of a not very bright teenage girl with buck teeth, glasses and a regrettable perm.

When your Unk was a critter way back in the seventies they used to air THE LITTLE RASCALS shorts on television every Sunday morning. My favorite was one where the gang unknowingly gets trapped in a haunted funhouse ride. I remember watching every Sunday just hoping that they would show that one again. Leave it to THE HAUNTED CLOSET to dedicate an entire post to spooky LITTLE RASCALS‘ episodes including that favorite of mine (turns out it’s called HIDE AND SHRIEK). Make sure that you check out this wonderful post HERE.

I remember a movie from the late 1960s/early 1970s that was a Christmas anthology (I think.)

The only thing I remember is an image of a toy soldier in a waterfall/river/body of water and that of a little girl.

I vaguely remember the term “Kris Kringle” used in the movie trailer, and that it was shown as a double feature with THE CHRISTMAS THAT ALMOST WASN’T (again, I think.)

I also remember that it was somewhat creepy.

Any ideas? I would love to complete this partial memory…..

Sincerely,

Tony M.

An IMDb user calls A GIRL NAMED SOONER, “a beautiful story that will tug at your heart.” The only scene from this T.V. movie that I recall, and vividly, is the one in which Sooner shows her tame pigeon to a group of kids who then throw gravel and pebbles at the pigeon till it’s dead. Sorry, but I can’t find an image of this scene online.

Another made-for-T.V. movie that traumatized me concerns a couple who moves to a rural town where the wife becomes involved in a fertility cult. I was fairly certain that ED BEGLEY JR. played the, uh, male praying mantis. If I remember correctly, the final scene shows the infertile out-of-towner husband blinded and with his tongue cut out. I can’t find anything in BEGLEY JR.’s filmography that sounds anything like this movie. Does it ring a bell with you? It would’ve aired in the late ‘70s or possibly the early ‘80s.

Thanks for reminding me of BORN INNOCENT! The big kids on the school bus had to explain to us littl’uns what the deal was with the plunger.

UNK SEZ: You kids are in for a special treat! Today’s Kindertrauma Funhouse is being hosted by the glamorous queen of television AMANDA BY NIGHT of the beyond spectacular MADE FOR TV MAYHEM!!! Amanda has supplied us with ten televisions on which can be seen ten images from ten made-for-television masterpieces. How many can you name?

Death, ignoring centuries of pleas to “pick on someone its own size” took the life of 76 year old ZELDA RUBINSTEIN yesterday. RUBINSTEIN is best remembered for starring in the super awesome POLTERGEIST 3, but she also appeared in such notable films as SIXTEEN CANDLES, ANGUISH and POLTERGEIST 2: THE OTHER SIDE. She even appeared in a film simply titled POLTERGEIST in 1982. Many believe it was her work in that movie which lead to her landing the landmark role of “Tangina” in the classic POLTERGEIST 3.

Even those who have never seen POLTERGEIST 3 are certainly familiar with many of the highly quotable lines uttered by her character within the film, lines like “My God! HE FOUND HER!“ and “I have the KNOWLEDGE… and the POWER!“

Friends fear RUBINSTEIN’s untimely death will add more fuel to the whispered rumors of a “TEEN WITCH” curse.

In all seriousness, we here at Kindertrauma will miss ZELDA everyday for the rest of our lives because she was one of the coolest people who ever lived. GO into the light baby!

Love the site. It’s great reading about the freaky things people remember from their childhood, and I thought I would share one of my own.

There are a few traumatizing T.V. memories from my childhood, including the infamous BBC broadcast GHOSTWATCH (which is one of the main reasons for my current love of horror movies.) But one that stands out in my mind was this advert for soft drink Tango.

Now the Tango adverts had generated quite a bit of controversy here in the U.K. by that time, but when this advert popped out of nowhere, I was caught completely off guard.

A guy is at a football match when the crowd disappears and he is left all alone. Shocked, he sees a little girl skipping on the pitch, however she turns around to reveal it is actually an old woman (an apparent homage to cult classic DON’T LOOK NOW) who is brandishing a giant corkscrew. To the man’s side appears a grim reaper-like figure. Both the woman and the reaper began shouting, “No” at the man in what is a very disturbing (and somewhat psychedelic moment.) The man, getting quite panicked takes a drink of his can of Tango, and is instantly ‘decapitated’ by a mysterious force. Suddenly, the pitch returns to normal, and the man is left traumatized and rubbing his throat in shock.

Although the advert is done in a quite humorous tone, it was quite shocking for young children and seemed to be pulled of the air quite quickly as I can only remember seeing it a few times.

-Double L-

Got one that I’m sure someone knows. I remember watching late night anthology horror/sci-fi a lot with my mom in the ‘80s and there’s a couple of shorts that I can vaguely recall. It’s seems like it might have been a RAY BRADBURY THEATER deal.

One short dealt with paralysis. A man gets in a car accident and can’t move, but he brings you along with his inner dialogue. Something must’ve been sour with the guy, since most of the stories in series like that involved a comeuppance. He’s taken to a hospital, and in SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW fashion, pleads fruitlessly that’s he’s not dead. Most of the short is from his viewpoint, looking at the wheels spinning from the wreck, looking up at the doctors, etc.

I’m almost positive the second short I can’t place was during the same episode. It dealt with a man and his wife. The wife had been attacked or raped, and the husband was picking her up from the hospital. On the way home, she shrieks at the husband to stop the car, that’s she’s just seen her attacker. He parks the car, beats or kills the guy, then continues driving home. Seconds later, she claims to have just seen her attacker. He says something like “Are you sure? I thought that other guy was the one!” and she replies something like “No, I’m sure this time.” I think he beats/kills one or 2 more guys until he realizes wifey’s brains have gone bye-bye.

Love the site!

Jimmy F.

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to reader jaakko for knowing that these were episodes “Breakdown” and “Revenge” from 1985’s THE NEW ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS.

From my humble beginnings, according to my mother, I was a sensitive child. Quiet, bookish, a catch and release the firefly sort of kid. I would cry when other neighborhood children would keep them in jars or squish them against the sidewalk. This sort of behavior did not sit well with my Father and he would try, to the best of his ability, to toughen me up. We would watch grown up type movies. Not ‘adult’ movies but movies like TRUE GRIT, TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. These watching habits extended to television as well, THE A-TEAM, KNIGHT RIDER, these were all shows enjoyed by me while my dad read the paper and nodded approvingly whenever MR. T punched a dude, my dad even let me have the recliner when they were on.

“This sounds like a perfect childhood, Fauntleroy, where is the trauma?” you ask.

Okay.

The year: 1988.

The person: An 11-year-old me.

The show: MACGYVER. I had to look up the title of the episode, “Kill Zone,” and the year (my memory isn’t THAT good).

In this particular MACGYVER, he is sent in to some wilderness to investigate reports of animals dying after a satellite crashes to Earth. I may be wrong about the satellite, but the episode had a real ANDROMEDA STRAIN feel to it. It turns out, a weird bacteria has returned with the crashed object and this bacteria, upon exposure to a living thing, accelerates the aging process to fatal levels. We’re talking a lifetime in a matter of minutes. A sample of the bacteria is sent to a lab for analysis where it comes into the hands of a dedicated lady scientist who is softened by the presence of her beloved dog. How could this scientist be so obstinate? Look how much she loves her dog.

The episode progresses. MacGyver fixes stuff with a paper clip, etc. etc. Eventually, he is supposed to destroy said organism, its existence deemed too dangerous to the planet Earth. The dedicated lady scientist isn’t having it. The organism is simply too important to destroy. She locks herself in the lab with her dog and the organism sealed in a glass container for further study. Alas, the beloved dog misinterprets the glass container holding the bacteria for a toy and knocks it from her hand, releasing it in the sealed laboratory.

The dog immediately begins to age, its black fur becoming gray seemingly before MacGyver’s eyes. It limps to the lady scientist’s lap and dies in her arms while she also begins to show signs of age. MacGyver runs to find some way to free her from the lab but by the time he returns, she is horrifyingly old and, in my opinion, kind of looks like a gray haired version of The Hag from the trauma inducing movie CURTAINS. It wasn’t enough that a dog withered and died in front of my eyes while its owner apologized and said ’she hoped it doesn’t hurt’, no, I was also treated to the grim visage of death itself, in the form of a grizzled old woman.

I ran from the room, oblivious to my father’s cries of, “For crying out loud! It’s just MACGYVER!” I never watched another episode of MACGYVER again for truly this was a one/two punch: soul crushingly sad, followed by horrifying.

Finding the clip online was easy, WATCHING said clip, an entirely different matter. I did not, but I am including it for those whose morbid curiosity is unquenchable. Don’t say I didn’t warn you:

While I was reading up on the SHIRLEY TEMPLE fantasy flick THE BLUE BIRD, I found that consensus held that its financial failure was due to the fact that audiences could not stomach seeing SHIRLEY in an “unsympathetic” role.

We’ll get to ROB ZOMBIE’s DIRECTOR CUT of HALLOWEEN II in a moment but first I’d like to know what’s so darn unsympathetic about SHIRLEY’s character Mytyl in THE BLUE BIRD…

Let me break down Mytyl’s “bratty” behavior for you; when the film opens we find her putting forth great effort into capturing a bird and then finally succeeding. On the way home with her prize some girl who claims to be ill suggests that Mytyl hand it over it to her, and Myty rightfully declines. Later, Mytyl comes across a mansion where folks are living it up at a Christmas party. She points out that those who have to work the event are having zero fun.

Once home, Mytyl accesses her surroundings and feels great dissatisfaction She demands to know why her digs are so cheap when others are living high on the hog. Mytyl refuses to be placated with the old “others have it worse then you so shut up “ spiel. The girl can’t help it, she wants more.

That’s about it, the rest of the movie she’s helping strangers find their lost belongings, yodeling for people’s entertainment and playing therapist to a bunch of unborn children. She even hands over the bird to the sick girl eventually, so really why the hell is she so darn “unsympathetic”?

Is it because she expressed her unhappiness and dissatisfaction? Is it because she voiced her discontent? Is it because she had the audacity to stop tap-dancing for other peoples benefit and wonder what’s in it for her? Audiences want Mytyl (and SHIRLEY really) to shut up and tow the line; they want those dimples to shine.

All of this was on my mind when I sat down to revisit Haddonfield with the director’s cut of H2. Now, I defended the theatrical cut for its schlocky, rough around the edges grindhouse charm and general off kilter bizarreness but I’m now prepared to unabashedly call the director’s cut one of my favorite films of last year. It quite simply fascinates the hell out of me. Is Michael Myers wearing a hoodie in this? Do they show his face? You know what? I couldn’t care less about that guy at this point. I’m intrigued, enamored and obsessed with this cut of the film because Laurie Strode takes off her own mask here and reveals her rage. Is she sympathetic? Does she yodel and tap dance for the audience? The time for keeping up a polite front is over. Laurie Strode is seriously fucked up and weather you like her or not is beside the point.

I realize that the director’s cut of H2 will not alter the opinion of those who hated the theatrical cut, but my point is that the very best parts of this movie were extracted from that version in order to make Laurie more…here’s that word again “sympathetic.”

Obviously this is NOT the same Laurie we met in 1978, but let’s say for a moment that she is, and for over 30 years this character has behaved for the audience. She has taken it on the chin, acted the hero and came back for more. Let’s say that Laurie Strode in any incarnation is the ultimate embodiment of every horror victim, let’s say she represents every screamer there ever was…

Now she wants to tell you what it’s like to live in fear. Now she wants to tell you how maddening it is that she’s expected to go back to normal. She wants to reveal that she can’t even stand to look at her best friend’s face because it is a constant reminder of her pain. She’s pissed off, she’s angry, confused, and she’s brimming over with self-loathing. She wants to hurt herself and she wants to hurt the ones who stand by her. These feelings are impossible to neatly box away. The past constantly bleeds into the present. Hallucinations parade through the waking day. She identifies with her attacker, who else on earth could possibly understand the fury brewing inside her?

All of the above is consistent with the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder but what the hell is it doing in a slasher sequel? Wouldn’t we rather see Laurie transformed into a warrior? Why isn’t she MACGYVER-ing traps or sleuthing through microfilms? How about an archery training montage?

Apparently audiences don’t want to see Laurie’s pain and even if they could withstand the repulsiveness of her vulnerability you can’t possibly expect them to accept the ugliness of her guilt and the stench of her anger. …that’s just silly. If horror movies, particularly slasher films are built to thrill teenagers then why the hell is this one such a boner killer?

H2, unlike just about every horror sequel I can think of, actually stops and asks Laurie how she’s doing. Laurie answers honestly but it’s not what we want to hear. How unsympathetic, what a selfish victim to not hide away her anguish.

Sure big bro Mike stomping on a head is alarming but the real horror in this movie comes from the idea that the old idiom about “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” only works if you’re seven feet tall. The sad reality for Laurie is that the “whatever” that didn’t kill her only made her suffering (and med dosage) stronger. She’s a 19 year old who lost her parents, several friends, got the tar beat out of her and ultimately had to shoot a guy in the face to save her own hide; when’s she gonna get her act together?

Even more intriguing (to me) than Laurie’s down hill dementia-dive are the dynamics of her tumultuous relationship with best bud Annie Bracket (DANIELLE HARRIS), which was lightly skimmed over in the theatrical, or as I like to call it “mall” version. I get why they dropped this stuff for the Friday night crowd, dialogue and drama is teen boy kryptonite but it’s the beating heart of the movie and it makes Annie’s ultimate fate that much more devastating. In other words, with the added addition of roughly 15 minutes of extra footage, I’m not feeling very guilty about this guilty pleasure anymore.

ZOMBIE has a talent for falling between barstools; too violent for this crowd, too dime store pretentious for that one. It just so happens I enjoy that no man’s land. I wouldn’t disagree that Z’s trash-attack approach was an unnecessary crutch but that doesn’t change the fact that he makes a genuine point of grafting frequently shirked emotional levels on to the slasher template. It’s actually pretty amazing to observe MARGOT KIDDER star of the inaugural slasher BLACK CHRISTMAS attempting to coach Laurie on how to function post assailment and getting a face full of “fuck you” in return.

With his long hair and fuzzy face you’d think hobo Mike was a stand in for the director but I think he’s just a decoy. ZOMBIE is really doppelgang-banging neo-Strode. Look at them, two defensive, discordant peas in a pod, up against the wall with something to express that nobody wants to hear. Remember kids, opinions are like assholes, the more you expose your own, the less friends you have.

O.K, I’m rambling here. What was my point? Oh, yeah HALLOWEEN 2: THE DIRECTOR’s CUT and THE BLUE BIRD (1940) are the perfect double feature! They both have petulant protagonists, specifically colored animal symbolism and a ghostly fairy lady leading the way. Don’t believe me? Well, I’m half past give a shit. I’m sure ROB, Laurie and Mytle understand.

Big thanks to SLASHER FILM SANCTUARY for giving us the bobble-heads up on this brand new TALKY TINA dolly based on one of our most favorite TWILIGHT ZONE episodes “Living Doll!”

Pennywise (TIM CURRY) admits “They all float down here.” in the miniseries adaptation of STEPHEN KING’s IT