AUNT JOHN SEZ: Hi kids, your Unk and I have to shuffle off to Saskatchewan for a belated Boxing Day barbecue. Despite the short notice, we managed to rope in REDBOY for a third babysitting engagement. So everyone, please be on your best behavior for REDBOY, and be sure to check out all of the great yuletide tuneage he has been featuring on BLUES FOR THE REDBOY.

“I don’t play monsters. I play men besieged by fate and out for revenge”

–VINCENT PRICE

Now, when I say I love VINCENT PRICE, I mean I love VINCENT PRICE in the strictly platonic/borderline obsessive way you love VINCENT PRICE; that is to say, I think of him as an artist whose contribution elevates otherwise tasteless fare with a modicum of respectability; not to mention a dry, malevolent, Prospero-like wit (MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH is both PRICE an CORMAN’s masterwork).

That is, for all intents and purposes, an accurate description, no? He did manage to class up the MUPPETS for Christ’s sake.

Someone had to; Lord knows it wasn’t gonna be JOHN DENVER.

Then there are PRICE’s cultural contributions, of which they are many. There is his vast private art collection and affordable signature line of paintings marketed through Sears; his endowment of priceless (pun firmly intended) works to the East L.A. College in an effort to establish California’s first and only teaching art collection.

Talk about contributions…have you ever even listened to the intro to ‘Black Widow’ off of ALICE COOPER’s ‘Welcome to my Nightmare’ album?

No? Seriously? Travesty! Were talking several years before Thriller, man…Thriller!

Most people don’t even know that PRICE is the first person to trip-face on LSD in a major studio film (Hint: The Walls! The Walls!). Even LUGOSI never managed that and he was a morphine addict.

But, you see, that’s the essence of VINCENT PRICE: He’s like the thespian equivalent of a throw pillow or a giant ceramic statue of a Great Dane…he classes up the joint, but that’s not to say PRICE can’t be campy.

My childhood introduction to PRICE was such; His Mephistophelean goatee jutting out of my T.V. screen in 3D; the multicolored glasses generously donated by my local 7-11 for their WPIX broadcast of THE MAD MAGICIAN (that saw blade came right out of the f%$kin’ screen, man!).

I say introduction for lack of a better word. I know I was aware of PRICE in the larger sense that I understood the peculiar service he served on the seventies variety circuit: a creepy ringer called in to sub (more often than not, when LON CHANEY JR. was too drunk,) as some melodramatic “ham-pire”, chewing the scenery like the alabaster curves of a virgin’s nubile young neck, but I’ll get to PRICE’s turn as Dracula in a moment…

Having come into this world, as I did, at the tail end of flairs and plaids, yet well before neon and shoulder-pads leveled the fashionable playing field, my most lingering memories of PRICE are perhaps his ‘70s / ‘80s input, understood by many to be the twilight of his acting career; PRICE’s regular appearances on HOLLYWOOD SQUARES being any indication.

Man, that show sure was the kiss of death for ones acting career; just ask PAUL LYNDE (wait, you can’t; he OD’d on amyl nitrate in the company of a male prostitute. Oh well…)

Anyway, PRICE had been making his rent for some time staring in a series of low budget features; the most memorable, at least to my impressionable young mind, being the made-for-T.V. ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT SCARY and the equally entertaining, if not overly melodramatic HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS.

I suppose one could further count PRICE’s roll as spokesperson for the Milton Bradley’s Shrunken Head Apple Sculpture kit’ -a feather in any aspiring actors cap, to be sure- but that would be showing my age, being about half way to a shrunken head myself.

ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT SCARY premiered on basic CBS in the 1979, having been developed for T.V. in the midst of the ‘70s anthology film craze (TRILOGY OF TERROR, anyone?). SCARY features three tales adapted from American folklore and young-adult novels of it’s time, of which PRICE had been commissioned to slather his ghoulish charm on deliciously thick as the narrator and host of each segment.

The first tale, told from the fireside glow of PRICE’s Victorian library, is based the young adult novel ‘This Ghost Belongs to Me’ by Richard Peck (1975). ‘Ghost’ concerns a young boy and the disembodied tenant living in his barn; a specter who has a thing for extremely vague prophecy.

Having read the book, let me assure you that the production company spared every expense in this lame ghost’s production, though to be fair, it is rather hard to establish any useful narrative in less than ten minutes. However, the video editing machine employed must have been working overtime to crank this disappointing segment out cause I seen better screen-wipes on New Wave Theatre reruns.

Of the three tales, ‘Ghost’ should cross over, if not be passed over. Lucky for us, it is the exception to the rule.

The second tale is a brief (one might say ’Fat Free’) retelling of Washington Irving’s famous American Folk tale ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.’ This is where the film hits its stride.

Being no stranger to the headless ghost angle, I had previously put the paces on a video copy of Disney’s telling from the ‘50s narrated/crooned by BING CROSBY, not to mention suffering through a seventies version staring JEFF GOLDBLOOM and DICK BUTKUS in the titular roles. But there was something inherent to PRICE’s version which freaked me the hell out where those other versions seemed tame…now what was it… Oh, I know! Perhaps it was the Horseman’s severed HUMAN head being thrown at the T.V., laughing maniacally as it strafes towards ole’ Icabod (RENE AURBERJONOIS).

Sure. It seems corny now, but whereas the innocuous pumpkin proved the defacto stand-in for a freshly lopped top where families were concerned, this rotten, meth-mouthed head w/ it’s tri-cornered hat, hollow eyes and tussled hair really got to me…though not as much as the dead witch screaming to life in PRICE’s third tale.

‘The House w/ a Clock in It’s Walls’ (1973) is adapted from the book of the same name by celebrate children’s author John Belairs. ‘Clock’ deals w/ young Lewis Barnevelt and his strange Uncle Jonathan (played by exploitation film veteran SEVERN DARDEN), a mysterious man who spends his nights listening to the ticking within the walls of his house in order to find a cursed clock (assembled by the home’s previous owner; a powerful warlock named Isaac Izzard) designed to strike and bring about doomsday. That generally wouldn’t be a problem (Doomsday, quite unlike Christmas, being a ways off), but when Lewis accidentally uses black magic to summon the dead wife of the clock’s inventor, Selena Izzard, Lewis and uncle Jonathan must race against time (again, pun firmly intended) to stop Mrs. Izzard from carrying out her husband’s evil plan.

Having been a huge fan of Belair’s Lewis Barnevelt series, particularly the first editions illustrated by Edward Gorey, I was sufficiently creeped out as a child seeing Mrs. Izzard use the ‘Hand of Glory’ (an alchemical charm derived from a hanged man’s hand and the rended fat of a black cat) to paralyze the Barnavelts while she decides the most horrible way to dispatch them. Equally unsettling is the scene in the graveyard where Lewis and his friend Tarby (whom Lewis is trying to impress) perform the resurrection spell as outlined in Uncle Jonathan’s Grimoire; the Ghost of Mrs. Izzard bursting out of her Mausoleum from behind them with a flash of thunder and lightening.

I won’t ruin the ending of this last story, sufficed to say that once PRICE has finished spinning his final yarn in this trifecta of tales, he very leisurely slips on his cape, bids the view adieu and takes to the skies as the literary icon Dracula, tying the whole affair together with a nod to Bram Stoker’s groundbreaking novel.

PRICE’s absence would not be for long, however, as he soon would return to haunt my Saturday afternoons with one of his most offbeat, and as fate would have it, last motion picture roles, short of voiceover work, before his death in ’92.

THE HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS (1983) saw a lot of airplay in the early eighties, thanks in no small part to the USA cable network and their four-hour Commander USA’s Groovie Movies programming block on Saturday afternoons (I still have my membership card). Incidentally, Commander USA regularly aired another 1980’s PRICE vehicle, the subtly titled BLOODBATH AT THE HOUSE OF DEATH.

SHADOW’s was adapted from the 1913 book ‘Seven Keys to Baldpate’ (pronounced: Baldpator), later reworked into a popular stage play the same year. The plot deals with a wager between a writer (DESI ARNEZ JR.) and his agent, the latter who maintains that his charge could not write a novel of ‘Wuthering Heights’ proportions in under twenty-four hours. In order to accomplish this feat, the author procures the only known key to an abandoned country estate in England so he can write in solitude. Problem is, once settled in, the author is beset upon by several visitors, each more mysterious then the next and all with their own key to the estate; their purpose: to check up on their criminally insane little brother whom they very thoughtfully entombed alive in the house forty years prior.

Seems like a totally reasonable reaction, right?

SHADOWS is interesting on several fronts, as is evident by the casting. The film remains the first and only time VINCENT PRICE, CHRISTOPHER LEE, PETER CUSHING, and JOHN CARADINE have all shared the screen together and, in an even more unfortunate turn of events, marks the last time both CHRISTOPHER LEE and PETER CUSHING would appear on screen as a pair, as was customary during their tenure at Hammer Studios.

SHADOWS, though slow moving, is incredibly atmospheric, bringing to mind the films of TOD BROWNING (OLD DARK HOUSE) and sharing more than a passing resemblance to Agatha Christies ‘And Then There Were None.’ However, just because the film is atmospheric, does not mean it does not have its share of gore. There are hangings, battle ax eviscerations, poison and the odd eye-bulging strangulation once the pawns are all in place.

In a particularly gristly scene, a wash basin filled with sulfuric acid manages to disintegrate the face of a beautiful boarder as she freshens up, dissolving the skin down to the very visible bone. My favorite scene, however, is the discovery of murderous brother Roderick’s empty cell, inhumanly clawed about the moldings, littered with the rotten corpses of recent victims and moldy, maggot-ridden children’s toys.

These scenes are still just as strong today, the film as a whole being rather graphic for it’s time (it was rated PG!).

As with any competent suspense story, there is a twist, or rather, several; but unlike M. NIGHT SHAMALAN’s hackney eyed self-aggrandizing plot contrivances (BRUCE WILLIS is dead; water kills aliens; etc…), these twists are genuinely strange and ultimately works for a film which prides itself on it’s offbeat casting and plot.

PRICE would go on to other appearances, mostly T.V. before his final and much deserved star turn in EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, but for my money (and perhaps I am biased), nothing touches his later work; even though the scripts might not have been top notch, PRICE, again, was able to bring a touch of charm and malevolence to his roles that very few actors could nor would for fear of invoking that most dreaded professional misfortune: typecasting. But typecasting can be deceptive, for whereas it can turn a perfectly good actor into a second stringer, when under the right circumstances, it can turn a perfectly great actor into an icon.

I believe this is something PRICE struggled with, but ultimately embraced before his death; and lucky for us that he did so, as yet another generation was afforded the opportunity to enjoy the company of an actor whom ROGER CORMAN billed as a “Titan of Terror” and who of himself once remarked:

“I sometimes feel that I’m impersonating the dark unconscious of the whole human race. I know this sounds sick, but I love it.”

We love it too, VINCENT. Thanks

-The RedBoy.

Isn’t it time that the character of Reverend Henry Kane was made an Official Traumatizer? He has been spoken of several times before on these here pages (for example: THIS early traumafession from kinder-pal Ralphus), and he is likely to appear many times again. Not bad considering he owes his existence to one much maligned sequel (POLTERGEIST 2: THE OTHER SIDE) and one even more maligned sequel (POLTERGEIST 3.) Regardless of the end result of either movie, Kane persists and even those who talk smack about POLTERGEIST 2 have to admit that his presence, (especially the scene where he tries to gain entrance to the Freeling’s home) is supremely memorable. His staying power is even more impressive when you consider that different actors portrayed the character in each film (JULIAN BECK in PART 2, NATHAN DAVIS in PART 3 with voice assist by an uncredited COREY BURTON.)

Undoubtedly, the more indelible take on Kane is the introductory one provided by poet/painter/theater legend JULIAN BECK in POLTERGEIST 2: THE OTHER SIDE. BECK was suffering from colon cancer during the filming, which might partially explain an authentic aura of illness and decrepitude that hangs over the character. Unfortunately BECK died before the film was completed and Kane’s final assault on the Freeling clan was in the form of a special effects driven creature known as “THE BEAST” designed brilliant by H.R. GIGER, but poorly executed within the film. (Check out some of GIGER’s amazing work for POLTERGEIST 2 HERE.)

POLTERGEIST 2 may have left some fans disappointed by replacing the original’s roller-coaster vibe with a pungent cloud of morbid navel gazing, but it’s not without its effective moments. One should not allow its corny “Grandma angel” conclusion to erase the well-orchestrated set pieces involving Kane. The reverend’s shopping center overture towards the young Carol Anne (HEATHER O’ROARKE) is, quite simply, every parent’s (and every child’s for that matter) nightmare.

I’ve always been a bit confused by the term “interesting failure,” if something is interesting then, in my book, it cannot be considered a failure. Take POLTERGEIST 3 for example; sure, it’s a hot mess but I can’t get enough of it. I know it’s about as subtle as a Tourette’s sufferer with a bullhorn and more annoying than a local theater production of ANNIE and yet I adore its over the top clumsiness and am fascinated with its physical effects and mirror-play. (Plus director GARY SHERMAN, DEAD AND BURIED, VICE SQUAD, just sort of rules.) Kane’s presence here is more of a spectral trickster with the power to alter reality than the evil JIM JONES messiah of PART 2, but he is still a great stand in for the grim reaper and he can still work that hat.

NOTE: The above picture, which inspired this post, was sent by our pal Dave over at the exhaustively informative site POLTERGEIST III. It is from the originally filmed ending of PART 3 (notice a frozen Carol Anne in the background.) Check out Dave’s awesome reconstruction of that lost scene HERE.

Reverend Henry Kane’s identity as a horror icon was hard won but thanks to repeated television airings of the POLTERGEIST sequels, home video, DVD and the power of the Internet he has gained some pretty secure footing as a titan of terror. He has appeared on an album cover for the band ANTHRAX, made a cameo in the SOUTH PARK episode “Imaginationland” and even shows up to fight in the game MORTAL COMBAT. With his lanky frame, sinister persona and predatory disposition, he is the rightful heir to one point in a horror troika that also includes PHANTASM’s TALL MAN and the ever popular FREDDY KRUEGER. His sickly, debilitated appearance gives rise to primal fears of aging and death, while his slithery soft tone and toothy grimace evoke memories of the candy-baiting creepy stranger we were all warned about in our youth. Upping the fear quotient further is the fact that Kane was once a beloved leader of a religious flock who twisted his disciples’ faith to cause their own ruin. He represents the unrepentant fanatical zealot, a figure that can partake in evil and never suffer the arrows of self-doubt or feel remorse. He’s not evil…YOU are! What’s scarier than that?

If you are still not convinced that reverend Kane deserves the honor of “Official Traumatizer” imagine this; your doorbell rings RIGHT NOW, you open your door to find him standing there, smiling from ear to ear. He says, “Let me in.” When you say, “No” he screams “You’re all gonna die!” I don’t know about you but, I just succeeded in creeping myself out. Now THAT’S a Traumatizer!

Hey look at the date, it’s Friday the 13th!!! What a great day to make Jason Voorhees, Camp Crystal Lake’s resident bad boy an Official Traumatizer! There is not much I can say about Jason that hasn’t been said elsewhere, but what I can do is tell you about my own first experience with the film FRIDAY THE 13TH and my original introduction to the little mongoloid boy named Jason Voorhees.

Little Unkle Lancifer was too young to go see the first FRIDAY THE 13th in the movie theater, but thanks to FAMOUS MONSTERS magazine I was well aware of its existence. (Although to be accurate, I was at least partially confusing it with another film, 1979′s THE ORPHAN). My eldest brother, who I imagined at the time had the most fulfilling existence imaginable, WAS old enough to check out this intriguing and mysterious movie which he did as far as I recall, as soon humanly possible.

Now, unlike myself, my older brother is not a light touch when it comes to horror. In fact, it was a badge of honor for him to return from a film and declare himself unfazed and unimpressed by what he had seen on the screen. His attraction to the genre appeared to me to be more as if he were accepting some unsaid dare. He was out to prove that he could withstand anything presented to him and I was sure at the end of the day he would much rather be watching BRUCE LEE.

My usually too cool for school older brother returned from FRIDAY THE 13th in a state in which I had never seen him. He was flushed, he was amped and he was absolutely beside himself. It was if he had just witnessed a train crash and was still working through the adrenaline that was coursing through his body. He was literally stunned and therefore I was too, stunned that there was something so scary that it could leave my roughneck, ninja-star throwing sibling in such a state.

Eventually I grew up to be the kind of film spaz that will go ballistic if a movie is ruined for me even slightly. I’m the jerk that won’t enter a theater if I think I’ve missed 30 seconds of the opening and I am known to drive normal people insane with my excessive use of “pause” and “rewind” at home. At this young age though, for all I knew, my only chance to experience FRIDAY THE 13th would be vicariously through my brother so I demanded he tell me everything he could remember of what he had witnessed.

Uncharacteristically, my brother fulfilled my request and regaled every detail from the opening jeep murder to the closing credits. I was mesmerized from start to finish as images both titillating and horrifying passed through my young head. Some might describe FRIDAY‘s plot as slight or even non-existent but, due to my own verbal introduction to the happenings of Crystal Lake, to me it will always skew closer to one of the greatest campfire stories/legends ever told. At this point in my life (and maybe it’s due to the fact that I was ruefully born with only one foot in reality) I took the events told to me as gospel. When he eventually described little Jason’s final exodus from the murky bottom of the lake my jaw hit the shag carpet.

Not very much later a VCR appeared in our living room. Our family was one of the first in our neighborhood to be graced with one (don’t feel too bad for those other kids on the block, they all had that amazing invention called “cable” which we could only dream of). Wow. The idea of watching a WHOLE movie in your home whenever you wanted… what a luxury! Not surprisingly, one of the first tapes I had to get my grubby hands on was FRIDAY THE 13TH; now I could finally see what all of the hubbub was about and watch the vaporous story in my head transform into something permanent and concrete on the television screen.

I am happy to say that I was not even remotely disappointed. I could not believe I was getting a chance to eavesdrop and spy on this incredible universe full of denim cut-offs, strip Monopoly and bloody decapitations. If this was what being older was going to be like, sign me up I thought. I’m sure actually being systematically butchered by an unseen presence probably bites the big one in real life, but to me, at the time, it seemed like a great way to spend a Friday night. As LYNN REDGRAVE used to say, “This is Living!”

Having already heard the entire story from my brother you would think that I would be completely prepared for the film’s shocker ending, but poor dense me was still taken off guard. I knew Jason was at some point going to rise from the lake, but I had foolishly thought that there would be some kind of build up to such a thing. As Alice (ADRIENNE KING) put her hand into the reflecting water of Crystal Lake, I was pretty sure young Jason was a few scenes away and I instinctively assumed that a JAWS like score would warn me of that danger approaching. No such luck, as Jason jumped out of the lake I jumped out off the couch. I simply had no defense in regards to FRIDAY THE 13TH and I loved the freefall feeling it injected me with, like being on a sled and knowing the ride wasn’t over until the sled said it was over.

No matter how securely the original FRIDAY embeds itself within our culture (Let’s face it folks, it’s here to stay), for some reason, it has always been able to squirm its way out of receiving all the respect that it rightfully deserves. The critical among us can fault the direction, but the reality is that FRIDAY accomplishes everything it sets out to do and then some. One could fault it for being derivative or slap-shot, but dozens of films have tried to duplicate its sense of place and atmosphere and failed miserably. You can even gripe that there is little in the way of characterization, but personally I don’t need to know that much about a person to assume that they don’t deserve (or appreciate) an axe splitting their skull in two. You can pile up all the knee jerk dismissals you like, but there is a reason why so many return to this movie again and again throughout their lives.

Jason works and Jason has always worked. Those of us who were introduced to him in our youth eventually do master some control over our fear of him, but we’re still his bitches all the same. Like many slasher films, FRIDAY is, at its heart, a campfire story and campfire stories not only do not require the fundamental elements that create great literature to work, but actually are hobbled by such useless chaff. It is meant to scare you, to leave you feeling unsafe, to make you think twice about that twig that just snapped. It’s meant to cast a spell over you that alters your perception to the point that the world around you suddenly seems unfamiliar and fraught with potential danger. It’s meant to be fun, a giddy first dance with death; a way to take the anxieties associated with the approaching seductive freedoms of adulthood and milk them for all they are worth. I’m glad that my first FRIDAY THE 13TH movie actually took place in my own head thanks to my older brother’s surprisingly good storytelling skills, but let’s face it, my brother had some excellent material to work with; Jason Voorhees is a potent legend and a born Traumatizer.

• Traumafessions :: Reader Stutz on FRIDAY THE 13TH
• Traumafessions :: Reader Erczilla on FRIDAY THE 13TH
• Traumafessions :: Reader Robert on FRIDAY THE 13TH
• Traumafessions :: Reader Ricky on FRIDAY THE 13TH
• Kinder-News :: The Truth Behind Chris Higgins’ Blackout!
• The Awesome FRIDAY THE 13TH art of JIM HORWAT
• Trauma-Mommas :: The 10 Most Horrifying Movie Moms
• The Horror Movie Bar Crawl Featuring FRIDAY THE 13TH PART II
• The Kids of Crystal Lake

So there I was this weekend working on a post for BAD DREAMS when I found this Official Traumatizer nomination from reader FatherOfTears in my inbox….

RICHARD LYNCH gave me the creeps for many years in my childhood! He usually played bad guys in sci-fi films over the years, including the original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and BUCK ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY He has this evil look in his eyes and a sadistic grin. He may have had his best scary role in BAD DREAMS. In that movie he plays a cult leader who sets himself and his followers on fire! One follower survives and his ghost begins to haunt her when she awakens from a coma. Talk about irony: LYNCH himself was a burn victim in the late ’60s! He had a bad LSD trip, poured gasoline on himself and then set HIMSELF on fire! He lived, but his face was all scarred up. He would later use this as an asset for his bad guy roles! So with this I nominate RICHARD LYNCH as an Official Traumatizer.

Is FatherOfTears psychic? The same exact thing occurred last week when I was writing about an episode of TWIN PEAKS and he sent another LYNCH nomination, in that case DAVID LYNCH. Kismet? The collective unconscious? How can anyone explain this phenomenon? Well, FatherOfTears consider RICHARD LYNCH an Official Traumatizer both because he earned it and because I now live in fear that you have direct access to my brain and will reveal to the world exactly what I did one moonlight night at Camp Wanahickee circa 1981!

Well, what can I say about Mr. LYNCH? He has done many “cringe inducing” scenes in his films over the years that sure as hell would have been traumatic for any kid who had seen his works. Hell, most of his traumas were seen by me as an adult! There are many, but several stand out in my mind. There is that “baby” in ERASERHEAD…

There is BLUE VELVET where DENNIS HOPPER whiffs some N2O before sexually assaulting ISABELLA ROSSELLINI. Right after that she goes after the guy she has hidden in a closet, KYLE MacLACHLAN, and she tries to seduce him!

WILD AT HEART has a bunch. There is WILLIAM DAFOE and his bad teeth assaulting a pregnant LAURA DERN and there is even the twisted mother played by (DERN‘s real life ma) DIANE LADD.

But for me, and many others, it would be his T.V. show and movie TWIN PEAKS that would be the killer. Early in the show LYNCH decided to cast his prop master, (some MST3K fans could call him a prop “diva”-sorry Beez!) FRANK SILVA, as the town evil spirit named BOB who tormented Laura Palmer for part of her life. That character was SCARY! Long gray hair and the evil sadistic grin! Who can forget the scene where Laura’s cousin Maddy has the vision of BOB crawling over the couch to attack her…

And later when he did kill her it was, at that time, one of the most disturbing killings ever seen on T.V.!! Of course since BOB was an evil spirit, he had to inhabit someone to do his dirty deeds. In this case it was Laura’s daddy Leland (RAY WISE). Now if you thought his Devil in REAPER was scary, you should see RAY as the possessed Leland! Who can forget the scene in the prequel FIRE WALK WTH ME where the possessed Leland berates Laura for her “dirty hands”!

There are of course, many others like the end of MULHOLLAND DRIVE which, B.T.W. ,would jump start the career of an actress who’s daddy was once a Pink Floyd roadie. So with that and many others that are too many to list, I submit that DAVID LYNCH be an Official Traumatizer! Oh, did you know that GEORGE LUCAS considered LYNCH for RETURN OF THE JEDI?

UNK SEZ: FatherOfTears, you must have been reading my very Laura Palmer-esque secret diary recently as I have been on a mad DAVID LYNCH kick as of late. I was actually in the process of writing a post concerning one of the episodes of TWIN PEAKS that you mentioned when we received your request to honor LYNCH with the Official Traumatizer title. I’m not sure exactly how many actual traumas LYNCH has dumped on any of us in our youth, but seeing as TWIN PEAKS was on broadcast television, I’m sure there is somebody somewhere who caught it as a child and perhaps now resides in a rubber room. Speaking for myself, as a young adult I caught the episode “Lonely Souls” (the one you mentioned in which Laura’s cousin dies at the hands of BOB) from the second season when it originally aired and I have to say, you are correct, it was indeed one of the most, if not THE most, disturbing things I have EVER seen on television. In fact I can’t think of anything that has freaked me out quite so much since.

DAVID LYNCH as an Official Traumatizer? You got my blessing!

Note: Mr. LYNCH claims that much of his dark inspiration comes from a nasty and short lived time of his life spent in Philadelphia, the very city in which Kindertrauma Castle stands, we are so proud!

There are some names that appear again and again on the pages of Kindertrauma (STEPHEN KING and JOHN CARPENTER being two of the most obvious multiple trauma inflictors). One name that is perhaps less well known but belongs to an equally prolific trauma supplier is DAN CURTIS. Producer, director and writer, DAN CURTIS not only supplied us with the innovative gothic daytime soap opera DARK SHADOWS, but he also pretty much redefined horror television in the 70′s across the board. Besides introducing us to the ever influential character of Kolchak from the seminal television movie THE NIGHT STALKER, he was also the man responsible for the unforgettably terrifying Zuni fetish doll from the classic TRILOGY OF TERROR. His directorial work on the big screen includes the creepy haunted house flick BURNT OFFERINGS which, like much of DAN‘s output, is frequently cited as a movie which many young folks were forever scarred by (particularly when they stumbled across it on late night television).

His list of genre contributions go on and on and he can be thanked for bringing such classics to the small screen as DRACULA (’73), THE TURN OF THE SCREW (’74) and THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (’73). The presence of his name in a film’s or television movie’s credits signals the fact that you are about to see something from somebody who truly knows his way around a horror tale. DAN CURTIS may not exactly be a household name, but there is no household that has a television that this man did not profoundly affect.

We here at Kindertrauma have no choice but to honor his brilliant career with an Official Traumatizer award. DAN the man’s extensive credits speak volumes but honestly, he could have earned this baby with the Zuni fetish doll alone!

I used to think death meant that God just wasn’t that into you, but I am now beginning to believe the un-killable rumor that it happens to everybody. Today Kindertrauma idol RICARDO MONTALBAN passed away at age 88. Mr. MONTALBAN had already established himself as a Hollywood Legend when he stepped into the signature white suite that belonged to FANTASY ISLAND‘s beloved and highly mysterious MR. ROARKE. I think I can speak for all of our readers (especially die-hard fans AMANDA BY NIGHT and THE MICKSTER) when I say that FANTASY ISLAND was a big influence and effected our generation’s lives more than it is often given credit for, plus that show could be damn scary when it wanted to be!

Besides just being the coolest guy around, MONTABON was a forerunner in changing the image of Latinos in film and spent much of his life breaking down barriers when he was not schooling us all on the of the advantages of “soft, Corinthian leather.” This man owned Saturday night from 1978 to 1984 and I, for one, thank God he was there.

P.S.: You can watch FANTASY ISLAND on Hulu for free HERE. (I highly recommend the ventriloquist dummy spit personality revenge episode with MAREN JENSEN entitled “Mary Ann and Miss Sophisticate”).

I’m sure I do not have to bend over backwards to convince any of you of Freddy Krueger’s rightful place within the ranks of Kindertrauma’s official TRAUMATIZERS. As portrayed by ROBERT ENGLUND, Freddy is one of the world’s most recognizable horror icons and over the last couple decades, has slashed himself a permanent position in to the public’s consciousness. His persona, a trickster ghoul who haunts dreams, perfectly captures the fears of every child who ever suffered a sleepless night . It almost seems as if he always existed in some form or another and was just waiting for NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET creator WES CRAVEN to give him a name. (CRAVEN admits his own childhood fears were the seeds that developed into KRUEGER).

Out of all the genre’s recognizable monsters, killers and demons, Freddy meshes seamlessly with childhood fears in a way that cannot be ignored. In fact, his origin story includes a history of terrorizing and murdering children specifically. Over exposure and his penchant for campy zingers in the franchise’s sequels may have weakened his sting, but lest we forget at the heart of Krueger is the spirit of true Kindertrauma.

This is the type of guy that as a kid you whisper about in hushed tones before bedtime and imagine is lurking within the shadows of your closet. As much as the series showcased the slasher deaths of teenagers by Freddy’s signature bladed glove, lost children, his original victims, would often appear singing jump rope warnings of his impending arrival. Regardless of his victims various ages throughout the series he invariably stood as a blunt dividing line between parent and child who sadistically relished pointing out the lie of presumed safety in the suburban American dream. Although his identity as child killer softened through the course of the series, his every cinematic incarnation included at least one visual reference to lost or snuffed out innocence and childhood vulnerability.

Because he is such an obvious choice we seem to have neglected to tip our fedoras properly to Freddy thus far, but Mr. Krueger’s status as an official TRAUMATIZER cannot be avoided any longer.

Below are some Kindertrauma spirited screenshots from all eight films in which FREDDY KRUEGER appeared. Can you identify from which film each has been taken?

Perennial yuletide special RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER features not only a cast of societal outcasts seeking to overcome their marginalized statuses, but also one of the most traumatizing creations to come ever out of the legendary RANKIN & BASS doll-mation factory. O.K., maybe the second most terrifying after Miss Lilly Lorraine, but the Bumble Snow Monster of the North (BUMBLE for short) has cut a pretty scaring swatch in the collective psyches of footed-pajama wearers across the world.

As if the verbal humiliation heaped on titular star RUDOLPH and his, closeted, aspiring dentist, pal HERMEY weren’t enough to make kids cry, the big ol’ nasty BUMBLE, with his google-y eyes, sharp teeth, and luxurious coat of white fur, makes ones of those dramatically unexpected, snowy entrances on par with the crazy scythe-wielding lady from CURTAINS. Just like any great horror antagonist, the BUMBLE has his own unique set of weaknesses: he sinks in water; he prefers pork to deer meat; and he is rendered powerless after having all of his teeth extracted by an effeminate, armchair dentist.

Based purely on the anecdotal evidence presented by Reader Miriam67’s comment, the BUMBLE is still striking terror in tiny viewers. Should you have a wee-one scared silly by this beast, please sit them and show them this ameliorative clip*:

*Is it just your AUNT JOHN or does the BENNY HILL theme make everything, how you say, all the more H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S? (And yes, I’m looking at you TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE!)

What’s so scary about Zelda? The better question is what’s NOT scary about the Z-bomb! When we first encounter her in PET SEMATARY, it is by way of a tale told by her surviving sister Rachel (DENISE CROSBY) who at a young age was left responsible for her care. Zelda (played by not really a lady ANDREW HUBATSEK) automatically inspires a wave of mixed emotions. She is pitiable due to her suffering, but one is made extremely uncomfortable by her almost corpse like form. This collision of sympathy and nausea tends to produce a blend of acute anxiety and remorseful shame in viewers. These feelings are underlined further as Rachel explains a similar emotional conflict immediately after Zelda’s death. In fact, it is difficult for her to recall whether Zelda’s sickly demise inspired her to cry or to laugh in relief…

All that would be disturbing enough, but due to some unleashed and unfriendly forces stomping about (the novel points a finger at American Indian legend the Wendigo), Zelda gets a new lease on life via monstrous hallucinations. I don’t know about you folks, but I’ve always been a light touch when it came to witches. I’d take on a vampire any day over a cackling twisted hag. Zelda2.0 brings to mind early fairy tale memories of just such a creature (she should also be set up on a blind date with “Bob” from TWIN PEAKS). Maniacal, gleefully inflicting terror, Zelda is shown crumbled up in a corner like a discarded newspaper and then crookedly expanding herself. Even more disconcerting is how she walks TOWARD the camera (and the audience) howling and screeching as she curls her paws like a rabid raccoon doing a MR.BURNS impersonation.

“NEVER GET OUT OF BED AGAIN!!!“

Zelda may have been a victim in reality, but the thought of her when shoved into a blender with some malevolent mojo is the stuff wet beds are made of. Just think of your darkest most regrettable memories coming back to vicious life…or have you already? That’s the power of our lady Zelda,and that’s why she’s an official Traumatizer. We didn’t give her that honor; she swiped it out of our hands.