Name That Trauma:: Dan D. on a Needle in the Neck Threat
OK. So I don't know if it was a TV movie but it feels like it was. I was like five, and it was a commercial for it on NY TV.
I don'rt remember anything outside of this one scene which was in a moonlit room in an apartment with a woman pleading, please don't put that pin (or needle) in my neck.
I know it's real and not Streisand effect cause it creeped me out and lived rent free in my head ever since. So I'm guessing late 70's?
Crystal Lake
I always find it disheartening when I see a ranking of Friday the 13th films that has the 2009 remake on top and the 1980 original near the bottom (in dreaded JASON GOES TO HELL territory). I realize that tastes change and attention spans have been obliterated but it feels like so much disrespectful Pamela Voorhees erasure to me. Don’t get me wrong, the revamp is entertaining, Jared Padalecki is a fine lead and Derek Mears is a top tier Jason but something intrinsic is ruefully missing. I remember getting excited when Nana Visitor (STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE) was announced to play Pamela Voorhees in Nispel’s smashup/reinterpretation thinking she had just the right intensity only to find her in about 30 seconds of pre-title footage screaming wildly in the rain with zero introduction and little explanation. What the hell man, Pamela Voorhees is the literal heart and soul of the Friday the 13th franchise. How many teenagers does a gal gotta creatively kill to get some flowers? How can anyone even claim to be a fan of Jason Voorhees while ignoring his inspiration, his role model, his hero, his rock, his momma? This is why I welcomed CRYSTAL LAKE with open arms. The more Pamela Voorhees content the better in my book, and I’ll also add, it’s about damn time.
In what is perhaps one of the greatest casting decisions in the history of horror, Linda Cardellini portrays Pamela Voorhees, mother to young Jason and a cook at Camp Crystal Lake. Jason doesn’t exactly disappear in a crowd, his head and face are disfigured and he’s socially cautious as a result but affable and lively to those who see beyond his physical appearance. Due to her son’s vulnerability, Pamela has become a diligent, hyper aware protector but like all parents, she finds it’s impossible for her to be everywhere at once. Any horror fan surely knows the rest of the campfire tale, one fateful day a couple of camp counselors who were meant to watch after Jason took leave to tongue wrestle (and who knows what else! Heathens!) and poor, sweet Jason (who wasn’t a very good swimmer…) drowned. Sometimes some things happen in life that we can never change and instead, those things change us. CRYSTAL LAKE the series peels Pam like an onion revealing layer upon layer underneath as she grapples with the rage and fury that has formed in the space where her beloved child used to stand. Not every choice Pam makes is healthy or commendable but they’re all pretty much understandable. Truth is, if you want justice in this world you really have to be prepared to carve it out yourself.
I’d be lying if I said every spoonful of Crystal Lake went down as smoothly as the others. I get a little itchy and irked when the dining cart shows up with reheated STANGER THINGS medical experiment mumbo jumbo. There’s also a bit that kinda recons the original’s inaugural kill in a way that muddies the water with zero rhyme, reason or necessary effect (a few loose ends also got stuck in my craw but it’s possible they were knowingly leaving nesting material for season two). Ultimately though, these qualms were not hefty enough to rock my boat especially with Cardellini so masterfully convincing and painfully genuine as Pam at the helm. If everything doesn’t fit together (timeline wise or otherwise) like a perfect mosaic, I’ll live (I mean, BATES MOTEL played fast and loose with its lineage and ended up awesome and geez, FRIDAY THE 13th fans aren’t really in the position to scold anyone on inconsistencies anyway). The important thing is, that CRYSAL LAKE gave me three things I really needed. It recreates the atmosphere and setting stunningly (it almost feels like you’re jumping back in time; using the exact same NJ locations was a brilliant stroke), and it brings back the early installment’s signature jaw-dropping (literally in one case) kills that seemed to have been replaced by cloddish bludgeoning in later years. Lastly, it delivers at long last, an incredible portrait of one of horror’s most influential characters thanks to both the writers and of course, Cardellini. I only wish the late Betsy Palmer who famously thought little of the part at first, could witness her most famous role fleshed out and expanded in such a thoughtful and insightful way. I’m sure Momma would be pleased.
Name That Trauma:: Sue on a Orbiting Animal Cartoon
I saw it decades ago. I think it takes place at a circus. Someone, either a person or a cute animal, gets shot out of a cannon and then goes into outer space where they keep orbiting around earth and have to be rescued. Thanks for any help in naming this!
Sue
Name That Trauma:: Dennis S. on a Telekinetic Conference Spinning Pencil & Paper
As the youngest of four brothers, I was exposed to several TV movies that are only vague memories in my brain. One in particular was played in the early 1970s and had a scene set in a conference room with a table and a group of people sitting in chairs concentrating on a pencil poked through a sheet of paper. The group is trying to make the sheet of paper rotate around the pencil and eventually it starts to spin.
Dennis S.
Name That Trauma:: Kathryngrace on a Zombie School Computer Game
I have a Name that Trauma for you. It’s not a movie, it’s a computer game, and I don’t remember much about it other than it was set in a school and had zombies. I think the graphics were pretty cartoony and it was definitely kid friendly. This was in the mid '90s, and it was a computer game for Mac. Does anyone remember this?
Name That Trauma:: Andre W. on a Threatening Gang
Hi Kindertrauma!
I'm trying to identify a color movie I saw on television at least 45 years ago, probably from the 1960s or 1970s.
I remember a young, white, middle-class-looking man, possibly played by Michael Douglas or Martin Sheen, being surrounded outdoors in an urban neighborhood by a street gang that I believe was Hispanic.
The gang told him they would let him leave unharmed if he could "get it up," apparently knowing that he would be too frightened to do so. I remember the threat, not any actual sexual activity.
I may be misremembering the actors, but the scene has stuck with me for decades!
Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Thanks for any help!
Name That Trauma:: Steven W. on a Cartoon Geisha Turned Mermaid
Heard about your website from the great Fun For All Ages Podcast, so I’m wondering if anyone remembers a Japanese cartoon that I saw on local NY television when I was around 5 or 6 years old, black and white (which I’m assuming was just because my TV set was a black and white model!) in which I specifically recall a female character who resembled a classic Japanese “geisha” who ends up drowning and reincarnating into a mermaid…? Is this merely a false memory?
Also, I seem to recall another eerie TV program on a local NY station (WNEW?) roughly in the early 1970s which purported to show “real” paranormal things, like seances complete with ectoplasm, ghostly apparitions, all in black and white (which somehow made it all scarier).
Anyway, thanks for your website!
Steven W.
Name That Trauma:: Adam O. on a Burning Rock
I’ve given up trying to figure this movie out, but I heard about your website on Fun For All Ages Podcast and searched and still came up short, so I thought I’d write.
I believe this movie was seen by me around 1983-1984. I don't know when it was filmed, but it was in color.
Here is all I can remember. There is some kind of big rock in the middle of a town or area that if you touch it you will catch fire for some reason, I remember someone getting pushed into it and they burst into flame, I also remember someone making a path in the sand and oil flowing toward the rock, I assume to ignite it.
Then the other part I recall, and this may not even be from the same movie, but I believe it was, there is a cave and after going in it a bit, there is some kind of time warp or portal that was green I believe, like a spinning effect, there were two men in there, and they were fighting. One loses an arm, and the other falls into the time portal, spinning away never
To be seen again.
The reason I remember the year, as I was in fourth grade, and I “borrowed" the cave scene for a short story I had to write later that week. The teacher commented that I had a vivid imagination.
I threw this out on some Facebook groups a few years ago and all that came back were movies that were definitely not it. So I thought I’d give you guys a try!
Thanks,
Adam O.
