kindertrauma

Year: 2009

Happy Father's Day!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Happy Father's Day! There I was getting ready to write an elaborate ode to CRAIG T. NELSON when I realized, we kind of covered that guy LAST YEAR. (Also there is the whole thing where there is a nerdy sci-fi convention in town today and I'm going to it and therefore do not have the time to give Mr. NELSON the proper respect he so richly deserves.) So forget that idea, who wants to hear me babble on about the greatest Dad in all of horror anyway? Instead how about you folks take some time to visit some of our favorite fathers out there in internet-land? These boys really know how to bring home the bacon and, as far as I know, none of them have ever been possessed by a giant tequila worm!

Note: You should also stop by and visit our pal Vince over at SLASHER SPEAK. (He recently became the proud father of a bouncing baby Bram Stoker award!)

P.S. If we missed any blogging dads out there let us know, feel free to leave your link in the comments section. Happy Father's Day to all!

Name That Trauma :: Reader Carlos L. on an Elastic Flesh Monster Party

Posted on By aunt john

Hello:

I've been looking for this ‘80s horror movie for a long time.

So, teenager boy moves into a new school and neighborhood. There's an accident and one of the kids dies; so he starts to investigate, suspicious that it was murder. Soon, he discovers that most of the town people are these elastic-flesh monsters – including his dream girl (that is not as mean as the others) and her whole family. These people consume normal humans in rituals where their flesh becomes very elastic (gooey), and they absorb it. In one of the scenes, the father is with the wife and daugther in bed, and he sticks his head out of the daughters butt or something like that (gross); the teen fights the elastic flesh monster "party."

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Carlos

UNK SEZ: I know this one, it has to be the first film from director BRIAN YUZNA, 1989's SOCIETY! What a weird flick! It's a bit clunky in places but the special effects from SCREAMING MAD GEORGE are awe inspiring. I'm pretty prone to loving any film that involves a secret cult, so a flick about a secret cult that is made out of silly putty and devours those less fortunate than themselves is aces in my book!

NOTE: The brave amongst you can watch SOCIETY's climax HERE!

Stir of Echoes

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Underrated and unpretentious KEVIN BACON plays underrated and unpretentious working stiff Tom Witzkey in STIR OF ECHOES. Tom, an ordinary guy who resents his ordinariness inadvertently becomes extraordinary when he allows himself to be hypnotized by his sister-in-law Lisa (habitual scene stealer ILLEANA DOUGLAS). Quirky Lisa has a long history of clashing with Tom's grounded, prosaic view of the universe so after rummaging around in his head a bit she leaves a suggestion that he keep it all kinds of wide open in the future. Soon the once level headed and under stimulated Tom is exposing emotions previously kept under wraps and experiencing psychic phenomenon that he can't control or understand. See what happens when you let down your guard for one second Tom? The ghosts, they come a knocking!

STIR OF ECHOES is an unassuming, straight shooting supernatural thriller that got elbowed out of the limelight by flashy juggernaut THE SIXTH SENSE way back in the olden days of 1999. STIR covers similar ground as SENSE involving a crime that must be exposed in order for its victim to cross over to the other side and it even has a kid (Tom's son Jake ZACHARY DAVID COPE) who sees dead people. With its focus on character development and aversion to spectacle perhaps STIR, based on a novel by RICHARD MATHESON, would have been better suited for the small screen in the first place. Its strongest scenes rely on slightly tweaking everyday occurrences and its weakest involve needless C.G.I. and clumsily staged shock cuts.

On the other hand, STIR OF ECHOES the movie may suffer from the same complex as its main character; sometimes its commitment to efficiency blocks it from being truly spectacular. You can't help feeling obliged to give it props for its earnest, responsible approach, but one wonders (particularly during a simple scene involving a ghost high jacking an episode of LIDSVILLE on T.V.) just how much more trippy and mind screwy it could have been if it just loosened up its blue collar and went nuts.

One of STIR's undeniable feats is creating a neighborhood setting that actually comes across as real and inhabiting it with the type of humans that you might come across on any given day. I'm not sure throwing a pair of horned rim glasses on a lovely starlet (JENNIFER MORRISON) convinces me that she is a mentally challenged loner, but the intention is appreciated and that particular misstep happens late in the game. There are a few pointless pit stops and our ghost's methods of getting her message across seem needlessly roundabout but the story is never less than intriguing and even if you see its final revelation coming from a mile away, you'll want to stick around to watch how it effects the likable characters.

NOTE: Speaking of letting your freak flag fly, the potential expressive power of art and the film career of ILLEANA DOUGLAS, let's take a moment to watch the short film MIRROR, FATHER, MIRROR by artist Roberta Allsworth. Not only does it reveal what it's like to inhabit its creator's specific skin, it's got kindertrauma written all over it!

Traumafessions :: Reader Kahotep on Creepy Movie Trailers

Posted on By aunt john

Loving the site, folks, though I wish I had proper access during the day to answer some of the questions first…

You got me thinking about some more of the work which scared me as a tot, and something which definitely remains fixed in my mind were some of the T.V. commercials for horror movies in the mid-to-late '70s. Four stick in my mind especially:

DAWN OF THE DEAD: That rolling scroll warning that no one under seventeen will be permitted into the theatre – with the zombies bursting into the elevator! Could never ride an elevator the same way after that, I always stood at the side of the doors, presumably so they couldn't get me.

PROPHECY: This image of a deformed bear fetus coming closer into view while an announcer says something about it being "15 feet tall and a gazillion tons in weight" or something – and then some attack scene where a kid in a sleeping bag gets mauled and feathers from the sleeping bag fly everywhere. Or something.

PHANTASM: Random clips of the Silver Sphere flying around, and the Tall Man pulling the kid in through a mirror…

And probably most profoundly, SUSPIRIA: It opens with a view of the back of the head of a woman brushing her blonde hair (and puts a flower into her hair too?), while a little girl sings "Roses are red/Violets are blue/This little flower… will be the end of you!" And the "woman" turns around to reveal a…

Okay, it's a skeleton in a blonde wig. I know that now. I know it was a cheap little advertisement for a rotten little film.

Damned if it still doesn't give me a bit of a chill…

Anyway, thought I'd share that and find out if anyone else underwent similar traumas. Keep up the good work!

Regards,

Kahotep

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Actually Kahotep, you are not alone! Readers Bilgin & FatherOfTears have gone on record about the skeleton from the SUSPIRIA trailer and David has discussed the infamous baby bear in PROPHECY.

Traumafessions :: Reader Danny R. on Evil Ed's Demise in Fright Night

Posted on By unkle lancifer

This scene has haunted me for a while. I was going through a vampire phase during the 6th grade, and had fallen in love with THE LOST BOYS. I loved the bloody effects and the dark humor. Well, since I liked it so much, my father got me one of those "two-for-one" packs, vampire themed, with a DVD copy of THE LOST BOYS. The other DVD was FRIGHT NIGHT, which my cousin Derrick told my parents was perfectly okay for me to watch, and no worse than lost boys. And, for the most part, it wasn't. In fact, the blood throughout the first half of the movie was nothing compared to the constant slashing in THE LOST BOYS. I liked it a lot, and it would have been my new favorite if it weren't for one terrible scene: The death of Evil Ed.

I think what made it so brutal was the fact that, unlike the guys in THE LOST BOYS (who, to me, all looked like full-grown adults), Evil Ed was just a kid. He was probably my favorite character in the movie. Now, I would have been more than okay if he had simply been staked and died as a werewolf. But he didn't. After screaming his brains out for a good forty seconds as a hellish dog-beast, he turns back into a 14-year-old kid. And then he continues to squirm in agony, making possibly the most gut-wrenching noises ever recorded on film.

But I would have been okay if it weren't for a single shot. Just the two second shot of the young boy, covered in blood and throwing his head back, eyes full of unimaginable pain, still has the ability to chill me. He doesn't die in a comic way, or a "gross" way. He dies in the exact way that you would expect a 14-year-old with a table leg through his chest to die, screaming in agony. For such a light movie, it's an incredibly intense and heavy scene that STILL makes me feel more ill than anything in a SAW/HOSTEL movie. Needless to say, I ran from the room and didn't watch it again until last year when I turned fifteen. But every time I watch it, those screams stick with me for days after.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Em E. on a Deadly Doll

Posted on By aunt john

Firstly great site!

Secondly, I have a kindertrauma that's been haunting me FOREVER!!

It was either part of an anthology or a movie or part of a series but it starts with these group of men who go to a summer house (I'm pretty sure it was set in the '30s or '40s and all the men are on a break from college and are all wearing wicker hats and those stripey blazers. Anyway, they end up coming across this doll (a porcelain doll I think) and one by one the doll kills them all. In one of the death scenes one of the men is in bed and the bedroom door is closed with light shining through under the bottom, then you see two small feet (the doll's) appear as shadows.

Cut to the ending and I'm pretty sure the last remaining bloke is left to dispose of the doll, they stuff it in a picnic hamper and he loads it into the back of his car and just as you think everything's alright and he'll get out of it, the camera pans out from the car driving away and it begins to veer off into the side of the road indicating that the doll got him…

I know it's a long shot but this petrified me for years and still to this day I cannot remember what it was, but I'd love to see it again.

Thanks,

Em

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to Reader DavidFullam for recognizing it as STEPHEN WEEKS' GHOST STORY (a.k.a ASYLUM).

Name That Trauma :: Hayden of The Hmmm on Prematurely Gray, Mute Boy

Posted on By aunt john

name that trauma

Okay…so usually I'm pretty good at figuring out the…"what the hell was that thing I saw on T.V. as a kid…" game.

However…there is one (well 3 actually…) that have been bugging me for years!

Okay…so unfortunately I only remember 2 scenes from this movie.

It was on television around 1985 or so because I don't think I could have been older than 4 or 5.

The first scene I remember is a brother and sister with a group of their friends. There is an old abandoned house and perhaps they're on the roof? Anyway…they all keep daring each other to go inside and finally the brother creeps in through a window.

He sees something inside that terrifies him and when it shows him again he has hair turned white.

The following scene is the next morning…the brother and sister are sitting at the breakfast table with their father. We now learn the boy has also turned mute.

Aaaaand that's all I've retained =P

Anyway…have an awesome day and keep up the great work on your blog!

It helps my day go by so much faster <3

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Hmmm Hayden (see what I did there?), I honestly have no idea what this movie is. The original PROM NIGHT initially came to mind, with its horseplay gone awry in an abandoned setting, but nobody turned gray or mute in that one, just homicidal on the dance floor.

What I do know is that I straight up adore the cavalcade of Kindertraumatic masks prominently featured in Hayden's (& Jacob's) video for Bioluminescense:

To hear more from The Hmmm, check 'em out HERE, and if anyone knows the name of Hayden's trauma, you know what to do:

do you know

Traumafessions :: Reader Michel Z. on Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction; ep. "The Mirror of Truth"

Posted on By aunt john

3 a.m. and I couldn't sleep, I was alone in my bedroom. I turned on my T.V. and I find this show called BEYOND BELIEF: FACT OR FICTION, where five weird tales are depicted, and in the end, the host tells whether they were true stories or not.

I handled the first four stories quite well, although they were pretty scary. And by the end I was getting sleepy; my mind already half asleep.

And then, the final story, where a beautiful but vain and shallow lady gets punished by a witch; the lady now has a skin disease and looks horrible. She goes to the doctor covered with a mask. By the end of the story, the girl reveals her face. WOAH. My heart instantly turned at full speed, I jumped from my bed: one of the scariest moments I've ever had.

I couldn't find it on youtube; it's the 32 episode, from the third season, the short is called THE MIRROR OF TRUTH.