kindertrauma

Year: 2009

Traumafessions :: Kinderpal FilmFather on The Giving Tree

Posted on By aunt john

I have a Traumafession that may not be a first, but is surely a rarity: a second-generation Traumafession.

It comes from The Giving Tree, the beloved children's book by Shel Silverstein (who also wrote Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue," strangely enough). While the book is a heart-tugging classic, it's the back jacket photo of Silverstein that traumatized me as a child, and now my 5-year-old son Dash.

To put it in perspective, this photo is from a brand-new reissue of The Giving Tree. In other words, they've been using it for at least three decades.

I mean, is this the best head shot they had of this man? The gritty black and white photo, his thick eyebrows, even thicker beard, and an expression that looks more like he's going to chase you through the woods than tell you a children's story.

Even if this was the best photo of Silverstein at the time, that was at least 30 years ago. Horribly scary photo aside, how about a different or updated photo just 'cause? A simple image search on Google easily produces several better options.

So, not only did this photo of Silverstein scare me as a child, it's disturbed my son enough that he actually asked me to take the book jacket with me after bedtime stories one night — he too thought "the man on the back was scary."

NOTE: Be sure to check out FilmFather's excellent blog HERE!

Traumafessions :: Reader Steven S. on an Anti-Heroin P.S.A.

Posted on By aunt john

Thank you so much for the gift that is Kindertrauma – every day brings new delights!

I am surprised that no one has yet mentioned a classic P.S.A. from the late ‘60s, and I must confess I'm grateful that they haven't, as I am simply terrified that someone may excavate this childhood horror in video form and post it. Every few months or so I do a web search to see if it has ever resurfaced…to date, nothing.

It was an anti-heroin P.S.A., I believe 15 seconds in length. The camera panned around a wind-up toy monkey playing a drum as a little girl's voice is heard: "They say that people who are addicted to heroin have a monkey on their back – isn't that cute!" Then the kicker – the camera zooms in FAST on the monkey's face. It bares its fangs, and the hellish thing screams. (It may have cut to a shot of an actual simian at this point, but my memory is unclear.)

The speed of that zoom was breathtaking – the child had scarcely finished her last word before the camera moved and the shriek was heard. It was unquestionably the most frightening thing I ever witnessed in my childhood, and despite a steady diet of filmed and written Horror from my youngest days, nothing had prepared my little six-year old psyche for this. Whenever the ad played again, I ran screaming from the room…and since it was only 15 seconds long, I didn't have much time to get away!

A number of years ago, I posted this recollection on a web discussion group dedicated to all things horrific. Days later there was a very angry reply from a respected attorney in Texas, who said he had successfully repressed the trauma of this ad over the years…and my posting had brought the evil thing back into his consciousness and was giving him nightmares. Trust me; this cautionary spot had a profound effect on those of us of a certain age. I've long suspected this might have been an inspiration for Stephen King's short story "The Monkey."

My arms have been covered in gooseflesh typing every word of this. Please – don't find this P.S.A.!

UNK SEZ: Steven S., this is your lucky day because no matter how hard we tried, we could NOT find your P.S.A.!

Name That Trauma :: Reader Diana N. on a Sacrifice Stopped by a Shooting

Posted on By aunt john

I just love your site, and am getting lots of good tips on movies to see. Also, it helped me to revisit a horror that terrified me for years after watching it at the tender age of 14, it was PIECES. It truly made me feel sick for a very long time. I hired it again when I was about 23, but just couldn't bring myself to watch it; the memories of the horror were too strong. I am happy to say that after discovering your site and seeing a clip on your youtube page, that at the more mature age of 39 I was able to sit through the whole movie, and even giggle a little. Yay!!! The power has been taken away from that particular nastie.

My find-that-film has been bugging me for at least 15 even 20 years. I watched it when I was very young, maybe 8 years old. I was born in 1970 and the movie was probably from the ‘60s or ‘70s. A HAMMER horror type (don't think it is though) with a male actor, PETER CUSHING type (probably not him though). The only scene I remember which I think was near end of movie…. a woman tied up and possibly gagged lying on an alter/bed type thing, in a church(?), under a white sheet. Next to her a man with a knife, looking all possessed about to plunge knife into the woman for a sacrifice; woman squirming away from position of knife raised above her, then suddenly another man bursts in and shoots the knife wielding man in the back. The woman was a real woman (not a child), naked but covered by a white sheet. She is on the bed/alter and fully aware of the pending sacrifice, but not willing, there is fear in her eyes and you can see her move her body under the sheet trying to get away from the knife, which the man is holding above her. You can see she wants to escape and thinking by moving her body she will avoid the plunge of the knife, this is why I think she is tied and gagged, not a mesmerized victim as you often find in these types of movies. Anyway, someone bursts into the room/church and shoots the villain in the back. End of movie.

Hope you can help. Glad to get the nightmare of PIECES out of my system, now just to figure out this little bugger….

Traumafessions:: Seth of Dread Ahead on The Grady Twins

Posted on By unkle lancifer


UNK SEZ: Check out Seth's Video Confession HERE and his Top Ten Horror Movies Moments HERE, both of which feature the Grady Twins from THE SHINING! Seth just started a new blog called DREAD AHEAD and was kind enough to give a shout out to ye olde Kindertrauma. Right back at ya Seth and welcome to the interwebs!

MORE KINDER-LINKAGE and KINDER-NEWS:

DINNER WITH MAX JENKE tells us about a new killer kid movie called THE ORPHAN check that out HERE.

HORROR YEARBOOK gives us the scoop about a theatrical remake of STEPHEN KING's IT right HERE and informs us about the DVD release of British shocker THE CHILDREN right about HERE.

The out of sight Amanda By Night of MADE FOR T.V. MAYHEM talks WES CRAVEN's CHILLER over HERE.

The incredible Tenebrous Kate of LOVE TRAIN FOR THE TENEBROUS EMPIRE asks the ever important question "What Can Satan Do For Me?" HERE! By the by, your Unk was all honored recently when he got to actually meet and slam back a few beers with the Kate in so-called real life! Just so ya know, she big time rules!

Hero ARBOGAST does a beautiful job of letting the right one in HERE.

Traumafessions :: Reader Carrie Jo on The Lost Saucer

Posted on By aunt john

I heard that Bob Dylan song 'Lay Lady Lay' last night and my brain suddenly flashed an image of Lady Elaine from MISTER ROGER'S NEIGHBORHOOD. A traumatic thing, no doubt. I didn't realized I harbored that association. Needless to say I just had to Google her and that's when I came upon Kindertrauma for the first time.

I quickly posted the URL to Facebook to share with my peeps. Since last night we have all been trolling your web site, revisiting our nightmares. It has been a moving experience.

One thing I looked for but didn't find is THE LOST SAUCER a series included in the SATURDAY MORNING WITH SID & MARTY KROFTT show.

JIM NABORS is a Mr. Creepy (like most biology teachers) and RUTH BUZZI is simply not someone I would want to spend any time alone with. In this show they are in robot suits ('Actually, we're androids.') and piloting a space ship (saucer) that lands on earth. Here they befriend two kids – a white girl who is babysitting a little black boy. White girl is all responsible and wants to go home while little man is all hip and cool and digs the 'flying pinball' machine and is in no hurry to get back home (he knows it will be bed time soon). Before they can turn the saucer around (ha!) and head back to Earth, in comes the scariest fucking thing in TV in the '70.s DORSE! The biogenically engineered half dog-half horse monster!

Dorse was supposed to be this cute lovable robots-best-friend thing but was in fact a very scary beast with rag-mop fur and a velvet covered hobbyhorse head. Yeah, I knew it was a full-grown man in a suit, but that just made it even worse. Somehow I knew that adults who dressed up in costumes to make kids feel 'comfortable' was sinister, I knew there must be an ulterior motive for wanting to make kids feel 'comfortable' (re: distracted, easy to manipulate). This show – that DORSE – scared the crap out of me. Two adults dressed like robots ('Actually, we're androids.') with another guy in a dog/horse suit who KIDNAP two kids on a 'saucer'? C'mon! And wasn't JIM NABORS a Mormon??????

Thanks for the great site!

The Fly (1986)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

OPRAH says, "Love doesn't hurt;" pretty big words for someone who has never had a romance with a person whose genes have been fused with those of a common housefly. Investigative journalist Veronica Quaife (GEENA DAVIS) knows better, for even with the best intentions going in, her love affair with scientist Seth Brundle (JEFF GOLDBLUM) ends up mutated beyond recognition, completely unsalvageable and very, very painful.

Things begin in the typical manner between Veronica and Seth; playful jabs give way to longing looks and before you know it, sheets are flying and Chinese take out is being ordered. At this point their radical personality differences are mutually celebrated. Veronica is an aggressive yet amiable career gal who'd like to forget a recent bad relationship with her sleazy editor Stathis (JOHN GETZ), and Seth is an introverted loner married to his work who, "hates vehicles" and confesses to being not very knowledgeable about "the flesh."

Together they are a perfect symbiotic team. When not canoodling he creates machines that can transport baboons from one side of the room to the other, and she diligently records it when they get all turned inside out into mush. Their future hopes include a bestseller for her and a world without vehicles for him (plus maybe a Nobel Prize or two). Much like in real life everything was going great until everything started going great. See, Seth finally did get his baboon transporter to work BUT just when he did, Veronica stepped out to meet with her ex to tell him to shove it and Seth got all wicked jealous. Jealousy my friends can sometimes lead to drunkenness and poor decision making. Sometimes it can lead to you jumping into a baboon transporter without checking to see if there is a fly in there too.

For a while Seth does not realize how much he has screwed up, in fact quite the opposite. He begins to see himself as the greatest guy on Earth and just can't shut up about it. He even starts thinking he's too good for Veronica because she can't keep up with him in the sack! Soon he is biting her head off for no reason, making wild claims and dragging home the biggest sluts in town.

Veronica did not sign up for this shit. In fact, didn't she just get out of a relationship with a douche-bag? All signs point to drop the zero and eat a hero sandwich but Veronica is in love and she realizes that this pimply faced whack job is not her Seth! Rather than going on a shopping spree, starting a career as a hat designer or singing into a hairbrush she wisely takes a few of his gross back hairs to a lab and finds out he's THE FLY!

Sadly, knowing the problem is not always the answer because Seth is on a downward spiral and acts more like THE FLY with each passing day. Hey ladies, grab a bunch of your gal pals and invite them to play "I'm out!" while watching THE FLY. As soon as Seth does something that you know you'd have to give him his walking papers for scream "I'm out!" Is it when those first back hairs appear? Is it when his ear falls off? Is it when he squirts puss out of his face onto the bathroom mirror? I say the "I'm out!" moment is when he vomits on a donut and then eats it. Many people see THE FLY as an allegory for AIDS or cancer, but I see it as an allegory for sharing a living space with your significant other. (I kid, Aunt John, but really, using your hands instead of a fork to get pickles out of a jar? That's grody).

Veronica, as it turns out, is more understanding than the lot of us put together. Director DAVID CRONENBERG gets one of his biggest gross out moments just by showing her embracing Seth right after he does some sliming on himself. This really is a movie that requires love itself to put up or shut up. It dares love to quit. It requires love to be exactly what it boasts it is.

"I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over…and the insect is awake."

When Seth dreamt he was a man, was he in fact dreaming that he could be capable of a relationship? Was he dreaming he could put himself in the vulnerable position of caring about somebody else? Is his awakening back to insect form the return to a life as a meticulous self sufficient emotion free drone? If you really think about it, it was the fear of losing Veronica that turned this poor guy into THE FLY. That's what you get for being jealous.

DAVID CRONENBERG's retelling of THE FLY is in a class all by itself. Besides single handedly justifying the existence of remakes in general, it somehow fuses classic fifties era monster movie tropes with squishy eighties era body horror all the while creating what has to be one of the most heart wrenching relationship films ever made. It is simply a true blue classic that works on several levels at once and seems not only to stand up to the test of time but become more potent with age.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Angela J. on a Spider Swallower

Posted on By aunt john

Hello!

A friend turned me on to your site…it's FABULOUS. So I wondered if you can help me. I have a fear of spiders, which I believe goes back to a scene in a movie I saw as a kid. It went something like this:

A woman is in her house, I think asleep or something, when she kind of becomes under the power of this voice. The voice tells her to go out to the barn, which she does. It tells her to lay up on this table, which she does. It tells her to open her mouth "wider." "WIDER", and when it's wide enough, a tarantula drops into her mouth and we see the lump kind of go down into her throat. I have very little recollection of what occurred before or after that, but that one scene has, apparently, scarred me for life.

Any ideas on what this movie could've been?? I grew up in the '70s and '80s, and I'm thinking this was definitely a '70s era movie.

If you can help, that would be great, although I don't know if I'll have the guts to watch the movie, even if I do find out what it is. I thought if I watched BURNT OFFERINGS again as an adult, I'd get the image of the smiling undertaker out of my head, but NOPE, he's JUST as scary now as he was then…

Thanks for listening!

UNK SEZ: Angela, you are speaking of one of my favorites, WES CRAVEN's DEADLY BLESSING! This might not be one of Mr. CRAVEN's most successful outings, but with a cast that includes MAREN JENSEN, SHARON STONE, LISA HARTMAN, ERNEST BORGNINE, MICHAEL BERRYMAN and DOUGLAS BARR, as JOY BEHAR would say, "Who cares?" My older brother somehow snuck me into the theater to see this one way back in 1981 and it scared the hell out of me too! I'll never forget the film's crazy climax, which, as it turns out, was forced on CRAVEN by a studio who demanded a surprise ending no matter how little sense it made! DEADLY BLESSING is not currently available on DVD, but for now you can watch the whole thing on YouTube starting HERE!

Traumafessions :: MTV Hates Reader Carolyanne G.

Posted on By aunt john

I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was sitting on my neighbor's couch, watching MTV with her and her older brother (I was about six, she was about nine, and her brother was 19). We'd gathered around to watch the BRITTANY SPEARS video for "Lucky" (our favorite song), and were about to go off and play Barbies and leave her brother to his teenaged business when we heard a song that we both liked. It was the Gorillaz's "Clint Eastwood." We were both far too young to understand the drug induced lyrics, but liked the beat/tune and had been dancing to it in her room a few minutes beforehand.

The video started off with the band's name being written across the screen, as some creepy laugh played in the background. It then went on to show cartoon people (avatars of the band members) singing. Innocent enough. All of a sudden, this creepy fat blue lightning Rastafarian man starts rapping. That got our attention right away. As the song goes on, the white background turns into a graveyard. Then, mid-song, this monkey arm shoots up from the ground, and the screen becomes filled with thousands of zombie apes, all marching to the beat of the song. I'm not sure if I remember correctly, but I think that the video ends with one of the adorable cartoon people kicking a zombie ape into outer space.

I didn't sleep a wink that night, afraid that the zombie apes would take out my bedroom wall and squash me, and I refused to watch MTV until I turned thirteen.

MTV betrayed me AGAIN at age 14. A few of you may remember my traumafession about Happy Tree Friends. Well, the incident had terrified me so much that, all through puberty, I had a constant fear of coming across Happy Tree Friends on T.V./in a movie's coming attractions. If I had even the faintest clue that there WAS an actual T.V. show right around that time, I don't think I would have turned on the TV at all.

I was watching the morning wakeup countdown before going off to school, and the screen announced that the next video would be "The Carpal Tunnel of Love" by Fall Out Boy. This was during my Fall Out Boy phase that I refuse to speak of.

(AUNT JOHN SEZ: Umm, too late, you just told everyone.)

Well, you can imagine my joy when I found out that my television was about to deliver a song from their not yet released CD. That joy ended as soon as the video started. It was as if God was bitchslapping me through my TV, because staring back at me was a familiar yellow bunny, flirting with the little pink rodent that had haunted me for so long. Totally forgetting the fact that it was 5:30 am on a Monday morning, I screamed at the top of my lungs and hurled my cup of o.j. across the kitchen, fleeing to my bedroom and hiding under my covers. I didn't stick around long enough to actually watch the video, but, needless to say, I didn't watch MTV until I was SURE that nobody liked that song anymore.

Exorcist II: The Heretic

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I've been seeing so many good movies lately that I've been scraping dangerously close to having a positive outlook on life. Knowing in my heart of hearts that my contentment is the first sign of the apocalypse, I decided to do us all a favor and sabotage myself before it starts raining frogs. What better film to throw my winning streak off the rails than the most hated sequel ever to come down the pike? I'm talking of course about JOHN BOORMAN's loopy audience displeaser EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC. If this renowned stinker couldn't shoot down my happy balloon what could?

The first and only time I had ever seen this movie I was a preteen KIM WILDE enthusiast at my cousin's house and it was on their fancy pay cable channel. I was very into seeing it and very into it scaring the crap out of me. What I was not into was what actually ended up happing because I'm pretty sure I ended up with my face in a shag carpet fast asleep with a melted grape popsicle in my hand. How could a possession movie not scare a kid who was terrified of the red devil figure on the Underwood Deviled Ham can? (The answer to that question turns out to be very simple, just add tap dancing sequences, a hypnotic strobe light and a plethora of locusts).

Whatever the problem is with EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC it's certainly not the cinematography, more often than not, this is a gorgeous looking film. Maybe not in a way that is particularly appropriate for an EXORCIST sequel, but arresting nonetheless. Visual effects artist ALBERT WHITLOCK shows his deft abilities on several occasions (a simple shot of an airplane in flight is stunning) so no complaints there. The soundtrack too, care of master ENNIO MORRICONE is well above par. So as the kids say, "Where's the beef?" Well, it just so happens that everything else going on in this movie is absolutely flip your LIDSVILLE crazy. Some of its ideas are interesting (the concept of the more "good" you are, the more "evil" you attract at least explains why my lunch money was stolen throughout grade school), yet unless the goal was to drive the audience insane or into fits of laughter, it's still a mystery how this apple fell so damn far from the tree.

Putting aside that the entire approach to the story is a bit of a snub to the original film's fans and the fact that much of the dialogue, though thoughtful towards the metaphysical, doesn't quite resemble human speech, let us now talk about the acting. What a cast huh? RICHARD BURTON, LOUISE FLETCHER, MAX VON SYDOW, JAMES EARL JONES and returning champ LINDA BLAIR, could you ask for anything more (I mean, besides ELLEN BURSTYN)?

Here is where the movie becomes either the worst atrocity you have ever seen or the most riveting display ever committed to film and it all depends on how drunk you are. I for one am convinced that bombastic BURTON at one point looked directly at the camera to tell the audience that what they were experiencing was "fascinating," did I imagine that? Was that some kind of desperate plea to keep people in their seats? On the other end of the acting spectrum is LOUISE FLETCHER who can usually turn me to stone with a single cobra gaze but is inexplicably wishy-washy throughout this movie even while getting totally felt up by a demon. Then there is JAMES EARL JONES, well… give him a break he had to wear a locust hat. As far as our Miss BLAIR, well she fluctuates between a grinning Moonie any reasonable person would avoid at an airport and a frat house roofie victim. Only SYDOW escapes with dignity in tact and he's playing the dead guy.

So needless to say as wretched as this movie is known to be, it in fact did not ruin my night! It was still a little boring in places, but as an adult I couldn't wait to see what kind of craziness was around the corner. For better or for worse, BOORMAN certainly did his own thing. It was probably more of his ZARDOZ thing than his DELIVERANCE thing but at least you get the idea that somebody was behind the wheel (even as they are crashing into your flower bed). Is it a worthy successor to the EXORCIST? Oh, not by the longest stretch you could possibly imagine, but it is an oddity unto itself and as bizarre as they come. I don't think it's fair to call it the worst movie ever made, but I think it's probably still O.K. to refer to it as the most disappointing sequel of all time (sorry GEORGE LUCAS). Maybe BURTON's assessment was accurate after all, "fascinating" just about covers it. I would have preferred "scary" or "comprehensible" but I can't be too harsh on any movie that sports a young, slightly buck toothed DANA PLATO.

NOTE: Can anything prepare a person for one of the most insane movies ever made? How about the most completely off the wall trailer ever made? Careful, it's addictive!

And perhaps even more addictive is this little number…