kindertrauma

Year: 2009

Kinder-News :: The Premio Dardo Awards

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Our buddy the ever-brilliant Arbogast (pictured above) of the incomparable ARBOGAST ON FILM was kind enough to bestow upon Kindertrauma a Premio Dardo Award. That's when you pick five fellow bloggers that you think don't stink and actually rule and tell everybody to go visit them A.S.A.P. Afterward the five you chose have to pick five of their own and so on and so on until who knows what happens. So in accordance with these rules here are five blogs that we love to death and think are deserving of the Premio Dardo Award as well….

DINER WITH MAX JENKE
Jeff Allard's lifelong commitment to horror is evident in everything he writes. This guy is a walking encyclopedia of knowledge and never fails to fascinate us with his insights. Currently he is doing a countdown of all the FRIDAY THE 13th films, so get there right quick if you know what's good for you!

SLASHER SPEAK
Speaking of the wise and knowledgeable Vince Liaguno knows his slasher flicks and adores the leading ladies that sometimes survive them. He's even written a book of fiction called THE LITERARY SIX which utilizes slasher themes, but takes them in directions you might never predict. If you are a fan of classic eighties slasher horror you'll feel right at home at Vince's pad.

MADE FOR T.V. MAYHEM
Second only to MEREDITH BAXTER-BIRNEY, Amanda By Night is the undisputed queen of the made-for-television movie. She's often bringing up stuff that I have never even heard of and I'm always amazed at how much she knows. She writes for just about everybody cool (Retro Slashers, Horror Yearbook and Pretty Scary), but MADE FOR T.V. MAYHEM is her super entertaining home base. If you feel like you've seen it all, stop by her joint and let her school you!

AWESOMENESS FOR AWESOME'S SAKE
He's often times not safe for work and he's not the type of guy you can bring home to mother, but if loving Mr.Canacorn is wrong neither myself or Aunt John want to be right. Who can turn the world on with a mustachioed smile? Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem so fricking awesome? Well it's Mr.Canacorn and you should know it! He's not right in the head, but if you've got the nerve he's got the verve. Awesomeness is just plain AWESOME!

FILM FATHER
Film Father is one of our favorite people out there and his site pretty much rules. Here is a review site that looks at films from a parental perspective and sometimes offers guidelines about what may be suitable for kids. It almost seems the polar opposite of Kindertrauma, but really it's not. In fact, now that his kid Dash is helping out with the reviews you can get a kid's point of view as it happens! How cool is that? It's not all greasy kid stuff though, FilmFather is an avid movie buff and his reviews of non-kiddie fare are some of the best out there, so EVERYBODY should check him out!

Official Traumatizer :: Reader FatherOfTears Nominates David Lynch

Posted on By unkle lancifer

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!

Traumafessions :: Reader Jeffrey P. on Fraggle Rock & the THX Logo

Posted on By aunt john

When I was little, I always loved to watch videos of THE ADVENTURES OF SPOT in the playroom, but there was a preview before the episodes that scared me so much, I almost threw out my SPOT videos. It was a preview for a JIM HENSON show called FRAGGLE ROCK, and here's what scared me: The part where these giants called the Gorgs grabbed a Fraggle, but the Fraggle got away. I found it on youtube today, and boy it was different from what I remember:

Scare level ( on a scale of 1 to 5 screams): 2.5 screams, if you are 6 or under, 0 if over.

Whenever I started watching a DISNEY video, I always ran from the room before the movie started. Why? Because of terrifying THX logo. The DEEP NOTE scared me so much, that I haven't watched a DISNEY video ever since. Here's the logo:

Scare level: 4 out of 5 screams!

The Ghost of Flight 401

Posted on By aunt john


Continuing with the theme of '70s made-for-television movies set on unbelievably roomy commercial airplanes comes the ERNEST BORGNINE-led THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401. The opening credits feature a flight crew of pretty stellar actors (RUSSELL JOHNSON of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, HOWARD HESSEMAN of WKRP fame, and the lovely and talented KIM BASINGER); however, save for BASINGER, none of the aforementioned icons survive the routine flight from New York to Miami and all perish when their plane crashes in the swampy Florida Everglades.

Of course, a major airplane disaster is no match for co-pilot BORGNINE, and he manages to make it out of the bog and to the intensive care unit where he flat lines in the subsequent scene, but not before telling his wife that he loves her and their two small children. Cut to the obligatory graveyard scene, followed by some reminiscing over the loss of Papa Bear BORGNINE, and the lives of those that work at the airline seemingly return to normal. The salvaged pieces of the crashed plane are used as replacement parts for other planes within the fleet and BASINGER eventually finds herself passing out peanuts and reminding passengers to return their seat-back trays to the upright position.


Alas, BASINGER is not the only flight crewmember from the doomed Flight 401 to return to the friendly skies; the ghost of BORGNINE joins her. At first he only appears to the female stewardesses in the galley, and their claims are dismissed as hysteria by smarmy airline pencil pusher GARY LOCKWOOD. In fact, he sends BASINGER off to a company therapist before allowing her to fly again, and she delivers one of those over-the-top, Emmy-baiting monologues about her dead Mama worthy of recitation by MARY CATHERINE GALLAGHER. The supernatural cameos by BORGNINE continue to escalate, and after the male pilots begin to substantiate the stewardesses' claims, LOCKWOOD begrudgingly agrees to attend a séance to rid the airline of its in-flight ghost once and for all.

As far as séances go, THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401 features a real snoozer. No crystal balls, no Ouija boards, just two really dull mediums who tell us that the late co-pilot is attached to the repurposed parts of the plane and he wants everyone to be safe. Even BORGNINE skips this scene and it anticlimactically ends on a dull note with a stock shot of the clouds and a voiceover saying that the ghostly appearances promptly stopped after the séance.


Based on a book based on the actual crash of an Eastern Air Lines plane, THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401 pales in comparison to THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET. It tries too hard to be serious, and sidesteps it full potential. With BORGNINE haunting the plane and a young BASINGER pushing a drink cart, one should expect first-class thrills, not cramped, coach chills.

Traumafessions :: Unk on The Ghost of Flight 401 (The Book Cover)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Your Unkle Lancifer has never had much love for the television movie THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401. It's not a terrible movie, but it could never live up to the exaggerated expectations in my mind. You see, I remember the paperback book lying about in our house when I was young and its cover scared the living crap out of me. The image of the dead pilot, his eyes glowing white with imagined evil power seemed to fry itself into my skull and promise a demonic tale not unlike THE EXORCIST or THE OMEN. Based on the book's cover my young mind conjured up a story of vengeful spirits that pounced on passengers and strangled stewardesses rather than an ambiguous apparition eyed in an appliance; ERNEST BORGNINE was the furthest thing from my mind.

Looking at that book cover again as an adult still brings me back to the horror taunting mind frame of my youth. With the author's name in a tombstone font, the jet black ominous background and yes, of course, those horrible blank eyes, it reminds me of just how concrete and real the supernatural seemed to me back then. I recall imagining unknown forces around every corner waiting patiently for the slightest misstep on my part. In reality the tale of FLIGHT 401 is more eerie urban legend than outright horror tale. It's popularity was probably due more to its implied promise of an afterlife in which the dead might return to issue warnings to the living as opposed to offering them glimpses of hell as in the equally ubiquitous seventies paperback THE AMITYVILLE HORROR.

Much as with the AMITYVILLE case there are many who still question the authenticity of THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401, but it's of little concern or comfort to me either way. In both cases it's not really the details of the story itself or the question of its validity that terrified the young me. The truth is, both legends, regardless of how familiar I was with them at the time, had the power to ignite my unknown fears and let loose the dark beast of my imagination. What kept me up at night were the phantasms that they merely inspired but that I myself planted and sowed. Consequently, even now when a film or book fails to send those harder to come by shivers down my spine I am left asking is it the art of storytelling that has died or is it just a little piece of my imagination itself that is resting in pieces? THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401 may have never existed at all, but something tells me that the entity that book cover's illustration created within my mind still waits, biding its time…

Traumafessions :: Reader Alex B. on Little Monsters

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I'm pretty sure the 1989 FRED SAVAGE film LITTLE MONSTERS hasn't been brought up on Kindertrauma yet. I honestly can't remember much about the plot anymore. Maybe I was too scared of the monstrous HOWIE MANDEL as a four year old to even watch the entire movie. I remember it was supposed to be a film for kids, but what were they thinking?

From what I recall, the climax of the film takes place in this perverted children's playroom (always creepy), where the heroes are confronted by a child-like monster. Then they shoot something at his face, and it rips off, exposing a horribly disfigured face underneath. I think the idea was that the monster was just wearing a "human mask," but to a four year old such as myself, it was as freaky as the end of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

Who greenlights projects like this, anyway?

A Cold Night's Death

Posted on By unkle lancifer

A while back we received a "Name That Trauma!" of a television movie that took place in the arctic and featured monkeys. That movie turned out to be 1973's A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH (A.K.A. CHILL FACTOR). Well if there is one thing I like better than a snowy setting it is monkeys, so of course I had to track this baby down! Directed by NIGHT GALLERY alum JERROLD FREEDMON, and starring none other than ROBERT CULP (SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT 3: BETTER WATCH OUT!) and ELI WALLACH (THE SENTINEL), A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH is one made-for-television movie that literally delivers the chills.

The action takes place at an isolated research laboratory in Antarctica and involves pretty much only the two leads mentioned (unless you count those cute monkeys). CULP and WALLACH have come to replace the last scientist who worked at the outpost who apparently went mad and killed himself by leaving a window open and slowly freezing to death. The more time our inquisitive friends spend in the outpost, the more paranoid and suspicious they become, both of their surroundings and of each other. Something is definitely amiss and each night brings them closer to the truth behind what really happened to their predecessor.

It's a privilege to watch the events unfold slowly but surely while the director takes time to really get into the heads of our opposing leads. You might be tempted to choose a side between these two men who have widely divergent approaches to rationalizing the ongoing occurrences, but it's nearly impossible to do so. Both actors deliver straightforward, admirable performances and it's difficult to understand why this movie is not far better known for that reason alone.

The bleak snowbound atmosphere and palpable anxiety between the two characters will be familiar to anyone who has seen JOHN CARPENTER's THE THING, but here the action is almost exclusively psychological and there's nothing and nobody around to break the formidable tension. It's really astonishing how much is done with so little here, just two men slowly unraveling a mystery, but thanks to the sincerity of its leads and the director's deft hand at blanketing everything in dense atmosphere, this film leaves you with a sense of dread that is pretty hard to scrape off your snowshoes.

Although we mentioned the film's shocking reveal and startling final moment in that previous "Name That Trauma" post, I won't do it again here, but even if you are already privy to COLD NIGHT's final twist, the film holds up strongly as a thriller regardless. CULP, who at one point is locked outside the station in the freezing snow wandering about like a zombie with icicles hanging from his face presents an image of a man who has somehow transformed into a monster in a monster-less film.

The real enemy here, ultimately, is the human mind and its sometimes soulless search for more knowledge. Ironically, we come to find that the research on the monkeys inhabiting the ice station involved recording their responses while encountering fear, but by film's end it is our two scientists and the audience itself who might have more experience in that field. This is a quiet, subtle venture and the severity of the isolation shown will get to you eventually whether you resist it or not. I can't think of many films television or otherwise that so convincingly portrays the tightening noose of cabin fever or takes such cunning advantage of mankind's natural fear of the unseen.

Traumafessions :: Reader NiNi on Rockwell's "Somebody's Watchin' Me"

Posted on By aunt john

After seeing that people were traumatized by HERBIE HANCOCK, I'm surprised there's no mention of one-hit-wonder ROCKWELL, whose video for "Somebody's Watchin' Me" used to freak me the hell out as a kid. Highlights include the shadowy floating head, the zombie guy in tighty-whities carrying a roast pig (wtf??) and the shower spouting blood (a particular childhood worry of mine). But these weren't the real traumatizers of this video; I'd been on a steady diet of horror movies practically since birth, thanks to a horror-loving mother.

No, the kicker was in the last moments of the video, where the creepy grinning mailman is seen to have a horribly deformed and strangely slimy-looking left arm, poorly concealed behind his mailbag. I suspect that it was scary because he looked otherwise normal (if a bit serial-killerish); making it worse is the way that poor ROCKWELL walks up to him in obvious relief after dealing with all the rest, only to be faced with this misshapen horror. Let me tell you, it made me suspicious of mailmen for quite some time! I would eye them surreptitiously, on the lookout for a disgusting withered claw, and all because of ROCKWELL.