kindertrauma

Year: 2011

Traumafessions :: Eric Weber of Yedi Hideout on Swamp Thing

Posted on By aunt john

There is only one instance in the history of my movie-going experiences where I had to leave the theater.

When I was seven, my dad took me to see SWAMP THING (1982). I can recall sitting there enjoying all of the action and adventure when, slowly, I began feeling deeply disturbed. A moment comes late in the film where, during a semi-swank party at his mansion, the villain (played by LOUIS JOURDAN) tests a secret potion on his henchman, Bruno, (played by the lovable and adorable NICHOLAS WORTH.) Bruno starts twitching and convulsing as his face begins to bubble up and deform while all of the party guests start flipping out. I remember becoming super-agitated and nervous and told my dad that we needed to leave, "RIGHT NOW!"

Even when the movie began airing on HBO, I found myself totally and completely terrified when this scene started. I would literally hide behind the couch and peek out every now and then. Little did I realize that an even more disturbing scene was awaiting me! After Bruno is turned into a kind of sweet-looking, pint-sized rat creature, LOUIS JOURDAN takes the potion himself and begins transforming into this creature in a truly disturbing and gory sequence with lots of gooey special effects. I went absolutely out of my mind and remember racing upstairs to the safety of my bedroom.

I don't think I watched the movie in its entirety until my teenage years when stuff like SWAMP THING was old hat and I had already moved on to the works of JOHN CARPENTER, GEORGE ROMERO, TOBE HOOPER, etc.

Actually, I lied – there was one other instance where I walked out of a film but that was THE MATRIX RELOADED for completely different reasons.

— Eric Weber at yetihideout.blogspot.com

Name That Trauma :: Reader Sara Queen on an Anti-Smoking P.S.A.

Posted on By aunt john

Hello,

I am new to your site, and was intrigued with how many of its visitors had the same reactions I did to random things from television. My biggest one had to be a commercial that ran throughout the ‘90s (not sure of the dates) that was an anti-smoking campaign for teens.

It started off with a bubbly type of music, and some girl sitting in front of a mirror. If I remember correctly, there were actual creepy bubbles flying around. Everything seems normal, then she opens her mouth and it's full of ashes and cigarette butts.

Well, as a kid, I had no idea that it was supposed to be cigarettes and I would run and hide as soon as I heard the music start playing. It still makes me shiver when I think of it!! I looked around on YouTube a little, but had no luck.

Do you think you can help me find this terror?

Thanks,

Sarah Queen

Traumafessions :: Geofree Capodanno of The Man Cave on Vincent Price

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Vincent Price. One of the all-time great horror icons. Some call him a master. Others call him an innovator. Most call him a god of the horror genre. All of which I agree on by all accounts, but for my Traumafession, I will refer to him as a someone who cost me hours of sleep between 1983-1984. When the Michael Jackson Thriller video was first released, it scared the crap out of me when I was a kid, so everything related to that video activated anxiety in my fragile, little mind. Since Vincent Price did the rap at the beginning and his signature laughter was used during my scariest moment of the video, during the "Cat's Eyes" sequence at the end, Price simply horrified me. Just when I found peace with Thriller, as it became my all-time favorite music video instead of my most feared, Vincent Price struck once again!

Around late 1984, I remember staying up very late to watch some R-rated raunchy comedy on HBO. Once that was over, I accidentally switched over to a local channel when I tried to shut the TV off. Once the channel changed, it was a close-up of Vincent Price's face as his eyes glowed green and he executed his famous evil laugh!! It lasted about 8 seconds but felt like 8 years to me. Frozen in terror, I did not sleep properly over the course of the next two days. It had to be at least 2am when this happened, and I was only about 7 or 8 at the time, so this was all my fault for sneaking to stay up so late on a school night in the first place. Come to find out later on the following week, it was a commercial for a Time-Life horror book series they released, for which Price was the face of the promotional ad. As the weeks went on, every time the commercial started playing on the channel I was watching, and it happened A LOT, I'd feverishly run to switch the channel in a panic.

In retrospect, this is all very embarrassing to admit, but I can laugh at myself. Not to mention that this happened before I learned how to do long division, so I'm not going to be too hard on myself. I read someone's Traumafession the other day and somehow the memory of this commercial (thanks Kindertrauma!) just popped back into my mind. Better yet, I actually found the commercial on YouTube, which unfortunately really cuts out a lot of the ending that scared the bejesus out of me. You can grab a glimpse of it though. Looking at it now for the first time in 7 years, the commercial is extremely corny and cheesy. It is silly to look back at this TV spot and think about how it affected me so much back then, but this is Traumafession and all, right?

UNK SEZ:: Thanks for the excellent traumafession Geofree! All you fine folks out there make sure you moonwalk over to Geofree's top-notch joint, THE MAN CAVE!

Streaming Alert! :: Black Death (2010)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

BLACK DEATH is one seriously hearty, satisfying movie. Damn everybody who has already seen it and neglected to demand I do the same. It is set during a nasty time period when nobody could get cable television but they could get the Bubonic plague. A young monk trapped in a love triangle with a beautiful girl and God joins up with a group of soldiers lead by the excellent SEAN BEAN in search of a rumored village where folks are fancy with necromancy and can resurrect the dead.

BLACK DEATH could be described as a horror adventure. I hesitate to reveal anything more because a marvelous part of the experience involves imagining what might lie on the path ahead. My only advice is to keep an open mind and to try to see things from as many sides as possible because it really thickens the broth of this stew. I don't know (or care) how accurate it may be, but I do know it's rub-your-eyes gorgeous often, exciting as hell in places, and ultimately surprisingly profound. I plan to write Valentines to all involved.

BLACK DEATH was directed by CHRISTOPHER SMITH, (CREEP, SEVERANCE, TRIANGLE) an accelerating talent who has yet to disappoint me. Because it concerns religion an added bonus is that once the film is done, you can go on to its IMDb message board and marvel at the wide variety of interpretations from brilliant to batshit crazy. Trust me, it may look like homework but it tastes like a feast and I guarantee this Netflix Streaming pick is better than anything playing in your local theater. Trust me, I'm not kidding. Watch it!

Name That Trauma :: Reader Pierre G. on a Little Dude Down the Drain

Posted on By aunt john

Hello,

I discovered your excellent website last night. Great idea. (Sorry for my bad English, I'm European.)

When I was young in the mid-eighties, at the end of the year, all school classes of my town were taken to the movies.

One year I remembered having watched a movie with the Ewoks, and I cried because an Ewok was dead (maybe?)

One year we watched KARATE KID (I didn't enjoy the movie, especially the punks "aggression" scene.)

One year, there was this strange and traumatizing movie, but I can't remember the name, I need your help to find what it was:

I just remember one thing : the hero was a boy, and there was a scene where he passes through the drain hole of a bathtub!

I guess the movie was American, produced in the eighties and had some kind of box-office success.

PLEASE help me find that weird movie, I need to buy it on DVD!

Thank you very much,

Pierre G.



UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Per Pierre:

I watched the YouTube clip, and I think that "Tony and the Tick Tock Dragon" is the movie that traumatized me!

I was very young, and I don't remember the cartoon sailors, but I'm 90% sure of that.

Can you imagine that our school teachers choose a cheap fifteen-year old Hungarian movie, while there were so many cool American films around 1985…?

Many thanks to "Nathan Arms" and "MC_Kubbe" for their help.

— Pierre G.

Kinder-News :: Evil Children Double Feature!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

UNK SEZ: Possibly the most Kindertraumatic double feature of all time has been put together by our pal KEVIN MAHER! Folks who attend will delight in both the twisted wonder that is the 1980 cult favorite THE CHILDREN and one of my favorite TV movies ever DON'T GO TO SLEEP! There shall be trivia and there shall be prizes! This festival of fiendish tots will be held Thursday, July 7th at 92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street in the land of NY, NY! Failure to experience this event will result in tears! Get more info at THISKEVIN and buy your tickets HERE!

Traumafessions :: Reader Flaminica D. on Darby O'Gill & The Little People

Posted on By aunt john

The bean sí puts me paralytic with fear to this day, and as an atheist scientist that says something fierce. Back in Ireland in the ‘80s, when I was very little, my mother was attempting to brush my long and very unruly hair, and I would wail, oddly enough, much like a banshee. There was a particularly spectacular uproar about it one day (it hurt ffs!), so she had my Uncle Ernie scratch at the window behind me outside and told me it was the banshee coming to match my wails. That put the fear of God into me. Years later my cousin Derek would tell me he'd heard the banshee around my house, which meant someone at mine was going to die. None of this would have been particularly fearsome, I, to this day imagine, had it not been for that bloody banshee in DARBY O'GILL.

Traumafessions :: Ryan Clark of Thrill Me! on Peter Gabriel

Posted on By aunt john

Hey there!

My name is Ryan Clark, and I write a blog over at thrill-me.blogspot.com.

As I was trying to come up with a Traumafession, I realized that an inordinate number of my childhood traumas dealt with surreal imagery or people transforming, especially facial transformations. Many are actually music videos rather than horror movies, because I used to watch MTV a lot in the early-to-mid ‘90s; you know, back when they were still MUSIC television.

There were a few videos that scared me, but I think the one that terrified me more than all others was the video for "Sledgehammer" by PETER GABRIEL. Something about his twitching head transforming into various objects via claymation absolutely scared the CRAP out of me, and I would run screaming from the room every time that video came on.

As with many of the music videos that once had me paralyzed with fear, the song and video are among my favorites, and now I'm an avid PETER GABRIEL fan. I think if I ever met the man I would have to tell him how much his innovation frightened me — in a sense, he was MY boogeyman. I'm just thankful I didn't see his "Shock the Monkey" video until I was older!

Name That Trauma :: Reader Anna on a Wormy Music Video

Posted on By aunt john

Dear KinderTrauma!

I've written to you before, and that "Name That Trauma!" has been successfully resolved, thanks to you. However, this one is much more puzzling, because the problem is that I'm not even sure I haven't dreamt it.

I think it was a late ‘80s-early ‘90s music video. I remember that there were worms, or something that looked like worms – dark-greyish, thick, and quite short (about 2 feet long), and resembling burnt meat in colour and texture. They were crawling around in some kind of a sandpit, and the whole setting was in dark colours. The worms might have been animated puppets, or stop-motion figures, or whatever technique could be applied in the ‘80s to make these revolting things move.

Oh, yes, the most disturbing thing was that these worms had human faces. The only thing I remember about the music was that the voice was very monotonous, with nasal intonations. I wonder who could possibly make such a music video. I mean, what is SO wrong with this person?!

I clearly remember telling other kids in the neighbourhood about it. If I'm remembering this correctly, I even wanted us to play go-round-the-playground-not-touching-the-sand-or-else-the-worms-will-eat-you game or something. It didn't work out – apparently, the mere assumption that huge worms with human faces could ACTUALLY exist, burrowed in the sand somewhere, waiting for some unfortunate kid to come near them, turned out to be wa-a-ay too disturbing to mess with it.

So, now that I have told you about it, I wonder if anyone has any ideas, because I haven't found anything resembling this video. If it turns out that the loathsome thing never existed, I'll give up and make an appointment with a psychiatrist!

Thanks!

Anna