UNK SEZ: It's old school FUNHOUSE! how many movies can you identify?
Year: 2013
Post-Childhood Traumafession:: Unk on The Haunted (1991)
Our pal Mickster's "Post-childhood" traumafession regarding THE STRANGERS got me thinking about all the movies that rattled my own bearings as an adult. There are more than a few to choose from but my mind keeps flipping back to the 1991 T.V. movie THE HAUNTED (thanks largely to THE CONJURING dredging it up no doubt!) I realize I have already confessed to this particular trauma in our comments section but I thought it might be interesting for me to examine, in closer detail, just how and why a modest TV production got under my skin in a way that many seemingly more likely films failed.
Hopefully a big takeaway from this site is the understanding that different people are scared by different things; one person's meat is another's poison, there's no accounting for taste and perhaps a zillion factors come into play (life experience, timing, mood) that are impossible to gauge. Some try to attach value judgments on scares (gore and jump shocks are lowly as slow burns and subtlety are lofty) but these after the fact assessments mean nothing when the lights go out. Which isn't to say I don't have a favorite type of scare…
My preferred scare is when you realize too late that you've popped a hole in the movie (and or book) and it's currently leaking all over you. Holy crap, something has changed in the space you're in and the genie is way too fat to fit back in the bottle! I'm talking about movies (and or books) acting up like Ouija boards and those dreaded intangible guests who won't take a hint and vamoose. How could I go to sleep after watching THE HAUNTED when the swirly black mass that inhabited the movie could, at any second, materialize before me? I'm an adult and I'm rational. That means I've got plenty of legitimate sounding excuses for being freaked out by THE HAUNTED.
1. It was late at night.
Nonexistent scientists estimate that it takes countless dozens of conscious brains to keep the walls of reality standing firm. The more sleeping brains you have in your neighborhood the more likely it is that a wily, interdimensional entity might take advantage of the weakened barriers and slide through. Moreover, watching scary movies, reading about Bigfoot on the Internet and/or dabbling in ghost hunting shows, no matter their level of ridiculousness, acts like a magnet to these creatures. You are basically making yourself a lighthouse in the fog. Through years of research I have learned that the closest you can get to supernatural entertainment after 2 am while still remaining safe is SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH.
2. It's based on a true story.
Adorable as it may seem now, prior to the release of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake, the term "based on a true story" still held some small bit of weight with me. The family depicted in THE HAUNTED was a real family. They went on talk shows and tainted their existences delivering their tale of ghostly woe. If they were crazy, I found small comfort in that. If you are a ghost (or a demon)I don't care if your return address is heaven, hell or my sick head, the point is you need to leave. I guess I could hope the family was lying but that would mean the grandma was lying too! Lying grandmothers are scarier than ghosts. I can't win.
3. KIRKLAND sold it.
I'm no aficionado of thespian pursuits and I pity the horror fan that is, that's asking for a whole lot of pain. On the other hand, if you look at truly successful works in the genre they are almost always strongly connected with at least one sterling, performance. Although they are rarely properly acknowledged, they are often the galvanizing glue that holds the entire shebang together (I started a list of examples but boy, did it go on.) I have to hand it to SALLY KIRKLAND in THE HAUNTING if for no other reason than that she made me believe her. (This cannot be said about her performance in FATAL GAMES). I'm not saying I'm going to run out and start a fan club or anything, I'm just saying that against some serious odds she convinces you of her genuine turmoil. No matter the authenticity of the actual story, within the confines of the teleplay , KIRKLAND is telling the truth.
4. It played upon my pariah complex
STEPHEN KING tagged some of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR's angst power on relatable "economic unease" and I'm so right there with him on that. But I have to point out an infrequently sung about undercurrent that tends to hitch a ride on "true story" haunted house tales – the fear of being ostracized by one's community and (so frequently in these stories) rejected or failed by one's church. Families that do the right thing, care for each other and mind their P's and Q's suddenly find themselves outsiders unable to reach the base goal of belonging. They are for unknown reasons unwelcome to buy into the suburban dream and eventually must abandon everything they've worked for and move on, usually to a place where similar (but of less interest to the public) events occur. Apparently ghosts do more than turn your hair white, they have a way of making you feel homeless in your own home and shunned by your own community. Boo!
5. That weird shadow thing gets to me!
Who would guess that an amorphous, black splotch of roving something or other could upstage THE HAUNTED's signature raped by a face-morphing hag demon under a disco strobe light scene? (Yes, I really just wrote that sentence.) But upstage the hag rape the undefined darkness does indeed do! (And that one too!) Fabrication or not, a nebulous cloud perpetually on the brink of transforming into something your mind doesn't realize it's horrified by yet is scary stuff. Besides forcing you to stare like a slack jawed idiot trying to attach some known shape or meaning to it, the inky entity additionally reeks of something too familiar- that blank slate of apprehension we've all stumbled upon in the dark, the instant before we're able to recognize what it is before us. (Huh?)
I don't know what it is but I know I don't like it. It drives me crazy because it's a traveling stain! It looks like a cross between a Rorschach test and the faceless being that rummages through my recycling bin every Tuesday night! According to the story, this merciless tear in sanity's pants will even follow you when you go camping! Light-hearted marshmallow roasting will not dissuade it! It can walk through walls! It can appear anyplace at any time! I didn't even mention the noise it makes! It sounds like a pig in a garbage disposal!
6. My guard was down.
I am a co-conspirator! I was happy to find something of interest on TV and I was completely open to it. I wasn't thinking, "This better be good!" I didn't scrutinize its every move and I didn't look down on it. I wasn't trying to use the movie to validate myself as an astute critic or a super fan. Forming an opinion was not my #1 priority and I was engrossed in the movie rather than myself. It's like in THE BREAKFAST CLUB when ALLY SHEEDY is all, "Why are you being so nice to me?" and MOLLY RINGWALD is all, "Because you're letting me." The biggest reason this movie freaked me out is that I let it.
Traumafession:: Jayme K. Author of Disorderly on Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
I spent a good portion of my childhood being frightened by, what are in retrospect, really odd things. The weird cyborg creature from the end of Superman 3 comes to mind, but that wasn't the number one thing that freaked me out as a kid. That honor would have to go to Stephen Gammell's illustrations for Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I had nightmares for weeks after I stumbled across that book. I went so far as to demand that my mother put it in the sewer–where I, obviously, couldn't find it. (Keep in mind I was also 5 or 6 at the time.)
Looking back, those illustrations are still really creepy. You see some of those drawings now and go, "Wow, that was for a children's book?" Gammell's artwork is masterful. I feel privileged to have been scarred by that and not, say, Troll 2.
UNK SEZ: Learn more about JAYME K.'s book DISORDERLY over HERE!
Name That Trauma:: Reader ODD on an ear sucking rabbit
Ok, I'm not sure what this is and I think it might have been a straight to vhs release, but it was about a family of rabbits who live in these tunnels. The tunnel walls were covered in portraits of their rabbit ancestors. I remember that the big brother rabbit told his younger sibling to stop sucking on their ears because they might fall off. (I remember this part scaring me the most because I had a thumb sucking problem) I'm pretty sure their parents were not home because they were gardening and I think that maybe the rabbit children snuck away and were chased around by foxes? For some reason I remember a line that was close to the end:"father rabbit was so tired that he fell asleep with his boots on." Anyone know what this is?
Sunday Streaming:: Forbidden World (1982)
You've got to love ALIEN(1979), not only was it generous enough to gift the world with its incredible self, it thoughtfully left the door open for so many lovable wannabes to charge through. Case in point, the ROGER CORMAN produced, ALLAN HOLZMAN directed FORBIDDEN WORLD (1982)! If you sometimes get this one confused with the previous year's GALAXY OF TERROR (yay! Also on Netflix Streaming!), you're just like me! Don't sweat it! I've invented an easy way to remember which is which. FORBIDDEN WORLD's initials "F.B." reversed are W.F. which stands for "worm free", meaning this is not the movie where a giant worm rapes a woman. GALAXY OF TERROR'S initials form the acronym "GOT" which signifies that it has "got" the giant heinous rape worm in it (not to mention ERIN MORAN). Capiche?
Worm rape-free though it may be, FORBIDDEN WORLD has plenty of other idiosyncrasies that you might find worth your while, most notably a robot that sounds exactly like Marcie from THE PEANUTS. Who doesn't want one of those? Also FORBIDDEN WORLD has my favorite sex scene outside of MADMAN(1982). It's not explicit; it's just an orchestra of huh? Our hero Mike Colby (seventies staple JESSE VINT of BUG, SILENT RUNNING & DEATHSPORT) is the new rooster in the space hen house and therefore is hurriedly propositioned by Dr. Barbara Glaser (eighties staple JUNE CHADWICK of THIS IS SPINAL TAPP & V). As they make the vaguely shot intergalactic whoopee, we are privy to flash cuts of a coworker watching it all unfold on a security monitor while he intently pulls on a light up yo-yo toy and another space ship denizen wistfully playing a (space?) flute in his bunk… somehow in unison to the greatest new wave-y synth score you ever heard. Please either have a great sound system set up or just go the cheap route like I did and wear the headphones you bought at FIVE BELOW.
Oh, and the monster! Sometimes he looks like a giant wad of gum, sometimes he looks like a pile of trash and sometimes he looks like a pile of trash being pushed around on a shopping cart. He's not that impressive looking but who cares? He does a lot of damage and he has a lot of teeth!
Rock 'N' Roll High School Funhouse!
Help Riff Randell find the ten differences in these two images!!!
Subway Horrors!
Did I mention we moved? Poor me, I'm no longer a hop, skip and a unicycle ride from the places I need to be. That is why I have been forced by fate to acquaint myself with a place that smells an awful lot like pee…the subway. I know most of my (dwindling) friends who live in the city think nothing about jumping down some stairs and zooming underground to their destination but I've always made a point of walking everywhere I could. I can count on one hand how many times I've needed to use the subway over the last 20 or so years. The thing is; I'm really cheap! And I could use that money for Necco Wafers! Plus c'mon people! Public transportation is ripe for disaster and you know it! I don't want anybody taking my Pelham 1, 2 or 3, thank you very much.
Actually the subway is not so bad. It's convenient, it's speedy and you can meet some really interesting people there (especially when you live close to a methadone clinic.) Take for example, the nice old man who chose to sit next to me the other day even though there were thousands of empty seats everywhere. Doing his best impersonation of Crazy Ralph from FRIDAY THE 13TH, he informed me that the previous day a woman came up to him, ripped off her face and revealed that she was a monster. "What is happening to us?" he asked me, switching his impersonation to a spot on KEVIN MCCARTHY in INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, "We are ALL turning into monsters!" I didn't exactly disagree with him and I admired his ability to cut to the chase but…Oh look, it's my stop! As I exited, the kindly stranger said that he "hoped nobody ripped my face off" which is a nice sentiment if you think about it, although you're unlikely to ever find it in a Hallmark card. Again, we were in agreement, I hoped nobody ripped my face off too! If I had to choose though, I'd prefer my mindset earlier in the day when it wasn't on my list of things to concern myself with. My theory is that old guy was just me from the future screwing with me from the past so I tried not to let future-me see me sweat.
So anyway all this subway travel has gotten me thinking about all the movies I know that have subways in them. Here are some scary movie subways! Please enjoy and as always, I hope nobody rips your face off!
QUARTERMASS AND THE PIT (1967) AKA FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH
This movie freaks me out because I know in my heart of hearts that Martians really do look like grasshoppers! If you watch it back to back with LIFEFORCE (1985) you can witness the destruction of London twice!
RAW MEAT (1973) AKA DEATH LINE
Subway cannibals are the worst. I can't decide what recommends this seventies gem better, the fact that Legends DONALD PLEASENCE and CHRISTOPHER LEE are in it or the fact that the movie shares the same father (GARY SHERMAN) as two of my favorite babies, DEAD & BURIED and the goofy/spectacular POLTERGEIST III!
MIMIC (1997)
Any bug that doesn't fit under your shoe is a bad bug in my book! Alternate title: Romy and Roachy's Subway Reunion! Note: Director GUILLERMO DEL TORO would later go on to use a subway platform as a place of peril for a box of kittens in HELLBOY (2004).
AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)
The tube chase scene in AAWIN might have been the scariest bit in the movie if the movie did not also feature Nazi werewolves machine gunning children while they watch THE MUPPET SHOW.
JACOB'S LADDER/GHOST (1990)
Writer BRUCE JOEL RUBIN clearly understands the scare-potential of subways. Both of these 1990 flicks he penned feature a pivotal and/or creepy scene in one!
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN (1989)
Aw, remember when Jason decided to take Manhattan? And by "take" I mean stroll through it for ten minutes, drink some toxic sewage and turn into child. Worst itinerary ever, at least stop for a knish!
MANIAC (1980)
JOE SPINELL is here to tell you that there is something scarier than a subway station at night and that is a public restroom in a subway station at night.
POSSESSION (1981)
I put this on here because I clearly remember ISABELLE ADJANI gorgeously loosing her mind (among other things) in a subway station. I didn't realize somebody also stole her banana.
NEON MANIACS (1986)
Last thing I'd want to bump into on a subway is a neon maniac! Unless of course I had some water with me in which case I'd just throw water on them and they'd die. What more can I say about this incredible movie that I did not say HERE?
THE WIZ (1978)
So clearly there is no way to visit Oz without something totally traumatic happening. Oh God those horrible marionettes! More on this trauma-scene HERE.
THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN (2008)
This one didn't work for me as well as it should have and I think it's because I somehow find BRADLEY COOPER more unnerving than VINNIE JONES.
FINAL DESTINATION 3 (2006)
Congratulations FINAL DESTINATION series! You systematically ruined every possible means of transportation besides jetpack for me.
CREEP (2004)
This feature debut from CHRISTOPHER SMITH (SEVERANCE, TRIANGLE, BLACK DEATH) is as underrated as he is versatile. My only complaint is that the same titled RADIOHEAD song doesn't play over the closing credits. Run FRANKA run!
THE WARRIORS (1979)
Growing up a sheltered suburbanite, I was quit convinced that THE WARRIORS was an absolutely accurate depiction of life in the big city. What a disappointment! (Not that I would have joined "the warriors" anyway, I would have to go with the "punks" on account of the overalls.)
DRESSED TO KILL (1980)
I swear this list is not in any order but that doesn't mean I didn't save the best for last. It doesn't matter how many times I see this movie, it seems to get more suspenseful with every view. In addition, this allows me to close on a positive note because if the subway is a place where you might bump into NANCY ALLEN than it must not be so bad after all.
UPDATE: Oh great! Where I used to find a soothing poster of IDRIS ELBA drinking gin (above), I know find this…
Name That Trauma:: Cat_Pi on a Living Toy & a Creepy Grandmother
I just came across your fantastic site and think that you could help me! There are 2 movies I've been trying to figure out forever.
The first one is from the 70's or early 80's and I remember seeing a toy attack a woman. It might have been wooden and might have had a yellow pointed hat. I remember someone (the woman or maybe a man) chopping it up with an ax and then it came back together again. It might have been put into a bag at some point. I've researched tons of movies and haven't found it. It is not Trilogy of Terror, it may have been Asylum but still didn't seem right. This movie started my aversion to living toys. Any help would be great!
I also remember a movie or horror anthlogy show where a boy was crouched in the corner of a house while his creepy grandmother or someone called to him from the bedroom. I watched the trailer for Grandmother's House and I don't think this is it.
Thank you!
UNK SEZ: Ack! Not knowing the answer to a killer toy NTT drives me crazy! The only movie I can think of is PINOCCHIO's REVENGE! Pinocchio is wooden and he has a pointy hat- although it's blue rather than yellow. The bigger problem is that it's from 1996 which doesn't fit your timeline at all! Oh well, I need some kind of of image on this post, so up there he goes! Does anyone have a better guess out there? And what about that creepy grandma? Help us out! In the meantime, let's watch the trailer for PINOCCHIO'S REVENGE simply because it's awesome…
Name That Trauma:: Christine C. on a Spider Spewing Skull
Hello Kindertrauma,
I recently re-discovered your website the other day while messing around on Google, and while I am not a horror fan I must say that the stories and blogs you all post are quite fascinating. In fact it got me thinking of a childhood trauma that I still, to this day, can't seem to find or remember. Perhaps you could post this as a Name that Trauma feature.
I was watching tv with my family (it must have been in the early to mid-1980's) and the program broke away for some commercials. One commercial started out as a blank black screen, and, slowly, a skull emerged from the darkness. Once the skull was visible, a spider crawled out of its mouth. Then, a pair of eyes opened in the skull's sockets-EEEEEKKKKK!!!!! This last part reduced me to a sobbing, shaking ball in my mom's lap, and I don't rememer anything after that (except that I was forever terrified of disembodied eyes). Was it a movie? TV show? Promotion for some Halloween event? If any of your staff/forum members have any idea please post it. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Christine C. in Albuquerque, NM
P.S. Some other traumatizing (but not nearly as destructive) moments from my youth include Lou Ferrigno as The Incredible Hulk, the Tyranosaurus Rex puppet from The Land of The Lost, and the evil laugh at the end of Michael Jackson's hit song "Thriller".
UNK SEZ: I think I've got this one Christine! It sounds like what you caught was a TV spot for HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH! The ad begins with a black screen (and some horrifying kiddie laughter) and then a witch's face appears (which could easily be mistaken for a skull). The face looms closer to reveal a spider crawling out of its mouth and we then close on two very disturbing eyes! I remember catching this on TV myself and I agree it's a doozy! It's one of those superior ads that lets your imagination run wild by not showing any scenes from the movie at all!
Post Childhood Traumafession:: Mickster on The Strangers (2008)
I was still married when I first saw The Strangers (2008). The movie really scared me, and I was not anxious to watch it again. The thought of random killers invading the sanctity of my home with the intent to murder me was truly unsettling. My niece had her own traumatizing experience watching the movie, so sometimes we taunt each other about watching the movie again. We generally have the same response of, "Not just no, but Hell no!" each time. Fast forward to the fall of 2011, I was in the midst of turmoil as I was going through a divorce. Due to the uncertainty of my situation, I was already on edge and as a result, I stopped watching horror films. One particular Friday night, I said, "The Hell with this," and decided I was going to watch a movie from my favorite genre. As my status on Facebook, I said I was going to watch a horror movie and did anyone have any suggestions as to which one I should watch. My niece, of course, taunted me with The Strangers.
So, I decided that perhaps I would watch it again. I set about doing my evening chores; so I could sit down to view the movie. I was almost done when my doorbell rang. It did not just ring once; it was a double ring. I was startled because I was not expecting any visitors. I quietly peaked out my front window to see if there was a car in the driveway. There was nothing in the driveway, and it was completely dark outside. I, of course, did not open the front door, and I immediately set my alarm system to instant. The doorbell did not ring again, but the damage was done. I was completely unsettled and spooked. I did not watch The Strangers that night; in fact, I did not watch any horror movies that night. I have since told my niece that if she wants to me to watch the movie again she will have to come to my house to watch it with me and spend the night otherwise my response will be a definite, "No way in Hell!"
UNK SEZ: Thanks Mickster! What a great idea to write about a movie that traumatized you as an adult! I have a few of those myself! If anybody else out there was freaked out by a film that they saw when they were fully grown we'd love to hear about it! Who says you have to be a kid to be traumatized?
