Author: unkle lancifer
Name That Trauma:: Brandon B. on a Blue Ghost, a Headless Instructor & Dog Food Dining
Hi, I have three entries. These three did not necessarily scar me for life, but they have chilled me to the bone since I was a kid.
1) A dark-haired woman is seen in her bright white light kitchen, the woman is wearing a bathrobe or raincoat and is cooking something in her pot of boiling water on the stove. The woman (quite starving) opens her nearly empty refrigerator, moving jars around, and finds a can of dog (?) food. She feeds it to her small grayish white dog (might have been a cat) pouring some food in the bowl. She kneels on the floor, if I remember correctly, and begins eating some of the pet food. As her dog comes rushing into the room, she stares at it with this horrible greenish face. I saw this in 1990-1992, but someone said (unfortunately, they just remember as much as I do) they saw it in the mid-‘80s. There might have been a scene where this hand comes out of the pot grabbing the woman pulling her face into the pot.
2) A woman is lying in her pitch dark bedroom. She might be in a hotel. She hears a noise, asks if anyone is there, and then we see a walking/floating ghost hidden underneath a blue sheet. The ghost is seen in the hallway, eventually making its way up two steps of banisters. When it does, the woman calls out a name; I think the name of her former lover. No answer, the ghost flies towards her. The woman does nothing, but stares up at it, fussing, screaming, trying to kick it away with her legs. I saw this around 1990-1991.
3) A late teen (wearing black clothes, pulled back light brown hair) is seen walking in a vacant classroom towards the front of the room. As she walks, a disembodied head of a young man (probably her instructor) flies throughout the room eventually landing on its corpse, which we see resting beneath the blackboard, near the front desk. I saw this sometime around 1987.
(All were shot in color; all I saw on TV, #1 and #2, I think, are night shots, while #3 is a day shot)
I know this is not much to go on, but can anyone here please help me? I asked all around, and no one knows.
Sunday Viewing Suggestion:: Billy V. on Tim Burton's Hansel & Gretel
Reader Billy V. wrote in and suggested that we feature TIM BURTON'S HANSEL & GRETEL today for our weekly Sunday Viewing and that's just what we're going to do. Legend has it that this short flick aired only once on the Disney Channel way back in the greatest year that ever happened, 1982! It's not hard to see why BURTON's vision was quietly hidden under Micky Mouse's rug, it tastes like it's marinated in Kindertrauma sauce! Yikes, that witch looks like the lead singer for THE CULT and acts like SEAN YOUNG pitching for a part in a movie! She really gives JOAN COLLINS in the SHELLEY DUVALL version a run for her money! And don't get me started on that gingerbread man. Ya know what? This is so wacked-out and off the wall that I find I am now finally ready to forgive TIM BURTON for being behind the lowest point in cinema history, the breakdancing Mad Hatter scene from ALICE IN WONDERLAND. I'm just going to forget it ever happened! Thanks for the treat Billy V.!
Mickster's Mighty Match-Up Funhouse
Last week when I told our old pal Mickster I planned to do a funhouse based on FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES, she came up with the idea to have a puzzle where you matched up the show's villains with their proper cursed objects. I told her that was a swell idea but I wasn't going to do it on account of I was way too lazy. Undaunted by my chronic slothfulness, Mickster took matters into her own hands and snagged those images herself. Thanks Mickster, you have gone above and beyond the call of duty! Now, can you folks match the characters with the objects that made them crazy?
The Horror of:: WKRP in Cincinnati
We got rid of all our non-basic cable and now ironically, I seem to be finding more stuff to watch on TV. There's a channel that shows movies all day and a channel that shows sitcoms all day and what else do you need (as long as you still have Netflix, Redbox, your local library, a collection of your own and the ever expanding universe of YouTube)? I guess I'm not going to miss all of those cipher channels stuffed with Styrofoam peanuts after all.
Anyway, the other night I was flipping through my wonderfully limited choices and I came across an old episode of WKRP IN CINCINNATI that I instantly remembered from my youth. In it, the crew of the radio station is hired to sing a jingle for a funeral home. I'm not sure if it was the first episode I ever saw but it was definitely the first one that struck me (the second one that struck me involved turkeys). Part of its ingraining power on me I'm sure is thanks to the fact that involves a jingle and jingles by design are meant to get under your skin.
More importantly though, the jingle in question mocks death and as a young person who had serious issues with the concept, I found it hilarious, as if some infallible bully of mine was being roasted. I tend to closely connect my appreciation for this type black humor to my love of horror. It's always soothing to whistle past the graveyard and there's something cathartic about minimalizing the second biggest thing that will ever happen to you. In any case, this ditty has been worming through my noggin all week…
Doesn't that Henry Kane looking mo-fo mortician, the brilliantly named "Mr. Ferryman" (Don't Pay The Ferryman!) look familiar to you? I looked him up and that guy, FRED STUTHMAN played the horrible dead ghoul dad who gets his face slashed in THE SENTINEL! What's more, FRED started his acting career as Chicago TV horror host "Jeeper's Creeper"!
This would not be a complete "The Horror of.." segment if I did not go through the WKRP cast's contributions to our beloved genre so here goes…
GARY SANDY (Andy Travis) was in TROLL (1986)
GORDON JUMP (Arthur ‘Big Guy' Carlson) was not only in the kindertraumiest episode of DIFF'RENT STROKES "The Bicycle Man," he was also in the awesome TV-movie MIDNIGHT OFFERINGS (1981)
HOWARD HESSEMAN (Dr. Johnny Fever) was in ROB ZOMBIE's HALLOWEEN II (2009)
FRANK BONNER (Herb Tarlek)'s acting debut was in the cult classic EQUINOX (1970)
RICHARD SANDERS (Less Nessman) was in the ANNA FARIS post-SCREAM slasher LOVER's LANE (2000)
TIM REID (Venus Flytrap) was of course, in the TV mini-Series IT (1990)
The ladies of WKRP sadly skipped the horror trail altogether but…JAN SMITHERS (Bailey Quarters) did star alongside P.J. SOLES in OUR WINNING SEASON the same year SOLES was in HALLOWEEN (1978) and LONI ANDERSON (Jennifer Marlowe) was married to BURT REYNOLDS star of the beyond horrifying RENT-A-COP (1987)!
Traumafession:: Bill S. on G.I. Joe's There's No Place Like Springfield
In or around 1985, the popular G.I. JOE cartoon aired an episode that was unlike anything seen for children's programming.
The episode was titled, 'There's No Place Like Springfield'. This episode found the character, Shipwreck, waking up to a place that is unfamiliar to him. He's told things that don't make sense to him. Shipwreck's mind slowly starts to unravel as he tries to determine what is real and what is illusion.
This is a psychological thriller, culminating in some horrifying visuals for children.
Here's some moments from this episode!
Traumafession:: Bill S. on Monster Club (1980)
In the late '80s or early '90s, I caught the last 40 minutes of a horror film that was truly chilling.
'The Monster Club' is a film split into 3 vignettes.
In the last one, a man drives into a mysterious village and slowly discovers the townspeople do not want him to leave. He then meets a young girl who decides to help him attempt escape.
The ending has a fantastic twist!
The rest of the film stars Vincent Price and other Hollywood old-schoolers and features an all star soundtrack as well. (The animated, dancing skeleton scene is infamous!)
Anyway, I've set up this youtube link to start at exactly the last story. Enjoy!
Father's Day Viewing:: Haunts of the Very Rich (1972)
Happy Father's Day! Today I submit for your viewing pleasure the very father-tastic made-for-TV flick, 1972's HAUNTS OF THE VERY RICH. It stars the father of JEFF & BEAU BRIDGES, LLOYD BRIDGES, Mary Richards' father figure ED ASNER, America's most favorite dad ROBERT REED as a reverend (or father), TONY BILL who fathered one of my favorite movies, FIVE CORNERS, CLORIS LEACHMAN who played somebody who shared the same father as Mrs. Garrett on THE FACTS OF LIFE and the father of Julie's baby on ONE DAY AT A TIME, MICHAEL LEMBECK.
This sorta reads like a precursor to that show by TORI SPELLING's pop, FANTASY ISLAND although it's sadly HERVE VILLECHAIZE-free. It's about a bunch of rich people who get trapped on an island and thanks to forces beyond their understanding, come to realize how wretched existence is when hopes are dangled in your face like carrots on strings and repeatedly snatched away. If I could throw us all in a time machine back to the days when this flick's SARTRE-lite rug-pull was still a mind blower, I would but Father Time just won't allow it. Thankfully, seventies era slo-mo shots and background music brandishing hellish death sirens singing "ahhhh-ahhh" will always retain their eternal creepy power ‘round here. Enjoy, and have a mutha of a Father's Day.
Name That Trauma:: Andy on Cannibalistic Sorority Sisters
Hey,
I have a trauma that I have been thinking about lately and I was wondering if someone could help me out. I want to say that it is a movie from the eighties/maybe early nineties. It involved a group of sorority girls who (I believe) were part of some cult or something. Anyway, the only part I really remember is the very end when some guys were running from these murderous girls and they were at the bottom of a set of stairs. A head comes rolling down it and there is a voice from one of the sorority sisters saying something to the fact that these girls have to finish every single bite of these guys or they would be punished (implying that they were in fact cannibals). I'm sorry, but that is all I remember other then the fact that it was a cheesy horror flick and/or part of an anthology (whether film-wise or on TV). Your site has greatly helped me out in the past so I was hoping for more of the same now!
Thanks,
Andy
