Author: unkle lancifer

A little while ago (September 30th) Kindertrauma celebrated its 6th anniversary! I'm guessing we still have tons of ground to cover, as I haven't even shared all of my own hoarded traumas yet! Case in point, 1975's RACE WITH THE DEVIL! Oh man, how this one used to terrify me in the best possible way. I recently revisited this childhood favorite and although it doesn't chill me to the bone quite the way it used to, it surely brings back memories of being thoroughly frightened and excited at the same time. Here are some of the elements that helped RACE WITH THE DEVIL make my kiddie heart race…

CAUGHT SPYING!

Our story finds two couples on vacation in an RV stumbling upon a Satanic sacrifice and being hunted down as unwanted witnesses by the participants. As their wives hang out within the comfort of the vehicle, drinking buddies Roger and Frank (PETER FONDA & WARREN OATES) share a pair of binoculars, jokingly hoping that the semi-nude ritual they are seeing will turn out to be an orgy. No such luck. When Frank's spouse Alice (LORETTA SWIT) loudly calls curfew on the two peepers the Satanists are alerted and our vacationers must scramble to escape with their lives.

As a kid I could relate to the idea of getting into trouble for viewing what I was not supposed to. You see, when it first came on TV, I was not allowed to watch THREE'S COMPANY because it was too risqué! This meant that after LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY was over, I would routinely pretend to go to bed and then watch it from the second floor between the staircase bannister. How do you like that? I was allowed to watch human sacrifices in RACE WITH THE DEVIL but not three people living together out of wedlock in THREE'S COMPANY! I guess we were a typical American family; boobs were acceptable as long as they were stabbed and followed by a car chase.

SATANISTS!

I know its hard to believe but there was a time when I thought Satan worshipers were the most dangerously insane religious group! Flash forward a couple decades and it's clear they'd have to try much harder to earn that ranking!

SUSPICIOUS OLDERS!

As a kid I found old people, with the obvious exception of Granny from THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, creepy. It wasn't because they were wrinkly, it was because I was constantly force-fed the idea that they were good-natured and wise when my actual encounters with them revealed them to be grumpy, scornful and generally irrational. If you are old and I have hurt your feelings, please console yourself by eating some gross candy that nobody else wants.

UNTRUSTWORTHY AUTHORITY FIGURES!

When you're a kid you are told that if ever you should find yourself in trouble, you can always count on the police. One need only get a gander of the boar head hanging on this guy's wall to realize that might not always be the case.

RATTLESNAKE IN THE CUPBOARD!

If only I could travel back in time and share with my younger self the true stats of how many times I would encounter rattlesnakes, tarantulas, sharks and the metric system throughout my life.

PET DEATH!

Truth be known, I'd rather see a packed school bus burst into flame and fall off a 500-foot bridge into icy waters than a dog suffering a splinter. Hanging a dog, even if you are a devout Satanist, is inexcusable! Making trauma matters all the more dire for mini-Unk is the fact that the pet dog slain in RACE WITH THE DEVIL is named Ginger; that was my beloved childhood pooch's name!

LORETTA SWIT!

Normally I'm one to recommend the casting of baggage-free unknowns in horror films but utilizing a recognizable presence has its perks too. All children of the seventies must be familiar with LORETTA SWIT as, if I recall correctly, her show M.A.S.H. was shown in reruns approximately eighty million times a day. SWIT played tough cookie Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan. Witnessing the usually uber-competent SWIT turn to terrorized jelly in the face of her Satanic attackers in RWTD was to kid–me an unsettling signifier of just how bad the situation was.

TRAGIC RV TRASHING!

While my brothers were fond of drawing dragsters, as a kid I would draw vans and RV's so that I might fuss over their stylish interiors. If that makes me sound like a homemaker in training, let me add that I made sure to draw gun turrets on my dream vehicle's roof to destroy all enemies. Seeing a supped up machine like the one in RACE (it has a microwave!) needlessly trashed and damaged was pure tragedy in my young eyes!

STOLEN LIBRARY BOOKS!

God bless every movie that features a "gathering information" scene in a library! They always make me happy! In RACE's requisite research bit, the two wives (SWIT and LARA PARKER) drop by the local library to dig into some tomes about witches. They find two books that suite their needs but are told by a librarian (script supervisor JOYCE KING according to IMDb) that because the books are reference books, they can't be checked out. Their lives on the line, the desperate ladies swipe the books! Unbelievable though it may be considering all the Satanic panic going on, kid-me actually had the nerve to feel some anxiety over this thievery! You're not supposed to steal books from the library! That's not allowed! I was placated slightly when SWIT and PARKER make a pledge that after they escaped with their lives they would send the books back by mail! I hope I'm not ruining the movie for you when I tell you that I have very little faith those books were ever returned.

I'm 15 and have watched almost every horror movie I can think of since I was little but there was just one thing I couldn't bare to watch without crawling out of my mothers arms and screaming! It was the purple dancing star, the logo of the Comedy Channel on Foxtel (formally known as Austar). I don't know what it is about it but it just makes me cringe! The ad always came on before my parents favourite show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" so they would have to wait 2 minutes for the show to start and then watch it. I wish I knew what it was that scared me so much!

From Leticia

UNK SEZ: Thanks for this truly stellar traumafession Leticia! Don't feel strange about getting the willies from a mere logo, we'e gotten traumafessions concerning those before! You've also reminded me of the brilliant short THE S FROM HELL! Have fun relating to that film below!

Hi, Psychonator here with a traumafession inspired by the traumafession posted by Dr. Future about a Sesame Street milk related horror. I'm just a little too old for the Sesame Street traumas, since I was eleven in 1970, but there is a lactose related trauma I'd like to share.

When I was a small-fry (probably around seven) I used to watch a show sponsored by "Twin Pines Milk," who's spokesperson was a realllly creepy clown known as "Milky." He hosted a show broadcast from Detroit called "Milky's Movie Party."

This clip is from a much earlier version of Milky. This guy passed away and the creepy-baton was passed onto an even creepier incantation.

Here's the way I remember him. Kinda' John Wayne Gacy, doncha' think?

Now, if you think I've wasted your time with this account (what's so creepy about a clown, right?) well…

At the tender age of seven, I missed my bus home and had a twelve block walk home in snow that came up to my crotch, so freshly fallen that none of the sidewalks had been cleared. I struggled the first few blocks in tears. Lo and behold, who should come along than a Twin Pines Milk delivery truck, emblazoned with Milky the Clown's visage. The driver slowed, following my stumbling progress: an innocent, vulnerable seven year old child. He asked if I wanted a ride. Well, even with all my parent's lecturing of NEVER excepting a ride from a stranger, I willingly took up the offer. I began rethinking my decision once we were on our way. I made it home without incident and the driver gave me an autographed copy of Milky, which I quickly destroyed once inside my house. I knew better than to ever breath a word of this lapse in judgement to my parents!

I entered the first grade in 1970, which meant that my class was one of the first to enter an era of modern "experimentation" on our young minds, as guinea pigs of the newly minted "education technocrats" trained in the 1960s. This was the beginning of "new math" and "set theory", and new ways of learning; gone was "Dick and Jane", and even the old schoolhouse. I entered a new school with "mod" lowercase lettering on the doors, "open" floor plans, mentally soothing environments and new textbooks and ways of learning.

It was also the beginning of the era of "Sesame Street" – the biggest national mass-education "psy op" ever devised (Papa Joe Stalin would have been proud). I and my peers took the maiden voyage on that ship. Gone was Howdy Doody and learning to say your prayers and listen to Mom and Dad; it was replaced by multi-cultural harmony, saying "nope to dope", and an urban consciousness. Much of it was fun, like the guy that would bring in 27 cream pies and fall down the steps, or the "manamana" song. However, there were dark elements as well – and I don't mean just the Grouch and the Count, when Mr. Hooper died, or the frustration of Mr. Snuffelupogas disappearances. Elements of it were haunting, to me at least, right up to today.

I have always had this dim memory in the cobwebs of my mind of a Sesame Street film, in their tender folksy style, about cows, with the recurring refrain, "Hey cow…I see you now" (I know that sounds weird to hold on to). The memory itself creeped me out, in its schmaltzy, saccharine way like when you meet a burned out hippie who is just a little TOO MUCH in touch with his feelings. Inspired by Kindertrauma and my peers here, I recently commenced to searching for this enigmatic piece of celluloid on my local Youtube, and voila! There it was all along, in all its creepy, washed-out ‘70s glory…

As I relived it, watching it again for the first time in 44 or so years, I was immediately transported back to my favorite purple jeans with hippie flowers, polo shirt and Donald Duck cup (or a Great Shakes cup full of Nestle's Quik), watching the black and white Heathkit portable TV that Dad built, curled up in a chair in the kitchen. And yes – it was just as creepy as it ever was. Beyond the grainy, porn-like video quality and watching grown men grab the extremities of large animals, most importantly it was accompanied by the most unnerving folk/soft rock love ballad, directed lovingly to a cow – a style perfect for bestial love-making, with the haunting refrain of "Hey cow…I see you now" as he gently strokes the acoustic guitar strings.

The composer, Joe Raposo, was evidently famous for composing the Sesame Street theme and a host of other theme songs for iconic ‘70s TV shows, but if it were me, I would have immediately put his name on a neighborhood watch list. The pinnacle of the video, if you choose to indulge, is around 3:52 into the voyeuristic film where a man grabs the swollen nipple/udder of a cow, and SQUIRTS IT HORIZONTALLY FOR A NUMBER OF FEET, UNTIL IT FLOWS DIRECTLY INTO THE OPEN MOUTH OF A SMALL CHILD! I felt dirty after watching it and felt a need to report it to somebody, but if you watch it, you will know what I mean – it was the reason cinematic censorship was justified. I will never be the same, having seen it again. We see in the film that this "Hellfire Club" of barnyard sin and debauchery is brought directly and innocently into each of our very homes, with every carton of milk we bring home. I don't know if I can even use those little creamer cups for gas station coffee anymore.

Well, having conquered my fears and confronted them directly, like identifying a body in the morgue, I will try to move on in life, although I am afraid the haunting melody is only etched ever deeper. At least now I know it is real and not my imagination, and as G.I. Joe says, "Now we know what's wrong, and that's half of solving the problem". I know that's why this shared quest is why destiny brought us all here together at Kindertrauma.