kindertrauma

Author: unkle lancifer

Piranha (1978)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

On the surface, 1978's PIRANHA may look like a throw away JAWS rip off but thanks to the talents involved, it's a B-movie masterstroke that lovingly recalls the monster movie heyday of the fifties. I have fond memories of PIRANHA's television premiere and the spirited frenzy of conversation it spawned at the elementary school bus stop the next day. With a theatrical remake around the corner (a cable version was made in 1995) directed by HIGH TENSION's ALEXANDRE AJA and presented in 3-D, I think it's high time we take a look back and examine just what made this ROGER CORMAN produced classic so special…

JOE DANTE

In 1978, director JOE DANTE was in peak form and poised to deliver a string of hits including THE HOWLING, GREMLINS and undoubtedly the most imaginative segment of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. His collage of cartoon humor, twisted gore and blatant self-awareness are commonplace today, but only because DANTE paved the way.

JOHN SAYLES

He would later move on to become Oscar bait (LONE STAR, PASSION FISH) but thank God he spent some time in the trenches and gifted B-movie fans the likes of ALLIGATOR, BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS and his two collaborations with DANTE, THE HOWLING and PIRANHA.

PINO DONAGGIO

Can you ask for a better composer then the guy who did CARRIE? (Not to mention DRESSED TO KILL, DON'T LOOK NOW and TOURIST TRAP among countless others.) I know I can't.

LOVABLE HEROES

A drunk (BRADFORD DILLMAN of BUG and THE MEPHISTO WALTZ) and a snoopy reporter (HEATHER MENZIES from SSSSSSS), who let's face it, cause the entire piranha problem themselves by foolishly emptying a pool at a research facility. Extra props for the quickest "How do you do? Let's screw!" this side of JOHN CARPENTER's THE FOG.

INDELIBLE SCENES

Years of psychotherapy are predicted for this kid who watches helplessly as his dad becomes fish food and what about that old guy whose feet get eaten off?

KINDERTRAUMA IN ACTION

That drunk's kid is rightfully hydrophobic but that doesn't stop her from jumping on an inflatable raft and saving her favorite camp counselor (frequent DANTE player BELINDA BALASKI.) Way to overcome your fears Suzie!

KEVIN McCARTHY

Here's a tip, if KEVIN McCARTHY (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS ‘56) warns you about something, no matter how outlandish it sounds, BELIEVE HIM.

BARBARA STEELE

I'll let this legend's eyes do the talking.

PAUL BARTEL

I know he's supposed to be a jerk in this but who can hate the one and only PAUL BARTEL?

DICK MILLER

What JOE DANTE movie would be complete without this guy?

THAT WEIRD SOUND THE PIRANHA MAKE

Forget the JAWS theme, I'm all about the crazy whirly whirl sound that tells you that you are currently being chomped on by a school of killer PIRANHA!

LATE SEVENTIES FASHION

Really? People walked around like this?

AND FINALLY THIS GUY…

So many questions: Who is he? What does he know? When does he get his own movie? Where can I buy one? Can I feed him after midnight?

Name That Trauma :: Reader Sebastian on a Hit & Run Hag

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Hey guys and girls,

Great site, I thought perhaps you could help me with my own scary vague memory/trauma from childhood.

I saw it sometime in the early ‘90s, but the film might be a bit older. The scene I remember is when the main characters, a man and a woman, are trying to escape from a village where some bad stuff has taken place (which I can't remember…)

So they're in the car driving away but don't seem to be getting anywhere. In fact, they keep passing this creepy old lady on a creepy old bicycle. They can't escape, everything just repeats itself, and they aren't getting any further from the bad place.

At one point they actually hit the old lady on her bike; the two people get out of the car to check if she's alright, but she's dead. They stand there for a bit discussing what to do, then when they turn back to the body of the old lady, she's gone…

This is all I remember, it would be so great if you knew per chance where this scene is from, I would love to relive it.

Keep up the good work!

Sebastian

UNK SEZ: I might be wrong here, but I think you're talking about JOHN CARPENTER's IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS. It's actually an old man that gets hit and seems to momentarily disappear, but I've heard him being mistaken for an old woman before (probably due to the long hair.) He's shown as a young boy at first but as he tries to escape the town of Hobb's End he appears to turn into an old man. After he is hit, he says in a young boy's voice, "They won't let me out."

It may be the creepiest scene in the film and the way its shot is truly nightmarish. I also wonder if it was a partial inspiration for this scary (and Kindertraumatic) music video from BATS FOR LASHES…

The Burrowers

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Regardless of the sparkling buzz, I have been avoiding THE BURROWERS. Yes, I'm shallow, the DVD case turned me off and I feared it was going to be some dusty, sepia-toned worm-run-amuck movie (although come to think of it, that doesn't sound so bad.) What finally piqued my curiosity was learning that it spawned from the mind of J.T. PETTY who made the compact, claustrophobic and marvelously against the grain MIMIC 3: THE SENTINEL. (Add that fact to the film's current hand reach availability on Fearnet and my being semi-voluntarily confined to an ALF snuggie and you have yourself a sealed deal.)

Hooray for my noodle limp resolve, THE BURROWERS is worm free, my new crush JOCELIN DONAHUE (THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL) is in the first scene (though not much more), and rather than being crusty and dusty, it's a beautifully shot film that answers that question nobody ever asked, " What if TERRENCE MALICK directed ALIEN?"

Now before you slip on your Sketchers and run to the video store, I mean mailbox, I mean computer or remote (if you should also have Fearnet) let me warn you that this movie paces itself much like a classic western so it requires a certain amount of patience. This means no squirmy monster dessert until you've eaten all your peas! The peas here are pretty tasty and fortifying though, you might just like them.

When a frontier family disappears in the dead of night it's reckoned by all that it must be the work of Indians. A search party is formed that includes a young Irish immigrant named Fergus (likable MIMIC 3 star KARL GEARY) whose heart belongs to one of the missing. As the group of men ventures further into the wild they discover that their assumptions are way off and that something sinister is UNDER foot.

As if creatures that poison and then bury their victims underground only to chomp on their "soft bits" later were not bad enough, our rag tag cavalry is plagued with willful ignorance, covert agendas and a douche-y guy who purposely mistranslates the native tongue to suit his own needs. Yep, a bit more effort in the communication department may have saved some lives here folks, that and a smidge of respect for the land. See, the "burrowers" used to dine on buffalo but with no more buffalo around eating humans is their only recourse. Don't judge, desperation can make you eat anything; how else can you explain airplane food? (ba-dum-bump!)

THE BURROWERS slowly unspools the suspense, like the aforementioned ALIEN it mischievously plays with darkness and shadow to keep the viewer on edge. There's also a rather compelling drama here about a group of men playing king of the hill to their own detriment. It even ultimately touches upon accepting loss and the fact that some things just can't be made right again thanks to the larger powers at play. It also stars the one and only CLANCY BROWN, maybe I should have mentioned that in the first place.

Triangle

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I'm on board for any horror movie (or psychological thriller) that takes place on a boat. Tell me that the movie in question is directed and written by CHRISTOPHER SMITH, the guy responsible for both the too often miscounted CREEP and the gruesomely hilarious SEVERANCE, and I'm that much more excited. I'm not sure I understood everything that took place in TRIANGLE and yes, there were moments where I found the film, due to its construction, to be teetering toward tedium but what do you know, it's quite a hard film to shake out of your head.

TRIANGLE introduces us to Jess (MELISSA GEORGE) a young mother of an autistic boy who accepts the offer to take a boat trip with a potential new beau and his buddies. Soon, an ominous storm kicks the crap out of said boat and the survivors are forced to take refuge in a seemingly abandoned ocean liner where the only R&R encountered is "run" and "repeat"(thanks to a masked assailant with a gun.) Sounds simple, but trust me it's not. If there's anything more complex then the ocean liner's maze of corridors, it's what's going on in Jess's fractured psyche. Girl brought baggage.

SMITH smuggles on some familiar asides (including an eerie encounter with a room marked 237 courtesy of THE SHINING), but there are several eye burning visuals that are as fresh as they come. Without ruining anything (you'll notice I did not include the film's trailer here; it's a exercise in T.M.I.), I'll tell ya, one shot, which involves one of the films victims crawling through a mass of past victims, is a real brain-rattling stunner. SMITH can be a bit of a magpie, collecting usable bits from past films but he admirably twists them into forms you have not encountered before more times than not. The whole bright, blanched look of the film is a welcome respite from the usual gritty grunge.

Since I don't want to speak too much of the trippy, ROD SERLING would be proud course TRIANGLE ends up taking, let us talk a moment about MELISSA GEORGE who you might remember from 2005's AMITYVILLE HORROR and 30 DAYS OF NIGHT. I admit that my first thought upon seeing her on screen was "Oh, RADHA MITCHELL must have been too busy that day." But damn if GEORGE doesn't deliver one of the best performances in a horror movie I've seen all year. She takes a difficult character, one that's almost frustratingly obtuse and somehow you don't want to leave her side. In many instances her facial expressions are all the audience has to go on and director SMITH uses them to his advantage repeatedly. Whatever TRIANGLE's faults (it does have its lax moments) it showcases an absolutely winning marriage between director and star.

Kindertrauma Funhouse :: Decade Round-Up!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Since it's New Year's Day, I thought I'd share 20 swatches from the posters of 20 of my favorite horror movies of the last decade. Can you guess the movies?

Disclaimer: There are a lot of great movies missing from this list (I don't think there are too many left field surprises though). I'm not claiming that these movies are superior to any others, just that these are the ones that resonated the most with yours truly for whatever arbitrary reason.

Furthermore, because I try to have an open mind rather than a stagnant one, my opinion is subject to change at the drop of a dime. In other words, take it all with a grain of salt. I'm already regretting not including the fascinating HOSTEL based solely on my bitter feelings toward its director (by the way ELI, enough with the texting, if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it.), THE DARK HOURS (simply because I don't think many people have seen it.) and the genre-defying masterpieces MULHOLLAND DR. and IRREVERSIBLE.

I also think (with one exception) that I was prejudiced against newer titles just because it's way too soon to say whether I'm madly in love or just crushing on them.

Also: If you don't feel like guessing, leave a comment telling all of us about your own favorite films of the decade anyway. One commenter is going to win the beautiful noir comic THE CHILL by JASON STARR (art by MICK BERTILORENZI) courtesy of our pals at DC!

A Kindertrauma Look Back At 2009!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

HOME VIDEO…

REVAMPED CLASSICS

My lifelong dream of seeing 1981's MY BLOODY VALENTINE in its uncut form came true thanks to LIONSGATE, ANCHOR BAY gave fans the gift of HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME complete with its original score, and SCORPION ENTERTAINMENT dusted off the criminally overlooked slasher SILENT SCREAM and decorated it with a plethora of worthy extras. No doubt about it, the DVD gods were generous in 2009.

TRUE MIND BLOWERS

Hey, at least buy my brain dinner before you have your way with it like that! The Spanish language [REC] scorched retinas with truly horrific imagery while dispensing mounting cinema verite style hysteria, EDEN LAKE supplied the most depressing ending known to man, and MARTYRS was a hand grenade aimed at your very soul. I thought I had seen everything but I'm still searching for the socks these three blew off my feet.

STRAIGHT-TO-DVD NO LONGER MEANS CRAP!

I can't stop watching or singing the praises of Norway's COLD PREY, the U.K.'s THE CHILDREN effortlessly breathed new life into our favorite pet sub-genre, and SPLINTER conjured up memories of vintage JOHN CARPENTER. Movie theaters better step up their game if they want us shut-ins to walk away from the boob tube.

THE WORST OF HOME VIDEO

OFFSPRING squandered decent source material and made it almost laughable, yet WRONG TURN 3 screwed the pooch in just such a way that the poor pup is still having trouble walking straight. Sorry WRONG TURN 3, you win at being the biggest loser.

THE BEST

TRICK ‘R TREAT proved that some times positive hype can be pinpoint accurate. Let's hear it for an undebatable instant classic that made many of the theatrically released movies released this year look paler than the Pillsbury Doughboy in comparison.

TELEVISION BEST AND WORST

TRUE BLOOD's bite may have been a bit uneven in its second season but who cares when MICHELLE FORBES is shaking it on screen? Critics and audiences may have turned their noses up at HARPER'S ISLAND but anyone smart enough to stick around for the finale knows that the slasher as miniseries concept was an innovation that really worked. Man, I wish there was a second season to look forward to!

On the other side of the spectrum lies the SYFY channels CHILDREN OF THE CORN retelling. The 1984 version left nowhere to go but up, yet somehow this redundant redo found a way to burrow itself deep into the soil.

MOVIES!!!

WHO WOULDA THUNK…THIS AIN'T JUNK?

SORORITY ROW's final reveal sucked like a dirt devil but the rest of it played like a flashy, slashy tribute with surprisingly decent kills. JENNIFER'S BODY, when it wasn't talking your ear off with annoying dialogue, delivered an engrossing bird's eye view of a once symbiotic relationship on the brink of implosion. THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT out maneuvered its dated source material left AND right and is it wrong to kind of sort of love its crazy out of place microwave epilogue?

MANY HAPPY RETURNS!

Only a pick in the mud could deny the in-your-face charms of seeing Harry Warden resurrected in MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D, THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL rewound VHS nostalgia while reminding us all how much we missed not only MARY WORONOV but (who knew?) THE FIXX, and Norway's DEAD SNOW pelted us with a new rendition of the long thought dead Nazi zombie film. Screw the future, what has it ever done for us? The past is where it's at!

SOPHISTICATED KID FLICKS!

CORALINE (in 3-D or otherwise) spun a dark fairy tale that warned of the results of selling your soul for the false idea of perfection. Think of it as a sort of kiddie version of THE STEPFORD WIVES and an inevitable starter kit for future goths. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE confronted childhood feelings of social disconnect and populated its fantasy world with monsters battling a lifetime's worth of neurosis. Both films steadfastly refused to dumb down their vision based on their assumed target audience while loudly preaching that most timeless of kid flick mantras, "There's no place like home."

FEED YOUR HEAD!

These aren't your granny's zombie films! PONTYPOOL married GEORGE ROMERO and ERIC BOGOSIAN with H.G. WELLS serving as justice of the peace. Communication and language itself stood accused of being responsible for the modern brain dead mob. Extra tip of the hat for supplying the year's best tagline with "Shut up or die." DEADGIRL's (s)icky premise spoke volumes about the darkest side of human sexuality with its "nothing to lose" outsiders discovering an even more injured creature than themselves to objectify and exploit. The living dead have been begging for brains for decades, in 2009 they got them!

MAYBE IT'S ME

Try as I might, I had a difficult time falling under the spell of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY; the film that others claimed kept them awake at night put me right to sleep. I dug GRACE's early nods to ROMAN POLANSKI but I thought the second half suffered from the cinematic equivalent to S.I.D.S. Don't go be me though kids, ROB ZOMBIE's critically burned at the stake HALLOWEEN 2, which tenaciously insisted on looking at the slasher sequel through grandiose art house goggles, left me smiling like a doped up jack-o-lantern.

NOT WITHOUT MY MOTHER!

Say what you will about ROB ZOMBIE's sophomore venture into Haddonfield, Illinois, for better or for worse, at least he remembered to bring along all of the franchise's major players. 2009's FRIDAY THE 13TH made the critical error of throwing momma from the train right after the opening credits! The result? A needlessly heartless re-slash!

SOMETHING WE CAN ALL AGREE ON

I've noticed that THE UNBORN sunk to the bottom of many a year-end list for 2009 and I could not agree more. Usually I pride myself on being able to find at least one redeemable quality in a movie, but this aptly titled abomination resisted all such efforts. Some claim it was written by DAVID S. GOYER, the guy responsible for BATMAN BEGINS (and somewhat more impressively DEMONIC TOYS), I'm not sure if "written" is the right word… "excreted" perhaps?

A WELCOME RETURN

Horror legend SAM RAIMI proved that mainstream success hasn't made him such a big-shot that he can't get his hands dirty (or covered in vomit) with the classic upon arrival DRAG ME TO HELL. The story may have been D.C. comic simplistic but thanks to SAM's virtuoso touch, a refreshingly "thems the brakes" ending and a scene stealing goat, I honestly never even noticed it was PG-13. SAM, you've been wasting yourself on guys in tights!

BEST USE OF COYOTE UGLY ALUMNI

Sorry MUMMY III: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR, but we're having a hard time swallowing a British accented MARIA BELLO. On the other hand, we had no problem at all believing that we could catch something contagious from PIPER "Jersey" PIRABO in CARRIERS. Pipe down and don't bellow MARIA, PIPER wins by a landslide!

KINDERTRAUMA FILM OF THE YEAR

How could any movie be more kinder-tastic than ORPHAN? Think about it, tykes in trouble, a kid who kills and no matter how hard it tried to be taken seriously it just always ended up reeking of campy trash.

Look in the mirror ORPHAN, you're Kindertrauma's sister from another mister! While we're on the subject let's hand out an official traumatot award to ISABELLE FUHRAM for her beyond awesome Natasha Fatale "Hello Dollink" delivery and astonishing ability to keep a straight face while interacting with PETER SARSGAARD.

BEST ALL-AROUND HORROR FILM OF THE YEAR

O.K., maybe ZOMBIELAND wasn't the scariest film of the year but it was funny, it was thrilling and it miraculously had characters that you actually wanted to spend time with rather than strangle. Plus you know a movie's heart is in the right pace when it simultaneously damns clowns AND salutes man's greatest creation, the Twinkie. You'd simply have to be a zombie yourself not to love it.

Monster Christmas Mash!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

UNK SEZ: THE MONSTER CHRISTMAS MASH is my favorite Christmas album of all time. I wish I could tell you that it was a staple of my youth but the reality is, T.M.C.M. and I did not cross paths until I was in my early twenties when I bought it on vinyl at a dollar store. I used to listen to it every year until it mysteriously disappeared. I can only surmise that, like so many things I once treasured, a horrible person with exceptional taste stole it from me while I was passed out.

Who cares about those lean years without my beloved record though because I just found it once again! Now I usually don't condone downloading music off the Internet but in this case, I say do. It's unlikely to ever be put on CD anyway and even if it was, I'm sure that none of the right people would see any mullah. Besides, Christmas is not only about giving, it is also about getting. Imagine if everybody gave and nobody got? There would just be a bunch of presents on the floor and that's called litter.

Find MONSTER CHRISTMAS MASH HERE!

If you still end up feeling bad about getting something for free then give a toy to a tot or a hoagie to a hobo. This amazing album, especially the irresistible barnstormer "Who's That Up on the Roof?," needs to be heard and shared by all!