Category: Name That Trauma!

Hello Kinderpals!

I have a Name That Trauma that is actually from my wife, but I have transcribed it here for her (dubious) benefit.

She remembers very little from the original source, so this one might pose a bit challenging. I'll give the basic details to the best of my abilities.

This was an animated film from the 1980s, most likely, but it might have been from the early 90s. The main thrust of the narrative concerned a young boy who was transformed into a stone statue. He didn't turn into a gargoyle or anything; he retained his original appearance, just in stone form. The audience—and perhaps other characters in the movie—could hear the thoughts of the stone boy.

My wife is uncertain of the exact setting or circumstances of the boy's transformation, but she's been haunted by the central figure of this statue kid for years. Like I said, it's not a lot to go on at all, but it was my hope that some of the other Traumatots here might remember something similar from their pasts. Thanks in advance for any help you can give!

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.

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

This is more of a request to help me find an old episode of something that scared the hell out of me. Here is what I remember. I think it may have been an episode of the 80's cable Hitchhiker series. But it could have been another.

Here is what I remember. The setting is a man and woman in the midst of some sort of romantic tryst in, I believe, a hotel room. The woman suggests they play "Gotcha" (though it could be another name I am sure this is it). Anyway, she goes and hides while he stays on the bed. As the film goes along he becomes increasingly paranoid. Feeling extra strange as it seems she has only gone to hide in the bathroom, we see him sitting on the bed sweating and generally freaking out. The climax comes when some horrid disfigured harpy-type thing descends upon him from the ceiling fan directly above him (whose repetitive turns have been marking the increase in his anxiety), saying "Gotcha!" Then we see that it was just his girl all along sneaking up to the side of the bed. One of the best jump scares I ever had, but sadly from my wee lad days. If it wasn't The Hitchhiker, it was a similar '80s serial. Could even have been drawn from an anthology film but I doubt it.

The couple, the room, the game, the first person camera to guy's anxiety, the figure descending from the fan, and his shock from the vision of seeing his girl beside him going basically "boo." These are the threads I remember. Can you find it for me? It has been plaguing me for years. Airtime on Showtime or HBO would have been circa '84-'88.

Howdy,

Two friends recently challenged me to identify two different horror movies that they saw ages ago as kids and God damn, I was completely stumped. Any chance you fine folks can crack these mysteries? All I've got to work with is some scraps of information:

* The first horror movie would have been an eighties flick available as a VHS rental. The story featured a crazed mental patient who built lots of killer dolls. The dolls were made of flesh-colored clay or plastic (like Barbie and Ken) and one of them was armed with a scalpel. The dolls were done through stop-motion animation.

* The second horror movie would have been a late eighties/early nineties VHS title. The plot featured a serial killer who could either turn himself into electricity or possess machines (or both). The movie featured a scene in which the killer hides inside of a light bulb.

Thanks!

Enzo S.

UNK SEZ: Thank you for writing in, Enzo! I hope I have your answers!

The first film you mentioned is probably the Amicus anthology ASYLUM. It's from 1972 but had a theatrical rerelease in the states in the early eighties as HOUSE OF CRAZIES. There were at least two VHS editions, one used the original poster art and the "ASYLUM" title and the other had a more modern look and went by ASYLUM: "The House of Crazies".

ASYLUM's tales are all based on stories by ROBERT BLOCK. The one your friend should be interested in is called "Mannikins of Horror," it very much fits your pal's description. Here it is on YouTube…

This very same story though was used for an episode of the horror series MONSTERS so that could very well be what they are thinking of too. Luckily that also is on YouTube…

The second film you mentioned, I would think is WES CRAVEN's SHOCKER from 1989. That definitely involves a killer who has electric-centric powers. I don't remember him hiding inside a light bulb but I wouldn't put it past the guy. That one seems almost too easy to be correct so if any of our readers know of any other titles that fit the description, please let us know! Hmmmm, wait a minute, I suppose 1993's GHOST IN THE MACHINE might fit just as well… Here are both trailers just in case…

Hello Kindertrauma! I was inspired by Pete G's recent Backseat Psycho post to reach out to you with my own hazy, '70s memory of a movie I saw when I was a kid. Here's all I remember:

A teenage girl is taunted (and possibly killed?) by three older teenage/college boys. To get back at them her mother (who happens to be a witch) goes to a pit in the woods and curses each one of the men to die by way of a natural element (air, fire,and ?). I only remember one of the deaths–one of the men dies when he jumps out of an airplane and his parachute doesn't open (death by air?!?).

Does this ring any bells Kindertrauma?

Thanks so much!

— Steve Q.

This has stuck with me for so long that it's almost impossible to believe it ever existed! A short film I saw as part of a double feature in Scotland at the local cinema (maybe with When a Stranger Calls?) -late '70s/early '80s. The parts that stick most is that it is British, short and it's about a woman who repeatedly "sees" or remembers a murder being committed, no one believes her and she is hospitalized. In the very end of the film it turns out to be a premonition of the murder of her own family by a psycho hiding in the back of the car. The film ends with her seeing a hand with a knife come up from the back seat as she stands horrified… Help me remember what this film was!

Thanks!

My sister and I have been searching for info on this for years. In the early '80s we saw a horror short on HBO (may have been USA?) where a lady had some type of monstrous hand in a jar. One night, I think she was in the shower, and the creature came back for the hand. I believe the short ended with someone else displaying the jar, but it had the woman's hand in it. Any info you have on this would be so great. Thanks, and keep up the good work!