Category: Name That Trauma!

I've tried tracking down this New York public access show from the late 70s/80s. I've tried EVERYTHING. Every person I know that resides in NY, a TV oddity collector and even posted on reddit. No luck. This is my last ditch effort. If you can't help me, I totally understand.

In 07' I was visiting a friend who lived in Manhattan. He didn't have cable. Just rabbit ears and a piss poor signal. While he was at work, I came across this public access station. They were showing a marathon of this cable access show. I'd date it around 70s/80s. The host was this rather average built man. Probably 30s. His name was John. Most of it was filmed in what appeared to be his mother's faux wood paneling basement (complete with dead bodies I'm sure). He would go around NY and find these really strange people to interview. One had a doll collection. One read poetry in a park?? I don't know. I was mesmerized. I was terrified. He was so creepy. He was soft spoken but you KNEW he'd cut you in a second. My friend who eventually came home from work, sat on his crappy futon with me..watching this..totally amazed.

I don't know if you can be of any help to me..or even want to. But any suggestions or even a "no dice..we don't help people' is fine. I just really want to find out what the hell I was watching.

Thanks in advance!

Hi Unk – I'm trying to find the the title and author of this horror anthology from the early 80s. I think it was called "Haunts, Haunts, Haunts," but an Amazon and Google search didn't turn up anything. Two of my favorite stories were "Sweets to the Sweet" and "Don't Look Behind You", a first-person narrative from the point of view of the ghost. My sisters and I loved to recite the last sentence "don't look behind you…until you see THE KNIFE," and quickly turn to the illustration of a knife-wielding corpse and scream.

"Sweets to the Sweet" was about an little girl with a voodoo doll who had the power to harm anyone that pissed her off. It may have been from the same anthology, or a different series (Creeps, Creeps, Creeps or something like that). The artwork for the story was black and white photo of one of those creepy old-fashioned porcelain dolls with the glass eyeballs. From my recollection, the story ended with someone's head rolling down the stairs. Barbie dolls with painted on eyes never bothered me, but my 4th grade self developed an aversion to life-sized dolls with glass eyeballs with the potential to walk across the room and kill you ever since.

Thanks for the trauma,

PJ

UNK SEZ: Thanks for sharing your trauma PJ! I'm not sure about the first-person ghost story but ROBERT BLOCH's "Sweets to the sweet" is included in a horror anthology edited by LEONARD WOLF entitled DOUBLES, DUMMIES AND DOLLS. The cover of that book looks just you described and you can see it HERE. I hope that's it! Does anybody out there recognize PJ's knife-wielding ghost story? Let us know!

Hey, it's me again, Lorraine, and this has been nagging at me for ages. Years ago, I was made to go to bed by my parents because they were watching a movie that was "only for grownups." I think they might have also had company over. Well, being the little devil that I was, I decided to sneak in and watch it. To this day, I do not think that they know that I saw it. The scene that I walked in on involved a couple. I didn't know it at the time, of course, but looking back on it, I am certain that the couple was having sex.

I'm not completely sure, but I -think- that the woman was blonde and the guy had brown hair, and I'm almost certain that the bed was completely white. Pillows, sheets, mattress, everything. Well, the scene eventually cut to an aerial shot of the couple, giving a perfect view of the guy's back. Then, to my absolute horror, his back split open! He didn't even seem to react! There was so much blood, and the monster in his back had a mouth, making a sound that would strike terror into any little kid. I ran back to bed as quietly as my little feet could manage, still shivering with fright, and I'm sure that I must have slept with one eye open that night.

It's been years, and I have still not figured out what the movie was. Do you have any idea?

Hello There!

So there is a movie that I only remember watching the beginning of that scared the bejeezus out of me when I was young. I think it was British, and I think it had something to do with vampires. The part I remember seeing (and I apologize it has been a long time but it has stuck with me) is there is a young woman with blonde hair sitting in the forest and someone comes up to her from behind, it's a POV shot, and goes to tap the girl on the shoulder and when she turns around, her face is all disfigured like she looks like a ghoul (or a vampire!?) I also remember a shot of a mirror, like a handheld mirror on the ground that drops of blood start falling on. So yeah, not much to go on, but even in the Internet age I haven't been able to figure out what movie this is.

Thanks so much for your help.

— Kevin M.

My dad was the associate pastor and song director of a small Baptist church when I was growing up in the 1970s, and on Sundays he would take me to a nursing home to visit elderly shut-ins. Some suffered from senile dementia, and one particularly spooky lady carried a small baby doll around, presumably because she thought it was one of her children from the past. She had wild white hair that she refused to let anyone groom, and it stood out very much like those old Troll dolls from that period. I was horrified of her, and the fact that she resided in a small room in the nursing home where the shades were always drawn and the lights were always out made her especially creepy. For some reason, though, she adored my father; he had copper-red hair, and maybe that was why, because he stood out, but she didn't seem to like me much (I had black hair like my mom). Regardless, my dad was the only person she let touch her "baby," and one time she let him hold it and he decided to see if she would allow me to do the same. No dice. When she saw him pass the doll to me, she leapt up in her hospital gown and slippers, and started screaming, and the nursing staff ran in to calm her down. I can still hear the piercing wails that emitted from her to this day. I was a nervous wreck for the rest of the evening after that, I can assure you.

At any rate, with that story as a back drop, I remember seeing one of those late-night TV movies back in that time period that revolved around an elderly couple who could somehow transfer the youth from others and entrap their victims in their old bodies. For some reason this horrified me as much as the "Aunt Ada Has Come to Stay" episode of NIGHT GALLERY I wrote about earlier this year — and thank you guys for helping me find the very movie I had been hunting down for over two decades: HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM, and the comic where Santa's sleigh hangs that crook as it flies in front of a full moon (I've written a blog post about the help you all gave me, and I really appreciated it — the fact that I found these things on my birthday made it all the better). At the end of the movie (and I'm sure it was one of those 90-minute deals, and ran on either CBS or ABC), the victims of these body or energy swappers are looking down from an apartment window at the now-youthful villains, and I was too horrified to see what the now-old couple looked like…I've always wondered, too, and now I wish I could see it. Any idea what it was entitled?

Another movie from that period I've often wondered about dealt with, I think, a rock band that gets into a plane crash, and survives, and they somehow get super-powers that help them solve occult mysteries. I want to say they sang something like, "Don't be afraid of the dark/When it's a Full Moon," because my sister and I used to sing that about that movie all the time — it was British, and I seem to remember someone developing the ability to read minds, and maybe someone else developing telekinesis…not sure…sorry for the rambling, but if anyone could help me out, it would be you good folks!

We meet again, it seems.

I sought the help of Kindertrauma before, and I need your help again identifying a movie. I don't remember very much of it, or even when I saw it. I do remember it was a preteen adventure movie in the same vein as The Goonies and Sandlot. Sadly the only scene I can remember is a sandy area with a bunch of trees. Pizza trees to be exact, trees that grew pizza slices like fruit. The sand wasn't very pleasant for it had these sand shark/lizard type creatures that popped their heads out when it was time to feast. Two protagonists (I think) climbed a pizza tree to escape the sand shark monsters and one of them had this brilliant idea to stick their bubble gum wad on a pizza slice. So they threw it on the ground and the monster ate it up, getting it's mouth gunked up with bright pink bubble gum and giving the protagonists a chance to escape.

You're the only ones I could describe this to and not be looked at like I'm a loon. I know it's a real thing, I just can't remember what the hell it is. The sand monsters instilled a fear in the younger me, and I was convinced I had carpet monsters!

This one might be a challenge to identify, but if anyone can do it I know y'all can.

Thank you kindly,

Woody Monster

UNK SEZ: Welcome back Woody! This one is a little after my time but I dug around and found it! You're talking about 1995's MAGIC ISLAND! It stars ZACHERY TY BRYAN (HOME IMPROVMENT, THE RAGE: CARRIE 2) and from what I've read, it's got a bit of a cult following brewing. How could it not with that pizza tree guarding sand shark?

Greetings again!

In addition to the Traumafession I just shared, I am looking for the title of a film short trauma, also shown frequently on HBO, during their Short Takes (or, "Something Short and Special", depending on the era).

It involved a boy who would wade in a lake near a golf course, retrieving and reselling golf balls. Some teenaged hippies came by and started hassling him, and threw his boots (that he had left on the shore) into the lake. Later, he came back and the hippies were hanging out and laughing with their friends, sitting on the grass. The boy put their car into neutral and pushed it down the hill, into the lake. The boy then later seemed to feel bad, almost on par with "The Boy Who Loved Deer".

It was the bullying by older kids that scared me about this short, as I was sometimes picked on. Does anyone else remember this? Was it an episode of Inside/Out (which has been unfortunately pulled from YouTube)?

Dustin in Minnesota

Hi! Before I begin I would like to say how awesome your site is even though I'm not into horror myself.

Maybe you can help me with this trauma.

It was the '90s and I was a little maybe nine or ten and I remember this one particular ad that used to scare me and I would dread it when it came on.

It's an Aussie ad from "smarter than smoking" And that was a talking cigarette with a rather sinister voice. One part of the ad he would say "All I want is your money… AND I'LL TAKE YOUR HEALTH!!!" He would laugh and say "I'm going to get you. We come in packs!" Then he laughs manically. Brrrr. I don't think I was the only one scared of that ad as it didn't last very long on the set.

UNK SEZ: Thanks Michelle! Hopefully one of our Aussie pals will remember this one too! As for myself, I just learned the hard way never to google "anti smoking ad"! What a horror show! The delusional commercial below is more my speed!

I'm looking for a movie title. A small plane crashes in the mountains. They end up on a small ledge. One woman is badly injured. During the night she has convulsions and falls off the cliff. Do you know this movie?

Love the site! Back in the late 70s, there was a commercial for a dishwashing detergent that featured an animated green monster that had a head reminiscent of Mr. Clean's and who's arms and legs were straight and ended in points. I suppose it was a representation of either caked-on food or the detergent itself – I don't remember the finer points, being quite young. This commercial absolutely terrified me. Does anyone know what the detergent was?

UNK SEZ: Thanks Philip! I'm happy to say I know this one like the back of my hand! You are speaking of Kindertrauma's arch nemesis "The Spotmaker"! That snidely goblin was the reluctant spokesperson for CALGONITE! You can find an earlier traumafession that includes a partial list of Spotmaker's cinematic appearances HERE!

NOTE: It turns out that CALGONITE commercials are terrifying even without The Spotmaker….