Category: Name That Trauma!

Hello,

Thank you so much for your awesome website. It is such a brilliant idea and endlessly entertaining. I helped name a trauma (Celia: Child of Terror) and someone else's submission helped me find one of my own traumas that I've been searching for (the Living Dolls short from USA Saturday Nightmares). I've also found out about so many great movies from the kindertrauma community that not even my endless perusals of the Psychotronic Video guides could help me come up with.

Well it's time I submitted my trauma and hope somebody knows what the heck I'm talking about. I so hope to finally find this movie that has been gnawing at the edge of my subconscious for almost 20 years now. I saw probably the first half at a slumber party when I was about 9 or 10. This would have been the early '90s but the movie looked older, possibly late seventies/early '80s. It was in color and I believe it was rated R. I used the rating as my excuse for why I ran out of the room when I got scared. I told the other girls I wasn't allowed to watch R-rated movies and I didn't want to get in trouble.

As far as the plot goes, I believe it was about a family of four (mom, dad, two boys) and one of the children was evil. I only remember two scenes. One was a car driving down a dusty road. I know that is not very descriptive but it sticks out in my mind for some reason. I want to say that scene was followed by a crash but I can't be sure. The other scene I remember was of the family eating dinner. The evil brother somehow made it so the family's food was covered in maggots or mold or something else gross. The non-evil brother was telling the evil one to stop and the parents seemed to be less freaked out than they should have been. That's it. Thats all I remember. I hope someone can help. Also, I know it sounds a lot like Cathy's Curse, with the car crash and the kid making the food gross but it definitely wasn't. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I hope it makes it to the site.

Thank you,

— Elizabeth M.

UNK SEZ: Thanks Elizabeth! I'm afraid I don't know the answer to this but I bet one of our savvy readers does! It's funny that you should send this Name That Trauma in now as I have been recently semi-obsessed with the rotting food trope! It started when I was watching GRAVE ENCOUNTERS in which there is a scene that involves a container of food supplies which is suddenly found rotting and filled with worms. It instantly reminded me of CATHY'S CURSE and I thought maybe I should compile a list of horror movies that involve rotting food. I did not get very far, so I'm going to put this out to Kindertrauma readers; even if you don't know the answer to Elizabeth's query can you name some more movies that have a rotting food scene in them?

Here's what I got so far…

CATHY'S CURSE (1977)

POLTERGEIST (1982)

THE CURSE (1987)

THE LOST BOYS

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD

GRAVE ENCOUNTERS (2011)

Greetings fellow Traumatized Tots!

I'm going to start this off in pretty much the same way others have, by gushing over this amazing, informative, and truely entertaining site. It really helps to know that I'm not the only one who suffered through childhood (misery loves company and all that Jazz). While browsing through the numerous Name That Trauma!s I was reminded of a particularly nasty memory of what I'm pretty sure was some kind of freaky short film on TV. It was the 80's. Of this I am positive.

The plot involved a guy who intended on creating a girlfriend for himself with some kind of weird chemical (I think it was pink colored, but that's not important). Anyway, he was flipping through some swimsuit magazines and picked a girl he liked and then dropped the weird goo on the girl's image. Poof! She comes to life! Only there was one problem… her lower half was still stuck in the magazine. I could actually feel the color drain from my face as this creepy half-girl started reaching for the guy and begging him to kiss her. Then she melted or something. The guy made a second attempt and poured the girlfriend formula over another sexy chick and Poof! Another horrible disaster. This second girlfriend was GIGANTIC and took up the entire room! Once again she begged him to kiss her and in my little child brain I just knew that if he tried she would suck him into her jumbo lips like a piece of gum and start chewing. Then she melted too.

Thank God! But this guy clearly didn't learn his lesson and tries a third time. Poof! Experimental Girlfriend #3 arrives. She was beautiful with a perfect body and long, lucious hair. I wanted to look like her when I grew up… until she moved the hair out of face… which looked like chewed up roadkill. I was rooted to the chair with terror! This reject from a Tales From the Crypt comic didn't beg to be kissed like the others but demanded it and even started choking the poor guy! But mercifully she melts away, too. I just knew that this would be his last attempt to make a girlfriend. I was wrong. A fourth attempt was made. This one… turned out just fine. The only problem was she kissed a different guy and left the building with him instead of the poor mad (stupid) scientist. Oh well. At least he didn't get eaten.

What happened toward the end is kinda fuzzy but I seem to remember the girl-making goo falling on a picture of some weird… cartoon vegetable creature… I have no idea. By that time I started to wander off to check under the beds for giants, mutilated half-torsos, and hideous faced monsters that would kill you if you didn't kiss their slimy, dripping lips.

Please help me find this weird little TV nightmare so that I can finally face my demons!

– The Youngest Hewitt

Hello!

LOVE your site. I've got a NTT I'm hoping someone can help me with…

I remember seeing this on television when I was just a little kid. I was born in 1972, so this would probably have been in the late seventies, early eighties. If memory serves (no guarantee!) this felt more like a TV show than a film. Possibly even something from the U.K., since my parents watched a lot of PBS – particularly Masterpiece Theatre…

The setting, I think, is Victorian England. The bit I remember took place at night and I'm pretty sure I remember fog and gas lighting. There's this young man wearing a black cloak. He's going to visit someone.

Young man in the black cloak enters a house. He addresses an old man lying in bed (his father?) Clearly, the old man is in the last stages of sickness. He barely moves and his voice is weak… There may or may not be a third man in the room..

Suddenly, for some reason, the young man becomes alarmed. He reaches out and grabs the blanket covering the old man. Young man yanks off the blanket-

– and reveals that the old man's body has already decayed, leaving nothing but a skeleton covered in cobwebs!

Horrified, the young man bolts out of the house and into the night – pursued only by maniacal laughter…

Not too surprisingly, this memory scarred me for life. If anyone can offer me any clues as to what the hell this was, I'll be forever grateful.

Thanks!

— Kieran W.

Hello there. It's Josh K. here again. First off I wanted to thank Kindertrauma for posting my Freddy's Nightmares trauma a while back. It was great to hear what all of you had to say!

However, this time I am going to FINALLY put this "Name that Trauma" out there. I have debated doing this for a very long time now, thinking that no one out there would possibly get it if I couldn't through the Internet, but I'm really hoping you guys can help me figure this one out, so here goes:

This time I was at my other Grandparents' house (what is it with Grandparents and traumas? Lol). It was either the very late '80s or early '90s. My Dad and my Grandpa were watching some movie. As far as I can remember, there was this Japanese or Chinese emperor looking guy who apparently was evil. My mind wants to say that this took place during some grand ceremony like a wedding. Anyway, the good guy comes in with some sort of weapon and either hacks off the evil guy's finger or one of his huge nails ( I can't remember which). However, then the good guy does it a couple more times and the emperor keeps looking at his fingers/nails each time and screams. My Dad and Grandpa thought this was hysterical, and I do remember it being more funny than traumatic now that I think about it.. But the mysteriousness of it has haunted me throughout the years and I would love to finally put the mystery to rest.

I am REALLY hoping someone can help me shed some light on this for me.

Thanks.

— Josh K.

Dear Kindertrauma,

I have been searching far and wide (meaning the Internet) for this scary movie that I watched at a sleepover a long time ago. I must have been in fourth grade so it must have been around 2005. It's hard to explain it but I'll do my best.

Okay, so there are these three (or four?) girls, all friends, all with different fears. I know one of the girls has a fear of bugs and another has some fear of her skin peeling or something because there is this one scene where she's feeling her back and she turns around to look in the mirror and her skin is just peeling off. The other girl with the fear of bugs is in the bathroom and when she turns on the shower, bugs come crawling up from every drain (bathtub, sink, toilet). I feel like maybe these girls did something bitchy to have this happen to them but I'm not quite sure. I really really want to see this movie again but I can't find it anywhere, please help!!

Hi Kindertrauma!!

I'm writing you this email to ask your help. I've been looking for a movie for years now, and even if I can't erase some pictures from my head, its name is still unfoundable. I'll try to describe my memories for you. God knows.

I live in Belgium, and the movie – or feuilleton – had been broadcast when I was something like 7 or 8. (It means 20-25 years ago.) I may have seen it in a show like Disney Parade, on Sunday evening.

The story was really scary. It was about a little girl, whose mother was dead. Her uncle was very mad, maybe a wizard, and wanted something from her, but she didn't know exactly what. She always had a sort of teddy bear or blanket with her, she couldn't be separated from it.Once in her dreams, she saw her mother who told her what her uncle was looking for was hidden in the teddy bear. It was like a treasure.

Well, that's everything I remember.

Do you have an idea?

Thanks a lot for having read this.

My best regards,

— Marie-Pierre

In the early 1980s (need more specific? Let's say 1983-1987), my mom wanted to a see a movie for her birthday in November. She picked out what she thought was an indie film with a non-scary plot; I was 5-6 and would be tagging along. About half-way through the movie, the main character wakes up in the middle of having open-heart surgery. There's a curtain hanging between his head and chest, and there's no one in the stark white operating room. He pulls the curtain apart to see his chest cavity is split open. All of a sudden, millions of cockroaches come pouring out of his chest, spilling all over the floor. At that point, my dad swooped me up and quickly removed me from the theater. I think I remember seeing SNOW WHITE posters in the lobby and I see that it was re-released in 1983 and 1987.

I know that's not a lot to go on, but won't someone please help me out?

— Allison

Hello all!

First of all, a big shout-out to the readers for helping me solve my last Name That Trauma about artist Laurie Lipton that I posted back in October.

My next query is also art-related. When I was around 9 years old (circa 1981), my family and I visited my 'hipster' uncle's house. He was always very avant-garde and into all sorts of art, music, and film. During our visit there, I came across a coffee-table book he had that was about a group of humanoid characters that were like colors personified. There was a yellow man, a red man, but the one that stuck out in my mind was an indigo man, mainly because I had never heard that word before. I don't remember much about the theme or the story of the book, but the paintings/drawings had such a surreal quality that they stick in my mind to this day.

I'd love to find out what the book was and the name of the artist, anybody? Bueller? Beuller?

—MD2112