Category: Name That Trauma!

Hi Kindertrauma,

I was wondering if you could help me find the name of the very first horror movie my brother and I saw as very young kids, hiding behind the couch while our babysitter watched this movie. We were born in the '80s, and what I can remember of this movie it seemed like an '80s flick, but it may have been from late '70s too.

The plot I recall was some creepy dude living in the basement of a department store who would kidnap women and turn then into mannequins. However, I have seen clips from TOURIST TRAP, MANIAC, and even the MANNEQUIN movie with KIM CATTRALL and none of these seem like it, the movie definitely had a department store connection, many mannequins, and was scary as hell (at least, to a 6-year-old).

This has been bothering us for more than 20 years, so if anyone could help us out that would be great.

Thanks!

Beth

UNK SEZ: Beth, I think I know this one! In fact, it was a Name That Trauma of my own once (check the comments section HERE!) Luckily our stalwart kinderpal Mickster was able to track this short film down. It's called LIVING DOLLS and it seems to have been used often as filler between shows in the early days of cable. You may not believe this… but unlike the last time I looked for this film on YouTube, this time I found it!

I just watched it myself and I think it's even creepier than I remembered. More frightening still, as the film ends, it is followed by an episode of MY SISTER SAM which I've decided is proof that not only does the Devil exist, but he also truly does enjoy manifesting in the form of JENNY O'HARA. Yikes and yikes! Watch below…

UPDATE: Reader Beth emailed this:

Sorry for the delay in response; I have been waiting for my brother's opinion, and unfortunately the conclusion is that we're not sure if this is it. There is something familiar about it (and as a side note I do agree heartily that HD is not good for horror films), however what I recall of the plot was that the man was the villain and was actually turning live women into mannequins. But I may just be remembering incorrectly. Sorry I couldn't give you a definite yes or no about Unk's kind contribution to my question.

Thanks so much!

Beth

I remember seeing a movie when I was a kid, possibly from the early-to-mid '80s, and there's only one scene I remember. In it, a man finds his childhood teddy bear. He decides to do what any normal person would do, and takes a nap with said bear. While he is sleeping, the bear grows either claws or fangs (it's been a long time so I'm not sure which) and kills him.

It had quite the effect on me, even to this day. I've been trying for quite some time now to figure out what this movie is and I'm not having any luck.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much!!

— Amy

Dear Kindertrauma,

This is a movie that keeps coming to my mind from time to time and I hope someone will recognize it. I saw it on T.V. sometime in the early-mid '90s, but I really can't remember if it was old or new movie at the time.

There's only one scene I can remember and I think it was the ending of the movie: A man is lying in bed scooping his own eyes out with a spoon. I think there was a dead woman lying next to him and he had killed her before. I don't know if I remember correctly but I think it was his eyes that somehow made him kill her. I keep running into a movie called THE HEADLESS EYES (1971) but judging by the scenes I've seen, I don't think it's the one I'm thinking of.

Maybe someone could name another movie with some eye scooping in it?

Thanks!

— Heidi

Love this site, one of my favorites ever since I discovered you guys through a Google search about the still-terrifying made-for-TV flick DON'T GO TO SLEEP. My question is about another made-for-TV movie, since I know they're a specialty of yours.

Around 1982 or '83, I remember a movie airing that followed a group of soap opera stars as they were being bumped off one by one. I don't remember much about it other than the fact that there were a lot of shots from the murderer's POV, which were usually accompanied by his weird, tuneless humming. The only other thing I remember was that one of the soap's male stars was pushed out the window of an apartment building; the cops in the next scene described how he "splattered" when he hit the pavement, which seemed absolutely crazy to me! I was just glad at the time that they only talked about it, and thankfully didn't show the result.

The movie itself was pretty lame, even to a pretty easily scared kid like myself, but the murderer's disaffected humming totally creeped me out. I think the whole thing turned out to be a hoax–there may have been some sort of movie-within-a-movie twist or something, but I can't really remember.

Any ideas?

— Eddie Quist

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to kinder-sweetheart AMANDA BY NIGHT for flexing her SUZANNE PLESHETTE prowess and solving it with FANTASIES (1982).

There was a HORRIFYING record that I do not know the name of that was played in music class every Halloween at my elementary school in the late '70s. I dreaded music class in the weeks leading up to Halloween because I never knew when this record would be sprung on me. It involved an old woman, a parson, possibly a graveyard, and a terrifying woman's scream towards the end that would make everyone else in the class jump in joyful surprise and laughter.

It did not have the same effect on me.

I would literally be under a desk rocking with my eyes shut and my ears plugged, very close to a heart attack. I also would be "sick" and stay home from school on music day around this time if it was possible. I was totally serious about not hearing this song. I am curious about hearing it again to see if it is still as frightening to me. It had to have been off of some Halloween compilation from the '60s or early '70s I would guess.

I LOVE your website. I just came across it recently and I visit it every day now. Thanks!

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Llama, I'm not honestly sure the name of your LP, but I wonder if it is related to one Reader Adam N. was looking for this past October…

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to Kindertrauma DJ Propagatrix for putting the needle on the trauma with "There Was an Old Woman!"

So, I don't think this one has been done before, but I could be wrong.

I think this was a T.V. movie – a miniseries actually. I think it aired a lot in reruns on Lifetime. I could be totally wrong here. It may not even be a miniseries. What I remember is that it was probably made-for-T.V.; it probably aired over the course of a couple nights.

The main character was some blond woman who took a vacation and while on vacation almost died. I think by drowning, maybe in a boat with some guy. But since she didn't die some kind of FINAL DESTINATION stuff happened and she had to face down seven demons or something that were coming to try and claim her soul. One was a boy on a bicycle who appeared in a parking garage, I think.

At the end she thinks it is over but it isn't – she still has one more to go, and she thought they'd all come. There may be a climax involving a fish tank.

Any help I would appreciate so much!

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! A heaping of bionic thanks to faullguy for pointing us towards the LINDSAY WAGNER tour de force FROM THE DEAD OF NIGHT!

Hallo!

I love your site, and am very glad it exists, thank you!

There's something I'd really, really like to find.

It was an animation and I know it showed on T.V. at least twice sometime in the late eighties to early nineties, in the U.K., but probably elsewhere too.

It looked a bit similar to DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS visually ('realistic' human figures), but didn't have the same feel at all, some of it was really menacing and alien but it was showed during the day, and it had no sense of humour. It had a title a bit like 'LORDS OF TIME AND SPACE' or something like that, but I've searched and can't find anything like it so far.

I remember a particular part where there were three young male characters, one was a boy I think and the other two were both young men, one was blonde and one was dark – and these two did not seem to like each other.

They were on some kind of mission and had to get into some place where some weird sacrificial thing was happening (it felt like that anyway). It's all a bit of a blur, but I think one of the two young guys ends up sacrificing himself for the others (the dark one I think, but I have a feeling it's because he thought he was going to get something out of it) and there's a totally weird image where he jumps down into some pit from a platform, and he's having a nasty shock then on a weird white fleshy orb with white tentacles sticking out of it, and they're all flailing up around him with all this white, yellowish, hard flashing light.. it was not nice at all! The other two escape and I guess he dies there.

It didn't seem to relate to anything else on T.V. at the time, a one-off thing.

I really hope someone else remembers this clearly and can name it! I'll do anything to see that horrible thing again!

Thanks!

Kind regards,

Kathleen

I have been trying to find out the title of this film for years – just to make sure I avoid it, it scared me so much; but not in a, "Oooh that gave me the creeps" way, but in a, "Someone just got murdered right in front of me!!!!" kind of way. I always thought it was a version of MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY but from what I've managed to glean from Google, it's not.

I must have been about 10-11, so somewhere between 1979-81 and this film was on T.V. in the UK. At that time we only had three channels in this country, so that narrows it down – I don't think I'll forgive the BBC if it was them!

The only scene I remember was the part that traumatised me (I left the room and never returned until much later when I knew the damned thing HAD to be over). Set in the late 17th-early 18th century, with large masted ships, the scene had either (1) A crew rebelling, or (2) pirates attacking; whichever it was a young man in a naval uniform of the time (black tailcoat) and brown hair in a ponytail was hanging by his foot/feet from a rope tied to one of the crossbars from the mast which would hold the sail, and was swung back and forth, quite high and fast, as the other men (or maybe just one man) stabbed him in the chest and he screamed. It was very realistic and completely unexpected, coming as it did on a Saturday afternoon.

Please can someone help me? I know it wasn't a dream as my nightmares are much more surreal than that!

Kind regards,

Elizabeth M.

Dear Kindertrauma,

When I was a kid, back in the early to mid-80s, my father used to take me into the record store in our local mall (specifically, the Listening Booth in the Palmer Park Mall in Easton, PA) on occasion. While he was digging through the LPs, I was staring at the images in the heavy-metal posters that loomed at adult head-height over the shelves.

I was particularly terrified of one large poster that depicted a sort of Frankenstein-esque monster holding up by its hair the head of a freshly decapitated witch. The witch's body lay on the ground at the monster's feet, and a number of red and blue veins were dangling from the head and extending to the neck. (That's the part that is seared indelibly on my brain.)

Much later, I grew up to be the sort of adult who loves horror movies. I'd love to look at this image again to see if it really is as horrific as I remember.

What I can't remember is what musician or band this poster was advertising! My Google-fu is usually pretty good, but I can't come up with anything for this image. Unfortunately, the record store went out of business years ago, so I can't ask them. I know it's not the sort of thing that Kindertrauma generally handles, but maybe it will ring a bell for you?

Even if it doesn't, I adore your blog! Thanks for any leads you might have.

— Carolyn