Category: Name That Trauma!

I'm pretty addicted to Kindertrauma, someone on another website linked it to me and it's my fourth day in a row reading as much as I can!

At the tender age of seventeen, I'm probably one of the youngest readers, but I do have a Traumafession.

It has to be somewhere in the mid-to-late ‘90s, I think I was watching a movie with my older male cousins at my grandmother's house. I can't remember much, but what I remember was being unable to sleep for a very long time after seeing it.

It was something about three or four or even two boys who discovered an underground cavern, maybe there was a caveman in it, maybe there wasn't, I forget, but apparently discovering the cavern released some sort of black ooze that made you decay or get sick or something AWFUL. I was so scared of the black ooze!

I hope you can help me with just this little bit.

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Kudos to reader Chris for solving it with THE X-FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE (1998).

I just returned from Florida and during the Universal Horror Make-Up Show they showed a compilation of special effects from horror throughout the decades, one clip in particular caught my attention and would like to find out which film it's from.

It was only 5 seconds long but it had a monster/vampire similar to the monster from TOBE HOOPER's THE FUNHOUSE, he had broken through the roof of a house and was trying to get to someone on the roof (I think)….I'd be impressed if this one is solved.

Many thanks,

Paul B.

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Per Paul, "Judging by the video it looks like ARMY OF DARKNESS (my least watched of the EVIL DEAD films). The 3 seconds when I was in the audience obviously wasn't enough to register with my brain. A shame, I was hoping it was some unseen gem." So kudos to UNK and thanks to Jergy for the assist!

I have two vivid memories of being scared to the point of trauma by something seen on T.V. as a child. I am 42 and believe I was probably about 3 when I witnessed these, so we're talking around 1970-71.

The first image is an animated sequence which featured a phantom prospector in a ghostly covered wagon. The wagon was attached to skeletal horses, and I believe the prospector may have been a skeleton as well. The animation was pretty stylized and cartoonish, but what REALLY creeped me out was the voice of the prospector and horses, which had a haunting echoing quality.

The second image I think may have been from a Japanese horror film. A group of soldiers are walking single file through a jungle setting. The soldiers pass under a tree and as the last one passes beneath it, a snake, vine, or tentacle comes down and wraps around his throat, strangling him.

I've carried these images burned into my mind for almost 40 years, but have never been able to figure out what they're from.

Ahoy! I'm a big fan of the site. I've got a Name That Trauma to pose to you, but it's pretty obscure.

I remember watching T.V. when I was off sick from school, early- to mid-‘90s. Here in the U.K., BBC2 and Channel 4 used to show a block of children's educational programmes on weekday mornings, when the majority of kids were at school, so catching these shows on transmission was a bit of a rarity.

One of these shows featured images which have haunted me in their vague nightmarishness ever since.

It seemed to be your basic E.T. plot – a group of ragtag kids rallying round an otherworldly character to keep it secret from adults. The being in question was a child-sized figure dressed in a ragged, patchwork robe of some kind. It didn't have a face. No eyes, ears, nose, mouth – just a smooth beige head with mannequin-like indentations. As such, it couldn't speak. Despite its inability to see, I remember it moving its head slowly from left to right, as if checking that the coast was clear, before moving slowly down a hallway accompanied by its young companions. I believe the kids also had some sort of treehouse or clubhouse where this horrifying creature was kept.

Although it was shown in the U.K., I think it was made in the U.S. or Canada. I'm guessing it was made in the early ‘90s; the tone and production values were somewhat reminiscent of GHOSTWRITER. No idea of the title.

Any ideas, guys?

Hello,

Wondering if anyone knows what my middle school trauma was:

In home economics, when there was a substitute teacher, the class had to watch a video about doing good deeds. There was a creepy ass, CYNDI LAUPER meets SHELLEY DUVALL-type woman with a super screechy voice who was supposed to teach children who had stolen something out of a store (I think they stole jewelry) to do good deeds. She keeps magically appearing with this device called a "Deedio" and keeps singing this song with the lyrics, "Turn on the Deedio and do good deeeeeeeeds!"

If anyone knows what this video is, please let me know! That woman was super scary! This has been driving both me and my brother crazy for the past 8 years or so trying to figure out what it is. Plus that damn song still gets plastered in my brain after all these years.

Thanks!

—Nicki

I'm pretty much out of options here and I just found you guys. I heard you've helped people find movies in the past and are very knowledgeable about horror movies. I'm coming to you on the end of my rope.

I believe this was from the late ‘80s. In this movie there's a guy crawling up stairs, but they're like gooey, like marshmallow or something and he's sticking to them. Then his girlfriend axes him in the back thinking he's one of the monsters or whatever that's trying to kill them and their friends. He may have been wearing a leather jacket.

Possibly in the movie but not sure: There may have been a farmhouse, some kind of statue remembering people that died, and possibly a graveyard. I believe this was from the late ‘80s. Also that scene I remember may have been taking place in a basement.

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to reader Mincemeat for coming forward with GHOSTHOUSE!

Hi there, I love your site and it's great reading about the scares that other people got when they were kids. My little story is a bit different though, I was probably about 7-8 years old, and whilst a few other things did scare the hell outta me back then (CHUCKY) this experience showed to me that the world is a lot more real and frightening than some orange hair doll.

I can't remember the premise of the movie, only that it was set in the future on a space ship, the crew was I think mostly if not, all male, this leads me to the scene that would make the world a whole lot more real to me at such a young age. There was a young man taking a shower, which was in a communal bathroom, you can see on his face that he is nervous and not comfortable with his surroundings, then an older man enters the room to shower as well. Now my memory is a bit hazy but I think I remember up until that point there was an uneasy one-sided sexual tension between the two characters, the older man wanting the younger one.

This all comes into fruition when he enters shower, then attacks and rapes the young man, now you don't actually see the rape, just a cut to the outside of the ship and the screaming of the young man but it is clear enough what went down.

At that age I was learning all about "stranger danger" at school and that "bad things" can happen to you if your not wary about strangers, this brought home the point, after seeing this movie I was paranoid for a long time about men I didn't know, each one of them could be JUST like the man from the movie. Real predators just waiting for their chance to get me cornered and do god knows what to me. It also made me realize that real life can be more sad and frightening than anything my young mind could imagine.

If anyone out there knows which movie I'm talking about it would be great to see what left such an impact on me as a kid.

Thanks!

Vince

UNK SEZ:: Vince, I'm going with 1990's MOON 44 which was directed by ROLAND EMMERICH who later went on to do INDEPENDENCE DAY and STARGATE. MOON 44 stars such notables as MALCOLM MCDOWELL, MICHAEL PARE and FRIGHT NIGHT's STEPHEN GEOFFREYS. I'm not sure all the details fit perfectly but it sounds like a match to me. Check out the trailer below and tell us if it rings any trauma bells!

Dear Kindertrama,

I have a very clear memory of a movie I watched as a child. It may have been of a scientist tinkering with human nature, but my memory is that a man, having a severe itch on his shoulder, scratches and scratches and then one day he wakes up, looks in the bathroom mirror, and an eyeball has popped out on his shoulder. Eventually, an entire head grows out of his shoulder, and by the end of the movie the entity and the man literally split in half into two separate people.

I can't say that this traumatized more than it fascinated me, as I watched it at least a few times. Do you guys have any idea what movie this is? Thanks for any help.

Karen

UNK SEZ: I think I might have this one Karen! I'm guessing it's 1989's HOW TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING!

P.S.: Thanks to CLASSIC-HORROR for sending you our way!

Hello.

When I was little, that was early-mid ‘80s, I watched a trailer that traumatized me for years. I am Spanish but I remember it must have been either an American or English film. The images I still remember were of a blond woman under a tree with somebody else and then there was someone in a room (blond woman probably) and I remember she looked up and she saw a very pale woman with black hair on the ceiling, she either appeared there or was crawling on the ceiling.

I remember something like "The Lizard Woman" was mentioned in Spanish. Sorry it is such a brief description but I must have been 7 years old or so…even though that pale woman still haunts me I tell you.

P.S.: Also I remember the trailer had a very ‘70s soundtrack so it could have been a trailer of a late ‘70s flick.

Thank you,

— Ruth M.