Category: Name That Trauma!

Alright guys, after telling my fiancé about the website and how you guys found my trauma, she wonders if you guys can find her trauma…

A movie about an alien who hunts humans and throws these strange discs at the humans (they're almost fleshy discs) and when discs hit, they suck the humans dry and then he hangs the humans in an outhouse or a barn or something!…

Any help??

UNK SEZ: Dear Julian, The movie your fiance must be talking about is 1980's WITHOUT WARNING (some might suggest that she has also described 1987's PREDATOR, a movie that has been frequently accused of ripping off WITHOUT WARNING.) It starred genre veterans JACK PALANCE and MARTIN LANDAU (both of ‘82s ALONE IN THE DARK) and featured an early performance by DAVID CARUSO.

WITHOUT WARNING has built quit a reputation over the years, much of which might be due to the fact that it has yet to have a proper release on either VHS or DVD. As a kid I remember a friend of mine's dad took him to see this one and ya know what? I'm still jealous! (Now that I think of it, that was the same kid whose dad took him to see DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE, some guys get all the luck!) This one might be a hard one to track down but here are some clips from the Youtubes if it helps….

Hi there,

Okay, when I was a kid we would check out a rotating series of VHS tapes from the public library – mostly fairly benign things SHELLEY DUVALL'S FAIRIE TALE THEATRE or RAMONA, but there was one particular clip from some video that still haunts me and I can't figure out what it was. For a long time I remembered it as 1980s CAPTAIN KANGAROO, but now I think it might have been from ROALD DAHL'S TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED. Just knowing how my parents are, I've always assumed it was something produced by or aired on PBS.

Anyway, in it this man is out on a dark foggy night and he runs into someone he knows. He is going to write something down for this person, but when he pulls out his family heirloom pen he drops it down the stairs of the subway. He runs down the stairs to get the pen just as the subway closes, trapping him on the platform. A mysterious man emerges and tells him that in order to get out, he has to collect a fork, spoon, and knife. (Bear with me; it's been 20 years.) He gets into a subway car that is totally empty to travel through this foggy underworld (basically, empty sets with a lot of dry ice) to find the requisite silverware. The train would stop and he'd get out and find some strange character swinging from a soup ladle or standing at fork in the road (get it?).

The creepiest part of the whole story was that while on the train, the lights would blink on and off – sometimes the train would be full of mannequins sitting as passenger, and then the lights would blink off and then back on, with the train totally empty. It scared the shit out of me as a child. As a result I still prefer packed subway cars.

The guy eventually completes the tasks and emerges from the subway netherworld, just as morning breaks and the subway reopens.

If you have any idea what kids' show series this is from, I would be so happy/terrified!

Christa

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Believe it or not, it actually did come from CAPTAIN KANGAROO. Special thanks to Reader P. for emailing the confirmation!

Greetings,

I just came upon your site today…I LOVE IT!!!!

Now, hopefully you and the readers can help me out…

All I remember was a scene of a woman, running at night in nice clothes, with some kind of brooch on…and as she's running, the brooch gets bigger, until it looks like some kind of opossum/red-eyed monster that eventually attacks her…

I imagine it was some kind of "Friday Fright Night" '70s film….but I remember that scene as clear as day…

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Thanks to Reader Eyetron for identifying THE NIGHT GALLERY episode titled "A FEAST OF BLOOD."

Okay….I saw this one back in the early to mid ‘80s. It was either on HBO or Cinemax and it was a short film. This guy is sitting in an office; I'm assuming that he is some kind of filmmaker as there is a reel of film on his desk. The reel begins unspooling and chasing the man, kind of like THE BLOB only made of movie film. He gets himself locked into a closet where he finds a magnet and as the film tries to get into the room, he sticks the magnet on it and it shies away. Eventually is gets in and wraps the man completely from head to toe in the film. He flails about for a bit and is devoured by the film, ala THE BLOB. At the very end we see the film spooling itself back onto the reel and that's the end. I've been trying to find out what this is for years but to no avail. Please Unk, you are my only hope.

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! The flesh-eating film is featured in the 1975 short RECORDED LIVE. Special thanks to Reader Eric Harvey for solving it.

Holy smokes… what a website. It's nothing short of genius that you thought to create a place where people could share the one very special thing that they all have in common…. terrifying childhood trauma.

Here's my mystery trauma. When I was around six or seven years old (late '70s) I remember seeing a small portion of a film that haunts me to this day. All I remember is that there was a very fat, bald, British man, possibly with a monocle, who may or may not have been investigating a crime. The scene that has stuck with me is a man walking into an industrial grade kitchen (the kind you may find in a hotel) that has been shut down for the night. With most of the lights off, he notices the red glow of one of the ovens which should not have been on. He opens the door, and a woman's arm tips and falls out. Yikes. Here are some other quick notes:

• The oven was not close to the ground, but rather at eye level. I think.
• I believe there was a hard cut from that scene to a shot of something resembling the U.N. Assembly. I distinctly remember flags and a very large room.
• I recall the British man having a vague resemblance to JOHN HOUSEMAN only much larger. He was also rather feminine.
• I don't believe this movie was a horror. I'm certain that it was a thriller in the vain of AGATHA CHRISTIE. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if it was somehow related to her writings.

Any help would be largely appreciated, people! I'm more than ready to put this one to bed.

Thanks,

Andyboy

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Kudos to Reader EegahInc for solving it with WHO IS KILLING THE GREAT THE CHEFS OF EUROPE?

Hi. I stumbled on your site entirely by accident about 3-4 months ago and have been enjoying it ever since. Friends I recommend it to also like it.

I have a childhood trauma that needs identifying. Any help would be appreciated. This would date from sometime in the 1960s and in my memory it was called THE GHOST BREAKERS and was in black and white. But all I've ever found of that name is the old BOB HOPE scare picture and this ain't that. So it may be an episode of a T.V. show rather than a movie. (In fact IMDB lists an unsold pilot called "Ghostbreakers" which aired in 1967, five years after it was filmed but somehow I think I'd remember that MARGARET HAMILTON was in the one I saw; instead I don't remember any particular cast members. Nor does their synopsis match my memory.)

Anyway, this basically had to do with people who worked for a business concern that were being knocked off. One guy, I think, is strangled when his tie gets caught in an office machine or teletype, or whatever. Stuff like that happens and I believe it appears that the company founder, or prior CEO, or somebody, has come back from the dead and his killing people. Revenge or whatever, I don't remember.

The most vivid scene is a guy late at the office who disrespectfully (or just out of boredom) tosses darts at a portrait of somebody (the old boss man?) and when one sticks in the picture what looks like blood seeps out. (That's what freaked me out as a kid.) So the guy is shocked and decides to get out, but sees some figure in the hallway (same boss guy?) and is frightened so he starts to run and gets to the elevator and steps in — and falls down an empty elevator shaft.

That's all I've got! I'd love some help to either confirm that it is/isn't the program listed on IMDB, or some other movie, or whatever the hell it is.

Thanks!

Kevin

I have a memory of a horror movie involving a Samurai ghost and possibly evil crabs that carry the ghost's spirits into the house? I can also remember a female being possessed by the spirit and holding a Samurai sword against the male protagonist. I have tried searching the interwebs high and low and still have no trace of this movie. Did I just imagine it? Did I read too many ERIC VAN LUSTBADER books in my youth? I appreciate the help!

UNK SEZ: Erczilla, I really hope the movie you are talking about is 1982's THE HOUSE WHERE EVIL DWELLS otherwise that means there is more than one horror movie out there that features both Samurai ghosts and pesky killer crabs! HOUSE starred EDWARD ALBERT, SUSAN GEORGE and the one and only TROY, I mean, DOUG McCLURE and it was directed by McGLURE's frequent collaborator KEVIN CONNER. I was never a big fan of this one but as I recall, there was a pretty good decapitation in it and at some point a ghost face had the nerve to appear in a bowl of soup!

You hit the nail on the head with THE HOUSE WHERE EVIL DWELLS. I have been looking for the title of that movie for years. Thanks so much!

Hi!

I've got a movie in the back of my skull that I hope the Traumateers can identify, but it's a bit of a spoiler as it's just the end of the movie; in fact it's just the end credit sequence! There's no music score as the credits roll, but rather, voice-over dialog and assorted scenery shots. As the credits end, the movie abruptly "resumes" for its real ending. Here's the details:

Final Girl has escaped death at the hands of some crazy family/cult/group, some of whom she has killed. Apparently, she was supposed to be "sacrificed" before midnight. As the credits roll and the visuals switch to actor-free scenery, she returns with the local sheriff and deputies, only to find that all traces of her nightmare have been cleaned up. The skeptical sheriff arrests Final Girl after a deputy "finds" marijuana in her car, which she of course denies. As the credits end, Final Girl is put in a jail cell and left alone. She's distraught until she sees the clock on the far wall; it's almost midnight, and she says she's safe now.

At this moment, her "cellmate," an old woman hiding in the shadows in the corner, announces that there's still plenty of time, and lunges at Final Girl as she turns to the camera and screams. Freeze frame as her scream reverberates. Fade out.

…That's it. I have no other details to add, but I need to find out what movie this is so I can see the rest of the damned thing!

Help meeeeeeee!

Thanks,

Grokenstein

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to Father Merrin for realizing it was WARLOCK MOON!

You guys are *so* good – and your reading audience too, that I turn to you again for Name that Trauma!

It was a Saturday afternoon, perhaps 1980 or 1981; all my friends were outside playing in the pool while I was glued to the television in the family room, trying to convince myself there were no monsters in the laundry room. Fast forward to the only things I remember about this film, which are not many.

Firstly, it was British. Secondly, the single scene I recall is of two women standing in front of a rather large piece of furniture, talking. One was older and one was younger, and both looked to be from 'below the stairs.' with their funny little hats and aprons. Here's the kicker: the older woman (standing on the right) had a green bottle she continually shook as she and the younger woman spoke. And in the bottle was BLOOD!

I don't know how I managed to surmise the contents of the bottle were blood, since I remember precious little else about the movie, but I've never forgotten that scene, or at least how it was stamped on my mind. On a side note, this was not on any type of cable channel. It was a regular, over-the-air broadcast, shown on WABC New York. (Yeah, I know. It's rather freakish that I can remember *that* and not what the damn movie was really about!)

Oh, another thing and forgive my very technical description of what the picture looked like. It looked dry. Some movies (and T.V. shows) look wet, like MY THREE SONS. I LOVE LUCY looks dry. I know there are real-world terms I should know, since I majored in communications, but wet and dry seem to do the trick.

Any light you could shed on this would help solve one of the mysteries of my childhood!

I'm loving your site!

I would have seen this in the early '80s on public T.V., Philadelphia area — I think they were called "Creature Features" on Saturday afternoons (the intro graphic to the feature was a hand coming out of a grave, very low-budget).

I remember only one image from the movie: An old man sits slumped in a chair when suddenly his eye pops out, and hangs by "a string" on his shirt. I remember routinely begging my mom to let me watch horror movies, and always getting, "No." This time I sneakily turned it on. After seeing this scene, I wound up running in the other room, burying my face in my hands, and screaming NO. Now that's some trauma.

I imagine it is just random grindcore crap from the '70s. It was very grainy/yellow. For twenty-five years I have wanted to know what it is.

Runner-up traumas involve TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE (I can recite the intro from memory even today).

Thanks,

Will

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Will, the program you are thinking of was called CREATURE DOUBLE FEATURE with the pan in on the picture of the haunted house with the rubber-gloved monster hand popping out of a grave. The title of the movie though, I do not know. If anyone does, please leave a comment or send us an email.

To read & see more by Will be sure to check A Journey Round My Skull!