Category: Traumafessions

Hey Kindertrauma and friends —

My kindertrauma revolved around the horrific episode of SCOOBY-DOO (my favorite cartoon to this day) entitled "A Tiki Scare is No Fair." As I was an anxious and nervous child who grew into a lovably neurotic adult, I can't believe my parents even let me watch this show.

Between the ghost drums, the haunted island far away from home, the idea of being hunted down by a maniacal tiki monster, and the evil witch doctor himself, I could've bought stock in Depends.

However, the most harrowing and haunting scene for me is when the witch doctor is chasing Velma and she hides in a bale of hay to escape his clutches. And he looms and searches for her, stalking and waiting until she blows her cover with a sneeze. At least this is how I remember it.

Just wanted to share and see who else (if anyone) was caused any trauma by watching good old SCOOBY.

Much appreciation,

— Matt

UNK SEZ: Thanks to JOHN ROZEM for the above tiki image! You can find more super cool SCOOBY location shots at his joint HERE!

What is it with me and Traumafessions from 1977?

First it was SASQUATCH: THE LEGEND OF BIGFOOT, then it was ORCA, and now I come to you with ROLLERCOASTER.

In the summer of '77, I was 8 – a great age for enjoying carnivals and amusement parks. My interest in rollercoasters was just beginning to blossom, and I probably would have gone on them had I not seen the movie ROLLERCOASTER, starring TIMOTHY BOTTOMS as a mad bomber of said funrides.

The scene in the following clip is what traumatized me so much that I didn't get on a rollercoaster until I was 14:

It's not enough that BOTTOMS' character attacks what should be a safe haven of fun for kids, or the horrifying images of the rollercoaster snapping in pieces, carts and bodies flying everywhere — what scarred me the most is the scene of the cart flipping upside down and dropping its passengers directly on their heads.

Yes, if you squint or freeze-frame, the passengers in all the carts are obviously dummies. But when you're 8 and you see something like this without the benefit of a pause or slo-mo button, it affects you. Deeply.

— FilmFather

Hey I'm Francisco from Spain! I hope you excuse my poor English, I have recently discovered your site and it is the most interesting and amusing site I have read in a time. I've got not so much film or TV kindertraumas from my childhood because I was a very sensitive boy and tried to avoid those issues but reading about WHY ME? or PIGMON on your site are traumatizing enough. As a child and even as a teenager I've had fear of gore, sea monsters or shark films, other films with disfigurations or people burning…and rats.

Ok, some videos from YouTube I think could be interesting for your web page…

I'm afraid of seeing it every time I try.

It's from a Mexican film by RENE CARDONA JR. called THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE with JOHN HO\USTON and some European beauties and Mexican actors, I saw it as a child in a summer exhibition but it impresses me even more as an adult, an excellent film of psychological horror covering issues like the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, UFO, sea monsters and living dolls.

In the post about RAZORBACK you talk about killer pigs, take a look at minute 2.00 aprox… it's EL CARNAVAL DE LAS BESTIAS from spanish actor and filmmaker JACINTO MOLINA aka PAUL NASCHY, this horror thriller was coproduced with Japan in 1980.

More things, TV movies from the '70s and '80s, have you written about DON'T GO TO SLEEP, on the site? and do you remember, I have seen it more or less recently, but don't remember the title, a TV movie from 1978 with a passenger ship in the Caribbean that found an Egyptian mummy in the bottom of the sea?

Again a very interesting site, keep on it!

Greetings from Spain,

— Francisco

UNK SEZ: Thanks Francisco for your supportive words and for the cool and very creepy videos! To answer your questions, we are big fans of 1982's DON"T GO TO SLEEP and talked about it HERE and HERE and the movie about the mummy on the passenger ship from 1978 is called CRUISE INTO TERROR. That one sure has an amazing cast including DIRK BENEDICT, CHRISTOPHER and LYNDA DAY GEORGE, JO ANN HARRIS of THE BEGUILED, LEE MERIWETHER, JOHN FORSYTHE, STELLA STEVENS and even my favorite human RAY MILAND! You can read a bit more on that one at our pal Amanda's MADE FOR TV MAYHEM over HERE! Que tenga un buen dia!

I'm surprised I couldn't find THE HAUNTING OF JULIA (FULL CIRCLE) on your site.

That movie definitely traumatized me as a kid, especially the (SPOILER!) ending where creepy evil ghost girls kills MIA FARROW. I'd actually volunteer to write an article for Kindertrauma on it. Have a lot of things to say, just watched it as an adult last night and couldn't sleep! Still chilling.

Anyways, here's the ending of the movie:

Brrrrrrrr.

— Cheryl

What was not to love growing up in the early ‘70s, and getting to watch ULTRAMAN after school every day in second or third grade? For those unfamiliar, ULTRAMAN, along with JOHNNY SOKKO and SPACE GIANTS, was Japanese sci-fi fare, dishing out the best low-budget giant monster fights ever; fights that my friends and I would re-enact while jumping about the sofa cushions while under the spell of Captain Crunch with Crunchberries straight from the box.

ULTRAMAN had all the moves; crazy ninja poses, special effect laser beams and energy buzz saws…while the monsters, often more than one per show, were a varied rogue's gallery of just about any form or shape imaginable. I can't really elaborate on much of a plot other than ULTRAMAN was either summoned or was the transformation of a member of some wacky Japanese monster-fighting force that was constantly being sent to the scene of yet another 50 foot monster perturbed by something or other.

Simply put, in my small world, ULTRAMAN ruled!

However there was one monster introduced named Pigman that delivered the shock/nightmare of my life. (His name was really Pigmon, but all voices were over-dubbed and didn't match up, and Pigman seemed to make more sense to us kids) Pigman wasn't like the other monsters. He was meant to be a friendly monster, only about 5 feet tall. He was an ugly little thing, looked like he was a combination of a catfish and a mound of orange coral, that would be more content at the bottom of an aquarium. He had hands that flopped around without any arms to speak of, and he had a perpetually frowning face. In fact, the actor that was stuck having to wear the Pigman costume was relegated to donning this barrel, and either walking or jumping up and down. Pigman made some kind of high-pitched chattering when he got excited. He spoke Monster.

In a lot of ways Pigman was like a repulsive little monster-kid. (When choosing our mock-fight battle personas, the ultimate insult was to be dubbed "Pigman".)

The Pigman episode was short enough…they find Pigman, he helps them somehow, and a great big Godzilla monster throws rocks on him and he dies. The audience is left to feel sorry for the heroic little Pigman, as the Godzilla monster gets his in the end, by good old Ultraman. I for one was glad he was gone.

That night, I had my first Pigman nightmare….very vivid, of his ugly little self. In fact, I had a few over the next week or so. I don't know what it was that did it, but boy, I didn't want anything to do with Pigman. It's difficult to explain, but it was the death of Pigman that had me unglued in the nightmares, along with his absurd surreal look. I guess it registered somehow as the death of a child.

It became house news…my sister would taunt me with it, my mother would quell my fears, my dad would roll his eyes and drink a cup of black coffee, since I kept everyone up at night.

Thankfully, the weeks rolled on, and it became old news. I could picture Pigman's freakish countenance still, but continued on armed with the knowledge that he was in only one episode, and was thankfully gone, and I was back to watching my boy, Ultraman do what he does best.

And then, with my little posse over yet again, the unthinkable happened; the cushions were off the sofa, the monkey-fights had started, and a new ULTRAMAN episode had begun… The monster-fighting squad was summoned to a toy store of all places for a disturbance, and what did they find amidst the stuffed animals?

Pigman!

I would be willing to bet my heart skipped at least two beats. Time froze. Tunnel vision set in….

Somehow back from the dead! Even more frantic and ugly than ever! The unthinkable: my nightmare headliner plowing past all forms of logic, and reappearing for an encore.

I felt sick, but watched on….and sure enough, Pigman was somehow resurrected, helps the crew again, and distracts a giant monster by hopping around, until the giant monster scratches it's head in confusion, and crushes him!

Ugly little Pigman had come back; in order to die a second time in much the same fashion, just for me. It seemed so surreal as I watched it, that it couldn't possible be a coincidence.

Needless to say, the nightmares began anew.

Dad drank a lot of black coffee that year.

I found YouTube links of both Pigman death's although they are Japanese, with Spanish subtitle. I seem to have inherited my Father's eye roll…..

— BigWig

Some of the movies that scared me the most as a kid were made-for-TV movies based on true events. Sure many of them are corny and deviated from the actual facts, but as a kid most of the time I didn't realize it. I was fascinated by the movies that had to deal with horrible accidents or people being disfigured. I don't know if I was an insensitive little shit or if I just watched too much TV. One film I'll always remember was WHY ME?

It aired a lot in the '80's, mainly on Lifetime. I remember the first time I watched almost the whole movie was particularly horrifying. I was at my cousin's house during a summer afternoon while my Mom was working. My cousin, who was around my same age, just had surgery done to his eye and he had to wear a patch over it. I'm not sure who thought this was a good idea, but the patch his doctor made him wear was a skin-colored bandage. I guess from a distance it was less noticeable than a patch like a pirate would wear, but up close it was really off-putting to an eight-year-old kid. It looked like skin had melted over his eye. I shouldn't have been scared of him, but I was.

So as I avoided hanging out with him during his recovery, I found other things to do like watch Lifetime with my Aunt. She was watching WHY ME? It was about a nurse who's face was disfigured in a car accident. Here's another situation where I shouldn't have been scared, but I was. I remember it looked like skin had melted over her mouth after she had one of her operations to reconstruct her lips and it reminded me of my cousin's eye so I couldn't get away from it. I was also freaked out by one doctor's drawings and I wondered why he wanted to make her look as ugly as his sketch. All of the medical jargon completely went over my head at the time and I didn't realize that facial reconstruction was such a long process.

Watching parts of the movie on YouTube, I now realize that a lot of the plot is based on how controversial and groundbreaking the doctor's procedures were. He wanted to use vaginal skin to repair the nurse's lips. I was also pleasantly surprised to see BRUCE ABBOTT make an appearance as one of the patients.

— Grimpressions

I don't know that I have found anything about this horrid little gem on your website. It's a 1986 movie called RATBOY directed by SONDRA LOCKE. Now, it may not be a horror movie, but there were elements that really rang true to one in my seven year old mind. My father took immense pleasure in watching the horrified looks on my brother's and my face when he found a particularly good kindertrauma-esque movie. RATBOY was one of the over the top ones for me.

It's harmless enough, but it begins with a scene that has COURTNEY GAINS in it. After seeing CHILDREN OF THE CORN, that guy scared the bejesus out of me. That is a whole different traumafession that has already been touched on by many here.

Needless to say, that was the beginning of the horror for me. I think I might have peed a little, but I don't remember this movie all that clearly. At 31, I am still too scared to watch it again. Anyhow, when we first find Ratboy, there is an old '50s style box type record player that has Lloyd Price's "Personality" playing on it. I distinctly remember this song being prominent throughout the movie. I still think of the movie every time I hear the song, but the memories are still very fuzzy for me. I think the director really wanted it to be a life lesson sort of the thing, but it was surreal and strange. More of a dark comedy than a horror flick. It had all of the wholesomeness of an Afterschool Special and most of the camp of a Late Night Screamer. I think there was some kind of underlying morality message and you were to be saddened by the plight of Ratboy, but honestly, with Malachai in the opening scene and the makeup job, that was phenomenal for its day, I just couldn't see it. I think I need to man up and give this one another watch, but I am home alone right now and don't think I could do it.

I am interested to see if any of you guys remember this one. I would hate to think that I am the only one who was terrorized by this movie.

— "doihaveto"

New reader!!

I love your site by the way!!