Category: Traumafessions

Hi,

My name is Timo (a.k.a. ghostofthemovie) and here is my traumafession.

My worst kindertrauma was definitely the movie adaption of STEPHEN KING's novel IT by TOMMY LEE WALLACE. I'm still shaking when I remember watching it in my childhood.

Every time I saw TIM CURRY's clown masked face in a close up my heart started to pound and cold sweat was running down my neck. For a long time I was afraid to go outside when it was dark, because I thought the clown would come and hunt me down.

This kind of fear inspired by a movie was exciting in a completely new way. So I started to watch more horror stuff and I'm still a fan of this genre. But nowadays, these films are more like funny amusement than a deeply terrifying experience.

Great website by the way!

Greetings from Germany,

Timo

I watched this movie as a tot.

We got a VCR, when they first became popular. There were very few kid movies to rent at that time. My mother thought that this film was appropriate for me and my older brother and rented it over and over and over again. My brother and I hadn't discussed this movie in over 20 years, when one day it came up. I didn't remember the plot or the movie itself (I was that young), I only recalled the bunnies, blood and horrifying violence. My brother then chimed in with the name of the movie and how traumatizing he too thought it was.

I'm 33 years old and still have nightmares. I think about renting it and watching it as an adult; thinking it won't be as traumatic and may ease my mind… but I'm too scared.

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Thanks for the great traumafession Nicole. If you are looking to start an adult support group for this bloody bunny traumatizer, we can hook you up with Readers Greta and Matt N.

I have been searching several years for a commercial that traumatized my nephew when he was three years old. It was for hologram action figures called Super Naturals. As you will see in the commercial, a kid rips his head off to reveal a glowing wolf-man face. Poor Zac would run screaming, "Kid pull his head off!" to his bedroom. I wonder if other children were traumatized by this commercial?

I was nine when this was shown on T.V., and it's been stuck in a dark recess of my brain ever since. As one of the comments [on Youtube] points out, "It's PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE" for kids. (With JOHN SEBASTIAN, even!)

UNK SEZ: Thanks Props! I'm surprised nobody has brought this one up before, back in the day they used to show it on Halloween. THE DEVIL AND DANIEL MOUSE, like most things with the Devil in it, gave me some creeps as a kid too. Based on THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER, this Faustian mouse tale got revamped for the big screen in the form of ROCK AND RULE (It also bears a striking resemblance to the cult musical THE APPLE!) How frickin' cool is DEVIL AND DANIEL MOUSE? So cool that it was sampled for the BAUHAUS song Party of the First Part!

I was scared for life by the T.V. movie DAVID: THE DAVID ROTHENBERG STORY.

Very cruel & scary movie.

JOHN ERMAN (director), 1988, with BERNADETTE PETERS and JOHN GLOVER.

UNK SEZ: Ugh! Why'd ya have to go and remind me of the feel-bad television movie of the century Riccardo? A father setting his son on fire and burning over 90% of his body? Of course, something so mind-boggingly heinous has to be based on a true story and guess what? Dad spent all of SIX years in jail!

Don't feel bad, American judicial system, you're new; I'm sure you'll iron out all of those little kinks one of these centuries!

It's not a horror movie. It was a political statement docudrama. The name of the movie was SILKWOOD and the shower scenes… still…. ::shudder::

SO here's what it is. A woman is working in a nuclear facility of some kind. All the workers exit through some sort of radiation detector (I've since seen these at a medical research facility I worked at.) Well, it goes off and she is carried away to a shower room where she is scrubbed raw by what I can only imagine was some sort of Brillo pad on a long stick. The whole time she's screaming her poor little head off.

I hope I'm not the only one who remembers this…. It's freaked me out forever.

UNK SEZ: You are not alone Little Fox! Every time Silky would go through that radiation detector I would grit my teeth! That gal got scrubbed!

NOTE: The SILKWOOD trading card is courtesy of THE AUTOMATIC LIFESTYLE DISPENSER; find more "Improbable movie trading cards" HERE!

I love your site! Haven't made it all the way through yet, but just thought of something that used to scare the crap out of me as a kid. Remember TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE?? People always cite that story at the end, with the alien on the wing of the airplane. But what always got me was the third story, about the kid who lives in a cartoon world. A woman takes him home after she hits him with her car, and he traps her there with his creepy cartoon family.

Two things specifically stick out. In a room upstairs he shows the woman his sister, whose back is facing them. He says something like, "She doesn't talk much," or something, and when the camera pans around, you see that she has no mouth. So scary!!! The other is when he orders his uncle to do a magic show, and he pulls a terrifying, snarling, bloody bunny out of a hat.

Please add these to your list! I wonder if everyone will remember this!

UNK SEZ: Thanks Sarah, Aunt John and I were just watching this one the other day on T.V.! I have to agree with you that the JOE DANTE directed segment "It's a Good Life" is the absolute highlight of the movie (in fact, I could do without the first two segments completely.) You can thank effects genius ROB BOTTIN (THE THING) for that rascally rabbit and all the other surreal creatures that pop up unexpectedly throughout. By the way, this segment was based on a classic episode of the series and you can spot original kid star BILLY MUMY (LOST IN SPACE) hanging out in the diner at the beginning!

Hi, it's Jeffrey again, the one who told you about FRAGGLE ROCK and THX, and also asked about the school supplies commercial. Here is something that might have material that could scare kids under 6, maybe 7. It's not a movie, a T.V. show, or a book. It's a videogame. I'm talking about Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island for SNES, and also GBA. It has some creepy stuff like fake giant floating flowers disguised as real ones with evil grins that roll towards you when you get too close to them, monkeys spitting seeds at you, mud, cleverly hidden enemies, spike and thorns, creepy bosses, etc. This game should not be played by kids 6 and under, it's CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPY.

You gotta devote about 3 minutes of your time to look at this short film. Trust me, it's worth it. Creepy, eerie, and unsettling are three words that come to mind. Exactly what kind of drugs do you need to be on to dream this stuff up? Even so, I love it!

I saw this movie in 1965 with my younger brother and sister when I was six years old. The movie starts with two astronomers in an observatory discussing a possible UFO sighting. We then see the flying saucer landing. A cute little dog that saw the saucer land runs up to it and starts barking at it. The top of the flying saucer opens and a helmeted alien with a ray gun pops out and Sparky, the cute little dog, gets zapped into a gruesome little dog skeleton that clatters to the ground. …Instant trauma!

I have never forgotten that moment, none of us kids said a word, all three of us just sat there in shock as the all too human looking alien took off his helmet and more aliens emerged from the saucer to examine poor little Sparky's skeletal remains. Later in the movie, one of the aliens goes into a small town and several people get skeletonized in a gun battle. My sister was five at the time and still remembers little Sparky getting zapped into skeleton bones. That movie is probably why my three-year-old little brother feared skeletons through most of his childhood.