kindertrauma

Category: Traumafessions

Traumafessions :: Reader Smidget on Don't Look Now, Burnt Offerings, & Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Posted on By aunt john

I have another one…..sigh.

I was totally traumatized by two ‘70s movies. Well, two OF the hundreds of ‘70s flicks that scared the pants off us…but anyway, these two are DON'T LOOK NOW (I think that's the title, with DONALD SUTHERLAND dealing with the death of his daughter) and BURNT OFFERINGS (the chauffeur). The thing that scared me in the first one was the little lady in the red cape that turned around unexpectedly. My God, I almost died. She was so ugly and it was so unexpected for me. BURNT OFFERINGS, it's obvious, that damn chauffer with the big grin was making me think of Mr. S. the whole time. Ugh. But that movie was so creepy in a lot of ways – I remember I was upset that the father tried to drown the kid – we had a pool. That kid was rather annoying though.

Oh wait, one more in the annals of my brain, DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT? Wait, let me check. No, it wasn't that one, it was DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK. OH my. I was so scared of this because at Grammie's house, they had those same little "doors" in the room that the little critters/gnomes were trying to drag the main character into. Total Trauma. As for DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT, I've never seen it, also tagged as THE FORGOTTEN of 1973, and I am adding it my Netflix queue now. Thanks for this site….so much fun!

UNK SEZ: Good traumafessions all Smidget! Thanks for bringing up DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT. I'm not sure if has been mentioned here yet. I remember that movie playing on late night television as a kid and everything about it from the rural setting to the amateur acting used to unnerve the hell out of me. I did a little poking around and found that you can watch the whole movie (with a surprisingly good quality picture, considering) on Youtube HERE!

Traumafessions :: Joel Bryant & Deven Green Spectacular!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Awhile back we reviewed a movie called BABY BLUES, an above par indie flick that not only impressed both A.J. and I with its effectiveness in the suspense department, but also with its strong performances. One of those strong performances belonged to JOEL BRYANT. I'm only exaggerating a little when I say that shortly thereafter JOEL BRYANT headshots were hung in our lockers at school and we began spending an inordinate amount of time at the local malt shop discussing his dreaminess. I can admit now that perhaps one of us should have given more thought to the JOEL BRYANT FOREVER tattoo but this was all the way back in May when we were young and impressionable. Can you really blame us though? Check out the peepers on this guy…

Further stalking… I mean research resulted in us finding out that JOEL is happily married. Now normally that would have cooled our jets some (pretend) but as it turns out he's married to DEVEN GREEN the notorious Youtube superstar responsible for the "WELOME TO MY HOME" parody videos you've doubtlessly seen. (She also turns out to be the hilarious BETTY BOWERS.) Suddenly we had two people to idolize! Where would we find the time? Luckily the two are known for collaborating as a comedy duo so that their fans may worship both in one quick swoop!

Unrequited appreciation is the name of the game at Kindertrauma Castle (no matter how much cash and free time we donate to the community the locals still dump their trash in our front lawn and pelt us with cantaloupes when we retrieve our mail). So you can imagine our unbridled joy when we received a (unsolicited, I swear!) communiqué from JOEL thanking us for the review and saying he was a fan of the site. How awesome is this guy?

Wouldn't you know it that a week later the four of us Me, Aunt John, JOEL and DEVEN are spending a glamorous weekend in Las Vegas. Aunt John and JOEL may have ended up getting arrested and spending the night in the drunk tank but DEVEN won forty grand playing poker and I fulfilled my life long dream of performing SCRITTI POLITTI's "Perfect Way" in a karaoke bar!

O.K. that last part only occurred in my mind but I did weasel Traumafessions out of both JOEL and DEVEN on account of I'm always thinking of you readers out there! Enjoy these two traumafessions from two super cool people and then go visit them at their home turf HERE!

Joel Bryant:

I don't want to date myself (that's why I got married – rim-shot!), but the most traumatizing thing that EVER happened to me was seeing the original POLTERGEIST when it was in theaters. From the front row. Age at the time: 8. And I've never been the same since…..

My brother and I were spending the summer at my dad's house (as part of the divorce settlement, my dad had to deal with us every summer. We enjoyed the spoils. How bad did POLTERGEIST traumatize me? Even my parents divorce comes in a far, far, far second place to watching that damn flick!). Up until that time, I had become a huge RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK fan. I'd watched it at least a million times by my best estimate; and I was slowly becoming a movie junkie.

My dad had some friends that had seen POLTERGEIST. They came over and asked if my dad would like to take us with them to see it again. I was trepidatious at first because I knew that "poltergeists" were bad. I had fought them before in Dungeons and Dragons. They were easy to defeat, but were definitely considered "monsters."

My dad's friends would have none of it. They described the movie as "no big deal." In fact, to paraphrase their exact words: "You've seen RAIDERS how many times? You know the ending with the faces melting and everything? Well, that happens in POLTERGEIST, but that's about the worst thing that happens. The rest is really harmless. You'll be fine."

My brother and I believed them.

We were at that young age where you want to see every film from the front row (granted, this was before arena seating and ridiculous sound systems). We settled in, excited, in the middle of the front row.

Then the movie started.

I don't need to give a synopsis of the film, but this is how we watched it:

Within 30 minutes we were in the 10th row. Then the 20th row. Then in the back row by the door. By the end of the film, we were literally hiding under the seats in the back of the theater. Shaking. Literally shaking. It took a while for my dad to find us.

That night I didn't sleep a wink. My dad had to sit up all night next to my bed because I kept waking up, crying, shaking and generally having the same sleep as a flu-riddled crack addict. I could not stop seeing images in my head and imagining that everything in the house – EVERYTHING – was attacking me. That lasted a good week.

I was able to get some sleep over the course of the summer, but my dad had to spend most nights by my bedside.

It took me until I was 20 years old to even think about watching a horror film again. I finally gathered up the strength to watch NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET because it's mostly tongue-in-cheek. That type of movie I can stand. A true horror film? I honestly can say I will never have the nerve/spine/energy/desire to watch one.

(Ironic considering the shout-out that KinderTrauma gave me for my work in BABY BLUES.)

How scarring was POLTERGEIST? To this day – and I'm in my mid-30's now – I can't sleep with the closet open if it's of the hinged-door – not the sliding-door – variety (in fact, even when I'm awake, I insist that the closets be closed). I can't have branches or silhouettes of branches outside of my window lest they break through and try to eat me (O.K., I know it sounds stupid, but it's true!). I can't sleep if the T.V. is static and I get nervous in an all-dark house. Graveyards still kinda freak me out and forget ever, EVER owning a stuffed clown. In fact, I was so rattled by that film (and that clown scene in particular), I can't even own or sleep on a bed that a killer clown doll would be able to crawl under. Hell, I might as well say it: Screw clowns in general!

I know these quirks sound a little BILLY BOB THORNTON-ish, but I fully blame what will always be considered by me "The Scariest Movie Of All Time."

To any parents taking their 8-year-olds to the theater, take it from me:

See a Pixar joint and leave the POLTERGEIST's in the Indian Burial Ground where they belong!

Deven Green:

In the isolated, boreal forests of Northern Canada where I was raised, I experienced something but never made the connection until recently as to why I can't go into graveyards or hospitals. I had been traumatized.

My Grade 7 friend, M* got hopelessly lost in the frozen woods by the river. He illogically tried to traverse the partially frozen river. As he negotiated his way across the rocks he slipped and landed on his back. The water rushed over him and kept him pinned down. The rope he had around him winched its way up his body and slipped around his neck. Two hunters heard his initial scream and raced to the river's edge. They could do nothing as he was held under the water laying face up slowing drowning.

I attended his funeral service (actual burials were only in the summer) and thought that I should have felt something other than the nothing I did feel.

In taking a summer job at the only hospital, which was usually empty, I roamed the halls for hours until I discovered a locked room. I stole keys to secret inside and there was M "alive." It looked like he was covered in a contraption of hockey helmets and wires from head to toe…that is how I could best describe it. I read his chart: the freezing water had put his body into a state of hibernation but the energy of the river had somehow wrenched his spine almost from his body…or something like that. There was a pillow with a face imprint in it by his bed. All I knew for sure was that there was no body in his casket.

I never went back in his hospital room again as I was immediately fired.

Summer of that year the frozen earth warmed enough so all the bodies which had died in the winter were now buried in the small graveyard. The town councilman, known for his temper and his drinking, got so drunk one night he took a backhoe and dug up the entire graveyard. M had been his son. I figured he must have put a pillow over his son's face to finally get him physically buried but now that he was actually gone he couldn't let him go. He had done a lot of destruction to the graveyard. So much so that to this day NONE of the bodies match up with any of the tombstones.

*(Out of respect for his family I won't use his name)

Traumafessions :: Reader Andi T. on The Day After & The Dollmaker

Posted on By aunt john

the day after

O.K. you two, I haven't seen these two traumas listed as of yet… (but I'm not all the way through the archives either).

What about that movie THE DAY AFTER having to do with nuclear fall out and how it would devastate the whole country? We were in the early ‘80s with threats of the cold war looming. They then put this movie on T.V. with warnings to parents about how traumatic it might be to children viewing. And yet there my family was with a big ass bowl of popcorn. I just remember seeing a child bleeding from his backside and it made a tremor in my stomach of revulsion I can feel to this day.

Which brings us to the next trauma I feel is worth mentioning, and several of my gal pals concur. The movie was THE DOLLMAKER…early ‘80s JANE FONDA, a Mom in the depression times that whittles dolls out of wood who not only gives her own daughter a friggin' tracheotomy, on what I think was just a run of the mill dining room table, but who also later has to witness her daughter die as her legs are being crushed by a train down at the local train track…VIVID and AWFUL, AWFUL, AWFUL!

I know I'm not supposed to be trying to hog all the trauma moments by listing a ton, but these were really gnarly and I couldn't pick the one that was worse. 🙂

Traumafessions :: From the Makers of Frayed…

Posted on By unkle lancifer

KURT SVENNUNGSEN – FRAYED Co-writer, Producer:

I can't just name one particular film that scared me as a kid. It all took place in 1981, at the ripe age of ten. I saw THE EXORCIST, HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13th PART II. I'm sure my parents were pissed, because that was my year of nightmares and waking them up in the middle of the night scared shitless that Jason was after me. That year was the beginning of my fascination with horror. I think JOHN CARPENTER says it best as to why we love horror, "Fear is our most primal emotion."

NORBERT CAOILI – FRAYED Co-writer, Co-director, Co-Producer, Editor, Composer:

'70s and early '80s horror movies definitely take the cake as having traumatized me as a child, forever burning horrific images in my brain that, to this day, I still can't shake. When I'm alone at night in the dark, they creep back into my brain and make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. The one that stands out the most would have to be the '70s horror movie BURNT OFFERINGS. This movie had it all – a haunted house, a chilling score, massive suspense, and two of the most unforgettable horror characters to ever appear on screen – KAREN BLACK as Mrs. Allardyce and ANTHONY JAMES, the sinister, smiling chauffeur. I was only 7 years old when I saw BURNT OFFERINGS on HBO and I still remember how I trembled in fear for many nights afterwards, hiding under the sheets, thinking they were going to come into my room at any minute and get me! I will never forget that end scene where Karen Black turns to Oliver Reed, creepily stares at him, with the most chilling violin strings since PSYCHO, and says "I've been waiting for you, Ben!" Then he jumps out (or is thrown out of) the window and lands face-first into the car windshield. A lot of movies lose their creep factor as we grow older, but, for me, this one does not. To this day, when I watch that scene, my heart starts beating faster and my body tenses up. The suspense in that film, like so many films of that era, was so gripping and agonizingly drawn out. It's a style that sadly has been lost in the modern age of fast-paced, short attention span world we live in.

On that note, I have to give a shout out to HALLOWEEN (1978) – the granddaddy of slashers and one of my beloved favorites. I never knew how terrifying a white mask and an eerie piano soundtrack could be. It was the film that got me hooked on horror and made me want to become a filmmaker.

ROB PORTMANN – Co-Director, Co-Writer, Co-Producer:

"Creepy little girls in white dresses" movies scare me. The movie was THE HOUSE THAT WOULD NOT DIE (1970) starring BARBARA STANWYCK. I remember being about 6 or 7 and I couldn't sleep. So I went into the living room to tell my parents. They were watching this "Haunted House" movie. I sat down and watched for awhile. I only watched about 10 minutes. What I saw gave me nightmares for years. It showed a family finding human bones under this house and a "creepy little girl in a white dress" calling in a ghostly voice from the other side of a misty creek. "Aimee, come home," she called. I couldn't shake that eerie image. It freaked me out!!!

THE EXCORCIST then took the "creepy little girl" thing to a whole different level. I will never get that nightmare out of my head, no matter how hard I try!!! That's why, to this day, even though the "creepy little girl" is pretty much standard in every other horror flick that comes out now, it still does the job and scares the hell out of me!!!

UNK SEZ: Thanks guys, for the excellent traumafessions and for keeping the spirit of '70s and '80s horror alive with FRAYED! All you kids out there, FRAYED is being released on DVD tomorrow, make sure you pick up a copy or two (they make great gifts!) at better retailers everywhere. As for now check out this scary scene…

Traumafessions :: Reader Kawaiihanyou on All Dogs Go to Heaven

Posted on By aunt john

ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN. Seems innocent enough, right? It can't be bad telling from the title, can it? It involved dogs, one of my favorite animals and heaven? Heaven is a good thing, right?

WRONG.

I can't remember how old (maybe 7 or 9) I was when I saw this movie, but when I think about it, this one scene from near the end of the movie replays in my head: One of the dogs being dragged down to hell by this black demon things spurring out of the concrete. It scared the hell outta me and I couldn't watch it again.

Unfortunately, I was made to watch it again, when I was twelve or eleven. I was at a friend's house and I couldn't bear to watch it. I couldn't watch the poor innocent dogs get killed and be sent back and fourth between heaven and hell. That's a great thing to be showing kids, right? Dogs being killed only to be dragged down to the pits of hell. Riiight…

It's been years since I've seen the movie but it still sparks a bad feeling when I think about it. But I gotta know if I was the only one bothered by this movie or not.

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Nope, you are not alone on this one… just ask Reader Miriam67.

Traumafessions :: Reader Bigwig on Fat Albert ep. "Busted"

Posted on By aunt john

Hey Aunt and Unk:

FAT ALBERT AND THE COSBY KIDS was always a main staple of Saturday mornings, with good ole' Albert becoming the moralistic voice of reason countering the bad decisions of his cronies.

"You shouldn't pick on little Ginny, just because she's deaf! Hey Hey Hey!"

But somewhere down the line, there was an episode where they just happened to wind up in a stolen car, and were given a tour of a Philadelphia prison in an attempt to be SCARED STRAIGHT by the police. I'm not kidding. I had read a post earlier this year about a gun violence FAT ALBERT episode. I would wager this came from the same "unsyndicated, no holds barred" season.

Does anyone remember how out of place and unsettling this was? Granted there was no profanity, but it was certainly not something for a 6 year old, and I doubt teenagers were the target audience of the show.

I remember my sister and I transfixed by this prison house of horrors as depicted in a trustworthy happy cartoon, listening to the cacklings and howls of the pedophiles and psychopaths.

When the psycho inmate lusts over Albert, "Mmm… give me the BIG one.." like he's some kind of plump New Year's ham, I think it sealed the deal that we were going to keep on the straight and narrow.

So I supposed it worked, Mr. COSBY; thanks for the nightmares!

All the best,

Bigwig

Traumafessions :: Reader Chuckles on Return of the Living Dead

Posted on By aunt john

I really enjoy the site. Keep up the good work.

Anyhow, I suppose that as a young child, I was exceptionally sensitive and was repeatedly trauma'd by 1970s pop culture: the cover of the Queen album News of the World; those huge monsters that ate people on the MUPPET SHOW; the trailer for THE DEVIL'S RAIN (which ran before some thing much more mundane at the drive-in); and of course my cousin Roger's thoughtful description of PHANTASM which I really didn't understand but caused me to steal and bury my neighbor's silver sphere garden decoration.

However, I must (somewhat shamefully) admit that the mightiest trauma didn't come down until I was 12 or 13 years old. I was told by some of the older kids on the block that I should see this hi-larious movie called RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. Now, I've seen the film a few times as an adult and it is pretty damned witty, but the kids on my block forgot to mention that the film could also be regarded as being UTTERLY HORRIFYING by a kid that was afraid of (certain) Muppets. I was doing O.K. until the "tar-man" zombie showed up. After that it was zero chuckles and pure white knuckles.

There was something about the RETURN zombies that really shook me up. These zombies were so much like living people that their acts of cannibalism seemed much more terrible. Freddy's slow transformation from loving boyfriend to brain-craving zombie really underscored the point. Further, although they were much more human than other zombies, they were essentially unstoppable, which made me feel helpless. Finally, they wanted to eat living human brains, which greatly bothered me for reasons that I still don't fully understand to this day.

My viewing of RETURN began a new phase in my life that lasted for years. I would not go near a cemetery and memorized the locations of every one in town so that I could plan my bicycle rides accordingly. Same with funeral homes, natch. Hospitals were nearly as taboo, as I knew that corpses were kept somewhere therein.

I was very uncompromising about my new extreme phobia. A friend of mine lived a couple of houses away from a cemetery, so he was scratched off my buddy list. My grandma lived near a gigantic military cemetery, and although I could not opt out, I counted the seconds until we left during each visit.

Nightmares about a full-scale zombie uprising were the norm. Looking back, these were really the catalyst that kept the trauma rolling along. I clearly recall waking from these night terrors covered in sweat and spending the rest of the night looking outside my bedroom window, anticipating the moment when that first decaying shambler would appear under the streetlights.

At some point my zombie-phobia simply faded and as I grew older I came to enjoy all things zombie. I'm sure a shrink could bill a few grand dissecting how I embraced my fears and wanted to connect with my childhood and blah, blah, blah. Unfortunately, zombies have of late become so overexposed that for the first time in my life I'm becoming finding them to be somewhat boring….

Oh well. All good things must one day end.

Maybe I'll steal a decorative silver ball and bury it for old time's sake.

Traumafessions :: Reader Jenna P. on VHS Covers & Simplicity Sewing

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I just found your site today, and it's great.

Around 1987, when I was 5 years old, I have very distinct memories of being in the video store with my mother. I didn't look at the children's movies though. She would always find me in the horror section, looking at the back of the VHS movies. I remember one picture in particular, a woman in a bathtub holding a toaster. I'm thinking there had to be another picture, such as a leg sticking out of the tub, and the toaster was next to it, maybe. I have no idea what this movie was (I doubt I was a very good reader at 5 anyway), but I don't remember being scared of the picture, just interested. I enjoyed the back of other movies too; I do remember THE THING, MONKEY SHINES, and a movie about flesh eating ants. I'm pretty sure this is where my fascination with death began. I believe the term is death hag. I can view death pictures, like Nikki Catsouras, and there's no problem. It's pictures like the entry on MR. SARDONICUS that terrify me, to this day, at 26 years old.

Another thing that scared me to death was the cover of one of my mother's Simplicity Sewing magazines; I'm guessing from late ‘80s/early ‘70s. The picture was of a young woman with long brown hair (no bangs of course), her mouth was making a small O shape, and her hand was up in front of her. The fingers on her hand turned into a pair of scissors, a thimble…a little rolly wheel thing on her middle finger (this was in front of/below the O of her mouth). The mouth shape and the fact that her fingers "became" scissors is what scared me. Early Photoshop I guess. I would beg my mom to make that face and then it would freak me out and I would make her stop. Funny. I found that picture online once but unfortunately I can't find it again. I hope I find it before I have a kid so I can scare her with it.

Also the usual fare: Wicked Witch in the WIZARD OF OZ (actually, the monkeys), Chuckie, FIRE IN THE SKY, and IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS are the movies that really got to me, that I lost sleep over or slept with the light on. Today, of course, I love horror movies, esp. zombies. I think we can all agree the scariest part is when the characters lose the local T.V. and radio stations. At that point, you're on your own. The end is nigh, huh? This is why I keep a shotgun under my bed and drive an SUV.

I sure wonder about that toaster lady, though.

LAST MINUTE UPDATE: Hey, look! Aunt John somehow found that cover!

Traumafessions :: Reader Smidget on Mr. Sardonicus & Co.

Posted on By aunt john

I just stumbled on this site this morning – it is SO GREAT.

I just saw DEAD OF NIGHT last evening, and that movie lead me to Kindertrauma via IMDb…so hooray!

What scared me most? A few things:

And the big one – MR. SARDONICUS. That movie scared me so much I couldn't even think about seeing it again, even now. I was about 11. We were not allowed to watch horror films, but the ones above are the ones that I somehow saw, probably at Grammie's house. MR. S. was at a friend's house the one time I was allowed to sleep over!

Thanks for having a site like this,

Smidget