Kindertrauma Funhouse
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A Salute to Patricia of Widow's Bay by Mickster
Widow’s Bay is by far my favorite show of 2026. Patricia (played expertly by Kate O’Flynn) is the standout of the series. Patricia is a wonderfully awkward badass!
From middle-aged mean girls to the Boogie Man, she handles it all in season one. Speaking of those middle-aged mean girls, they appear prominently in two Patriciacentric episodes from this season. Episode four “Beach Reads” illustrates what happens to Patricia when she tries too hard to impress the “mean girls” from her high school years. A “helpful” party planning guide appears, and she begins following the instructions for her “Sunset cocktails” party. Before the arrival of this book, Patricia is humiliated at a get-together at a former classmate’s house. It is in this moment the audience gets to know why she has become an object of ridicule by this group of “ladies.” The events of “Sunset cocktails” are seen initially through Patricia’s eyes, but as the party progresses, the audience sees that things are not quite as they appear to our hostess. It’s Carrie (1976) meets The Wicker Man (1974).
Episode eight “Your Baggage” finds Patricia faced with the literal Boogie Man from her youth. Throughout the season, she alludes to her experience as a teen being stalked and almost killed by the Boogie Man—those middle-aged mean girls dispute her story and use it as an excuse to treat her as an object of ridicule. When the long-thought-dead Boogie Man appears at her home, an awesome game of cat and mouse begins that at one point ends up at the home of the main mean girl (she gets some taser gun comeuppance…ZAP!). Patricia ends up being the queen final girl. No slasher movie would have subsequent sequels if Patricia was the final girl because she’d make damn sure the slasher villain was not just dead but REALLY dead! It’s Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th Part II (1981) villains meet a final girl who doesn’t make dumb mistakes.
Guys, if you don’t subscribe to Apple TV, it is worth a trial subscription just to binge-watch this fantastic horror comedy series. Perhaps you will also appreciate Patricia, aka Queen of the Final Girls!
Traumafession:: Wendy on Death Smiles on a Murderer (1973)
Hello,
This is a movie I saw in Cuba when I was around 7-8 years old. The title they gave it there was “The Dangerous Blonde”, so it was very hard for me to find it once here in US.
The title is “Death Smiles on the murderer”. The death mask haunted me for many years. The whole atmosphere is tenebrous and funereal. The actress looks “not completely alive” (although not a zombie either) when she is in her normal condition making her appearance very ominous in any form.
Thank you,
Wendy
Backrooms
I wasn’t aware of the initial creepypasta photo or viral web series that inspired Kane Parsons’ singularly unsettling BACKROOMS but it somehow seems strangely familiar to me anyway. I feel like I actually know and have experienced such liminal spaces in dreams my whole life. Most my dreams are about cat wrangling for sure, but on many occasions I’m just a poor sap trying to find his way home from a maze like mall/hotel/airport. It didn’t help my psyche that after viewing BACKROOMS at my local AMC, I exited into Philly’s barely functioning “Fashion District” mall. Once the greatest mall known to man (SUNCOAST VIDEO, FYE, KAYBEE TOYS, etc), it’s now a confusing maze of escalators that go nowhere, ramps that hit walls, food courts serving things I’ve never heard of, broken elevators, and restricted doorways. It even has the nerve to connect to a subway, a train station and many an office building presumably filled with people pushing papers and whatnot. It’s not a great vibe and I took it as a mocking, personal attack when I heard Madonna’s “This Used to Be My Playground” piping throughout the joint. It was a little too on the nose.
Our labyrinthine tale concerns a would be architect (nice touch) named Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofoor) who works at an insane pirate themed furniture store that proudly boasts of its selection of ottomans. Not surprising, he has a shrink and her name is Mary Kline (eerie Renate Reinsve). The two often role play the fateful night Clark’s wife (understandably) skedaddled. Mary’s not exactly the picture of mental health either as she was raised by a mother who had agoraphobia so bad she covered the windows with newspaper and blocked the front door with (thematically fitting) furniture. Making things all the more stressful is that this all takes place in the nineties, insuring everything is aesthetically questionable to say the least. It’s all so ugly it goes full circle to become pretty damn hip. One day poor Clark discovers that his store’s basement has the peculiar feature of an inter dimensional doorway into an impossible area where time seems to be crashing into itself and forming bizarre anomalies one of which is a predatory monster portrayed by the guy (Robert Bobroczkyi) who played the offspring in ALIEN: ROMULUS. Mary is skeptical at first but a series of seriously trippy occurrences will make her far less so.
BACKROOMS is not a movie one easily deciphers or forgets. It’s nearly hypnotic and like author Mark Z. Danielewski’s THE HOUSE OF LEAVES it is built to eschew expectations or familiar rules (on a few occasions I was also reminded of 2002’s SKINAMARINK in that it seems almost more of an art installation (or even the "Mirror, Father, Mirror" video from GHOST WORLD (2022)) than your standard movie). For some reason while viewing I thought the heart of the film was Clark trying to get over the demise of his marriage but I guess it’s more about dealing with how that relationship shattered all of his life dreams and left him a mutation of his former self with only ugly and useless splintered memories to show for it (or maybe that’s projection). I couldn’t help yearning for a more emotionally upbeat conclusion but realistically that would go against the entire endeavor (In other words, this is no CUBE (’97) or ESCAPE ROOM (2019) it's much more complicated and almost like jumping into a M.C. Escher print). Blatant bummer or not, BACKROOMS absolutely delivers on sights and sounds you’ve never experienced before, more than a few seriously nightmarish visuals, a good jolt or two and a lot to process and think about once it’s done. I guess my lone takeaway advise is don’t go see it in a space (mental or physical) that the film mirrors like I did. The result is truly unnerving.
Passenger
Middle child syndrome is no joke so I have only sympathy for PASSENGER, the hapless horror film born between legit phenomenon OBSESSION and the highly anticipated BACKROOMS. It probably doesn’t help when your siblings are giving off fresh, of the moment, cultural zeitgeist vibes and you gotta peddle a throwback campfire tale/boogeyman legend/haunted highway flick that emulates the eighties. On the other hand, director Andre (TROLLHUNTER, THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE, SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK and THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER) Ovredal is not exactly a slouch and there’s something comforting about an unambitious supernatural stalker tale that delivers dopey jump scares on the regular and is perfectly content drawing within the lines while magpie cribbing from every possible source . It’s all pretty mediocre for sure, but I didn’t mind being reminded of the wonderful “Terror in Topanga” opening segment from NIGHTMARES (’83) or the always exciting late night TV motorhome/van-in peril stylings of RACE WITH THE DEVIL (’75) and THE HILLS HAVE EYES ('77) (It also favors a slew of movies I rented at Redbox (R.I.P.) like THE MONSTER (2016), THE TOLL (2020) and ALONE (2020). I should also note that I may have a long running RV bias because as a kid I would draw van interiors all day and imagine one day living in one. Additionally, my cousins had a stagnant camper in the back yard that they basically used as a club house and I fond memories of its moldy smell and reading CASPER and RICHIE RICH comic books inside).
Fetching young couple Tyler (Jacob Scipio) and Maddy (Lou Llobell) leave Brooklyn and their jobs behind to hit the open road in a decked out orange van they have named “Pumpkin”. Tyler asks Maddy to marry him and she says yes but they foolishly decide to help an anonymous injured man in a car wreck (this flick goes kinda hard on the “don’t help others” angle) which leaves them cursed by a low rent Reverend Kane-type dubbed “The Passenger”. In order to survive the entity's relentless attempts to murder them, the betrothed couple and their faithful orange vehicle must collect as many Saint Christopher pendants as possible, take a crash course in hobo symbols, utilize the sage wisdom of artist Bob “happy accidents” Ross, use a projector showing ROMAN HOLIDAY as a makeshift flashlight and finally seek the advise of a fellow van enthusiast named Diana Marsh played by Melissa Leo. A lot to juggle but totally doable.
For a guy that has delivered visual stunners like the aforementioned mouthfuls SCARY STORES TO TELL IN THE DARK & THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER, this movie comes across much more salt of the Earth, no-frills than you’d expect. Besides a few nifty billboards, the landscape is mostly presented as is, which adds some realism perhaps at the expense of the uncanny. Luckily, a dark road late at night with compromised optics has a certain power all its own and needs little embellishments. The two leads are certainly likable enough and if their struggle with opposing views of what defines a home comes off as low stakes, it’s also a refreshing vacation from the usual confronting grief and trauma trope. I doubt PASSENGER has the weight or firepower to knock many people’s socks off and it does veer into dangerous BYE BYE MAN (2017) territory on a few occasions but it’s too innocuous to get mad at and its fiery climax and the spotlight kill that launches it have at least some gusto. It surely could have been improved by a more arresting demonic antagonist. In more than a few instances the titular baddie simply comes across as a toothless old man who is ornery about being woken (I’d definitely find such a sight more terrifying if I didn’t see it in the mirror every morning). Overall, I’d much rather Ovredall delivered a sequel to DEMETER than this unoffensive also-ran but PASSENGER is a serviceable enough near gateway-horror outing that if not groundbreaking, at least provides some comfort chills and a closing song from Siouxsie Sioux.
Hokum
Oh man, I love a good ghost story & writer/director Damian McCarthy’s HOKUM is certainly that. It’s a spooky, dark, compact, well acted, sometimes riveting, sometimes heartbreaking, and eventually down right terrifying, ghost story. Its quiet, unassuming, downright sneaky nature may result in it not exactly taking the world by storm but even better, it’s the type of creepfest that one could return to again and again for years to come when a supernatural fix is needed. My only complaint is that it was not released in the autumn season as it takes place on Halloween but I suppose you can’t have everything. I know I’ll be returning to it in Octobers to come because it’s that rare seasonal film that leans into the old school spirit of the holiday rather than the more commercial and garish presentation of it that’s more ubiquitous today. This is the type of haunting tale that stays with you and its attention to detail insures each viewing will likely deliver fresh discoveries. I love that the thought of revisiting a couple of its scenes fills with me with a sort of delicious dread.
Adam Scott (he of HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE) portrays Ohm Bauman, a famous borderline insufferable author with a cruel streak who travels to Ireland to bury his parent’s ashes near a quaint hotel where they once honeymooned. The hotel is filled with many a rustic glowing pumpkin in anticipation for All Hallows Eve and several lovable eccentrics for him to rudely condescend to. He is informed right away that the establishment’s Honeymoon suite is inaccessible due to it being haunted by a witch, which he scoffs away as “hokum” while I can’t believe my luck in getting not only a ghost movie but a witch movie. Of course, Ohm is not one to leave well enough alone and after a few shocking occurrences I won’t disclose, he decides to investigate the forbidden area and becomes trapped inside. Slowly, the supernatural takes hold and tragic occurrences from his past (which reveal why he’s such an asshole) are revealed. One truly disturbing (not to mention extremely kindertraumatic) memory involving a horrific anthropomorphic host of a children’s TV show is seared into my psyche forever. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, a dumbwaiter to the hotel’s cellar is discovered which turns out to be a direct route for the film to slide from haunting to hellish.
I feel like I’m the lone person in the world who wasn’t entirely blown away by McCarthy’s previous work ODDITY (2024). I thought it was spooky and entertaining enough but some of the characters’ behavior I found hard to swallow (who accepts a hideous golem gift from someone they clearly don’t care for, who would allow said creepy person to stay in their home when they are called to work and who has such a convenient trap door?). But now, HOKUM has got me thinking I have to give ODDITY another chance (maybe I was just in a skeptical (Ohm Bauman-ish) mood when I viewed it ). I gotta say though, It’s possible that Adam Scott’s fine performance is what made the huge difference between the two films for me because he’s so naturally incredulous that when he shifts from dubious to convinced it’s pretty much impossible not to follow suite. In any case, I absolutely I found myself completely under HOKUM’s spell and felt fully transported to the rich space it creates which is pleasantly occupied by characters that felt worn in and authentic and whose fates I cared about. The entire film is so much like sitting in a big comfy chair by a fire with a cat in your lap reading a ghost story while a storm rages outside, slowly becoming less and less comfortable in your surroundings. So much of HOKUM is about that gradual disquiet as things grow darker and darker and the veil between this world and the other thins. Consider me a happily converted believer.
Name That Trauma:: Scott on an Alien Commercial
Hi KT Team,
When I was young, probably somewhere between 3 and 6 (1989-1992) I was home sick with my grandmother. I was watching a claymation movie on tv about an older man and his hot air balloon. A commercial came on that traumatized me and left me scared of aliens. I can only relay what I remember filtered through a young child’s eyes and 35 years. The commercial seemed to be for alien insurance or a protection program or something. It almost felt like a psa. It warned of all the risks aliens presented. Showed a series of headshots of the various species of alien that parents had to worry about. All were variations on the classic grey alien. It had a white washed scene of human scientists working in a lab. It ended with a mother and her young daughter. The daughter was playing with a top and the mom left the room for a moment. When she returned, all that remained was the spinning top. The girl was gone. It may have been a promo for a show or movie or something, but if it was that aspect was lost on me.
I’d love any help you community could offer in identifying what the heck I saw.
Many thanks!
Scott
Name That Trauma:: R.B. on a Picnic Gone Wrong
I am looking for a TV-movie, or an episode of an anthology, that I saw when I was very young. I remember there was a man and woman having a picnic with their dog. The dog ran off and entered a spooky gothic house. The couple followed, there were some scares, and when they tried to leave, they opened the front door to find a brick wall. This aired at night on TV in Southern California, some time between 1981-1983. – R.B.
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