Category: Uncategorized

I need to clean my head of movies! I keep watching them and then before I can write about them another jumps in my head. I can hardly make way for the new guy when the last one is still hanging around. The inside of my noggin is starting to look like a hoarder house. It's time to purge. My apologies to these fine movies that deserve more than mini-reviews but I must lighten my brain baggage…

STAKE LAND (2010)

This did not look like my type of movie but then it so very much was. Luckily I listened to a friend who told me not to be dumb and watch it. I thought it was going to be a dude movie where everybody is cool and does impossible acrobatics while shooting things but it wasn't. It didn't hurt that both KELLY McGILLIS (THE INKEEPERS) and DANIELLE HARRIS (HALLOWEEN(s)) showed up to stomp on my heart like they thought it was made of grapes and they were winos going through detox. STAKE LAND surprised me with its emotional depth and no matter where our vampire hunters traveled in this post-apocalyptic road movie, it always looked and felt like home to me. Finishing this one felt like finishing a good book.

ATTACK THE BLOCK (2011)

Aunt John and I had just finished watching the television series SPACED on Netflix Streaming (I had no idea it did not actually take place in outer space) and it left us craving any and everything that anyone involved in that show ever did. Otherwise I may have missed ATTACK THE BLOCK even though it has rightfully ended up on many a best of the year list. This is a wonderfully humorous and entertaining action flick with some really cool and inventive special effects. I love monsters but I especially love furry monsters. This is one of those movies that sets up characters one way and then forces you to see them from another perspective and I always commend that. Everyone should own a copy of this and keep it on hand for whenever they don't want to feel like crud. It's like a shot of concentrated un-cruddyness.

ABSENTIA (2011)

Be careful, this is a quiet séance of a movie that could conjure up a Lovecraftian doorway into your living room wall and then yank you through it. ABSENTIA is so smart and sneaky that I really didn't have a clue what it was doing to me until it was too late. Somehow it had me so under its spell that it was able to simply show me total darkness at one point and that was chilling enough. This movie is less show than tell but what it tells crawls under your skin. Have you ever stayed up late sharing uncanny tales with friends only to find that suddenly there is a weird vibe in the room? That vibe is in this movie. I also want to publicly apologize for making fun of people who are afraid of spiders. I feel the same way about oversized centipedes. Check out the OFFICIAL SITE.

THE WOMAN (2011)

This movie pissed me off. I wanted to duct tape it to a football and kick it down the street. I thought I was going to get the happy "hooray for revenge" feeling from it but no, I was too busy mourning the fate of one of the characters. I should probably try to react to movies intellectually rather than emotionally but really, where's the fun in that? I've calmed down now. I've thrown the hateful diatribe I wrote in the trash. This is a horror movie and it in no way promised to make me feel good. Strangely it wasn't even the torture and rape that got to me (I was braced for that); it was mostly just one death that unraveled the whole sweater.

Although I'm half inclined to demand a rewrite I must give this one props for both getting my dander up and for showcasing three outstanding (and one really stinky) performances. It's no surprise that ANGELA BETTIS is mesmeric but SEAN BRIDGERS really hits the psycho nail on the head, and POLLYANNA McINTOSH mostly owned a role that could have easily nosedived. I admit I'm a hard sell when it comes to movies about feral wild women. Their outfits always look one dinosaur bone short of a sexy cave girl Halloween costume to me. It's my problem I know. I'm not the right audience. In the end, this is a gadfly movie that is meant to rile so I guess it was a success in that department. I admire director LUCKY McGEE's aberrant view of the world and co-writer JACK KETCHUM's fearlessness when observing the bowels of scumbaggery but still, I think I needed the pendulum to swing a little more toward the less infuriating side of the fence. I can't play the trailer because it will upset me but here is HELLEN REDDY on THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL…

WAKE WOOD/ THE CALLER (2011/2011)

I liked big chunks of both of these flicks but they each fell through my fingers at some point. WAKE WOOD has great atmosphere and a wonderful setting and actors, it just seemed to mimic too many other films rather than throw any of its own curves. THE CALLER has some of the creepiest phone calls I've ever heard (voiced by LORNA RAVER, Mrs. Ganush of DRAG ME TO HELL) but for every "oh shit" moment there seemed to be an additional plot hole I couldn't leap over. I dug the mood of both of these but they're the type of movies that rely on specific rules to function and I wasn't convinced either played fair on their own game board. In the end I was reasonably entertained by both but not fully satisfied by either.

DRIVE (2011)

This is not a terribly violent movie but in moments it's almost painful to behold. At some points I felt like I was taking on the physical damage myself. I guess it felt like that because for most of the film's runtime, I was lulled into an ambrosia-flooded dream state where everything in the world looked beautiful and it was always 1982. Why do people have to be so stabby and break me out of my trance? I don't really care about DRIVE's plot because it involves money and cars and "Give me back my stuff!" drama but what a lovely movie that I never wanted to ever end. It's like another dimension and what an excellent earworm soundtrack. DRIVE is sort of like how I fantasized adult life would be like as a kid, wrongfully imagining that someday I'd be miraculously cool. I've heard DRIVE described as an homage to MICHAEL MANN, but for me it felt like an homage to every late night I spent trying to get a glimpse of the mad bad dangerous world waiting outside through cable. It's like an incredible remake of the terrible remake of BREATHLESS but PAUL SCHRADER and GIORGIO MORODER are shoved in the blender too and folks get their asses handed to them like in VICE SQUAD. I have a feeling that a zillion bubbles of substance are going to rise to the surface as I return to this one over the years, but for now, the style it's oozing is more than enough for me. All I know is that there was a moment during the movie when I actually wished I knew how to drive. That's saying something!

This trauma is not from my childhood, it's actually from earlier today but I wondered if you guys could help me anyway. I was in a restaurant and there was a black and white movie on the TV with the sound off. In the movie, a man is followed around by a woman and two children who stare at him with automaton blank looks on their faces. Eventually he turns into a smoldering silhouette of ashes at the bottom of an empty pool. The movie ends with several of these ash figures in the pool and then the pool fills with water that washes them away. I don't know what channel it was on but it's been bugging me all day. Any ideas?

Thanks,

— Pho22

I'm shocked by how much I enjoyed GRAVE ENCOUNTERS. I remember checking out the trailer a while back and shrugging. It even dared to have one of those "I'm screaming and now my mouth is stretching bigger than it should!" ghouls in it! Bah, and who needs another found-footage movie and the limited color palette that comes with? Andre from HORROR DIGEST was my canary in the coalmine. She watched it, survived unscathed and wrote a review about how it made her pee and poop her pants. That's all I needed to know to journey forward and so I checked it out one night and found it to be better than it had a right to be. It starts out very mundane with a guy explaining how the footage came into his possession but once the actual footage gets started, it's entertaining all the way.

GRAVE is titled after a ghost hunting program not unlike PARANORMAL STATE which your Aunt John has forced me to watch a zillion times against my will. I'm always complaining because nothing ever happens and the folks on the show are forced to act amazed by the flimsiest evidence. GRAVE works as a clever parody of such a show. There's a phony shit shoveling psychic and an amusing scene where the host pays off a gardener to lie through his teeth about his experiences. The "Grave Encounters" crew (who stand in dramatic, ready-for-action poses) is filming their sixth episode in an abandoned mental hospital that they will find out is indeed seriously haunted. What ensues, though never fully believable, is so fun and gleefully spooky that you'll feel like a kid running through a neighborhood haunted-house on Halloween. You know it's not real, but you can't help getting into the frenetic spirit anyway.

Not only are the shock scares surprisingly effective, but this movie also plays with your mind pretty good too. The asylum turns into a trippy maze of sorts and things get eerily surreal. The authentic setting, not unlike the one employed in SESSION 9 is an indisputably unnerving place. Unlike most films of this kind, the cast is exceedingly likable (particularly lead SEAN ROBERTSON) and are easy to empathize with. Some of the effects don't come off as well as they could, so the blurrier you can make your eyes by drinking alcohol while watching this, the better. There may be glitches scattered about but I think the overall exuberance on display overrides them. I ended up viewing it a second time so that Aunt John could check it out and now I like it even more. I don't mind telling you he jumped pretty high off the couch at one moment. GRAVE ENCOUNTERS is on Netflix Streaming, iTunes & Amazon so check it out; don't take it too seriously and don't be surprised if it ends up leaving you feeling inexplicably tweaked.

Hi guys! Love the site!
I'm wondering if somebody could help me with this. For as long as I can remember everytime I hear the song "Rapture" by Blondie I think of blood. When I was a kid it really freaked me out. Does anyone know if that song was ever used in a horror movie or tv show in a bloody scene? It's always bugged me that I can't remember what caused me to think this when I hear that song!

Hello,

I came across your website doing a search for Angus from "Lost in Space". My brother and I were just talking about Angus and how that terrifying scream scared us as kids.

The green monster in "War of the Gargantuas" also creeped me out as a kid. The scene where you see him looking up from under the ocean water has stayed with me all these years. Of course, watching him grab a woman through a window, chomp on her and then spit out her clothes was not easy to forget either! Again, the SOUND the monster makes is unique and unforgettable.

I vaguely remember watching a black and white movie on TV back in the 1970's where (I think) people were being drained (of blood?) by spiders or some type of creature. Do you have any idea what that movie could be?

Thanks, and pleasant dreams!

UNK SEZ:: Thanks for joining us here at Kindertrauma Dave P and thanks for bringing with you an excellent traumafession! I'm sure one of our readers will recognize your blood sucking spider trauma! In the meantime, let us all fail to enjoy what I consider the most upsetting part of WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS! It's the nightmarish tune "The words get stuck in my throat"!

Hello,

Love your site! I don't have a site to promote, but I do have a traumafession. I live in Chicago and I grew up watching WTTW 11, our main PBS station. There is a program called IMAGE UNION and back in the '80s the "mascot" (or whatever) promoting it was this animated figure.
I attached a photo of the figure I found by Googling it, which just reignited my fear of this thing, so yay. YouTube clip of the figure at the 0:45 mark:

Whenever I was watching the station with my parents and a commercial with that figure came on, I would quickly leave the room. I don't think I ever told my parents that the image freaked me out but it became my own personal boogeyman. If I had a dream of something scary chasing me, it was THAT THING! Usually accompanied by a sidekick in the form of a tarantula, my other kindertrauma.

I've never ever watched IMAGE UNION, which still comes on WTTW 11 and I still watch that station, for the simple fact that it is connected to that horrible image. The movement of the animation was weird and the face really didn't move at all. It just wasn't right. Not at all.

Cheers,

— Hillary

Today's selection is not so much streaming as hiding out on YouTube like a gangster. As always, when it comes to YouTube, I suggest watching it as soon as possible for fear that it might disappear. BLACK NOON (1971) delivered your Unk some genuine willies, so it's my duty to pass the possibility of similar willies on to you. Fans of seventies T.V. movies, especially those that fret about Old Scratch coming to call, need to see BLACK NOON. Truly, it deserves to be spoken of alongside other celebrated, post-ROSEMARY'S BABY Satanic cult films of its time period. I'm thinking that the only reason it's not more notorious is because it wears the cloak of a western. As far as delivering the horror goes though, I assure you the film has a sneakily wicked scorpion tail.

A young reverend and his wife lose their way in the desert en route to their new home. Luckily before they die of thirst, they are discovered by some townspeople who take them in and as the wife recoups, the preacher finds his services much in need as the isolated town is suffering various hardships. His presence and his preaching seem to have a positive effect. A new vein of gold is found in the local mine, a crippled boy begins to walk and a bullying bandit is disposed of. Everybody is doing the happy Bible boogie except the preacher's wife who is getting sicker and sicker. As the wife begs to scram, the preacher finds himself more and more enthralled by the residents, particularly a beautiful mute named Deliverance. In fact, reverend's ego is so stroked by the townspeople that he is willing to ignore a sudden rash of vivid panic dreams and waking hallucinations of a bloody anguished man. Clearly things are not quit as they appear in the town of Nilbog San Melas. Something fishy and witchy is going on…

If that doesn't pique your interest (and really why should it?) allow me to sell you on the cast. ROY THINNES (THE NORLISS TAPES, SATAN'S SCHOOL FOR GIRLS) plays the passionate, sometimes wild-eyed reverend, mac daddy super pimp RAY MILLAND (THE UNINVITED, THE LOST WEEKEND & THE ATTIC) is the town's head honcho, and the enticingly beautiful mute cat wrangler Deliverance who scares rattlesnakes with her stare is played by a bewitching YVETTE MIMIEUX (she of THE BLACK HOLE.) We also got ourselves some porn-stached HENRY SILVA (BUCK ROGERS, TRAPPED!), some twitchy GLORIA GRAHAME (BLOOD AND LACE, MANSION OF THE DOOMED) and even a dash of DEVIL TIMES FIVE's LIEF GARRETT. If you need more than that you are crazy and should be put down like a rabid raccoon. To be honest, GRAHAME doesn't have nearly enough to do, but it's always good to see her showing up anyway.

Now you have to be a little patient with this one; it was made in 1971 which means it does not tap dance, wave sparklers and shoot gold coins and bubble gum balls out of its mouth every five minutes to keep your attention. It uncoils slowly with a subtle foreboding but when it goes in for the kill, it's remarkably vicious. There's actually still a ringing reverberation in my psyche from the sound of its bear trap snapping shut. Furthermore, some of the visual nails that are hammered home during the finale are remarkably ahead of their time. I'll put the links in the comments section. The picture and sound (maybe use headphones?) aren't the best, but I think it's worth the extra effort. That's it. I'm saying no more. The less known the better. Hope you enjoy this grade-A 74-minute cut of lean mean Beelzebub marinated T.V. beef and do let me know what you think!