kindertrauma

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Traumafession:: Unk on Snuff (1976)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Me and SNUFF aren't friends. I'm going to politely decline the invitation from the trickster in my head that is daring me to watch it again. I suppose that over the years, since the first and only time I saw it, there is a possibility that SNUFF like BLOOD SHACK and TERMINAL ISLAND, transformed from diabolical to adorable but I doubt it. It's not very open-minded of me I guess, but a person has to draw the line somewhere. For those happily not in the know, SNUFF is, if I recall correctly, an inordinately lousy movie with a notorious tacked on ending that pretends to be real way before people were so hung up on things pretending to be real. So I guess that makes SNUFF a trailblazer, a very awful, boring, tasteless and deceitful, trailblazer.

I saw SNUFF back in the early days of video and when I first came across the box, it looked like fine stuff to me. I still do very much enjoy the artwork on the cover and as I recall, it came off hip and modern at the time. SNUFF was actually made back in 1976 and I encountered it on VHS around 1982. That six-year difference doesn't seem like much now but it was to me back then, and the distance between the grainy hippie movie I got and the slick eighties flick I expected was drastic. Just look at the guy with the maniacal face on the cover- he's wearing, for all intents and purposes, an Izod! Izods were big at the time! The 3-D letters being slashed apart, the geyser of blood contrasting with the tightening ropes, the crimson nail polish, the blasting lights, the screaming lady in the background (who I now realize also appears in the artwork for DEMONOID), all conspires to suggest an animated, wild, exuberant time which SNUFF is not.

If there's anything more gratifying in life than renting a pile of tapes and watching them with like-minded people into the wee hours, I still do not know what it is. I was around 14 and I had a friend staying over and we had a pile of rented horror movies. One of them was SNUFF and as it was the most anticipated, it was saved for last. I knew something was afoul as soon as the film began. I tried to stay with it but it was impossible. Nothing was going on and people were just running around in a jungle with no purpose. My head began to wobble and sway and and soon I was asleep. SNUFF had nothing on glorious slumber. Sometime later my friend jostled me awake. I had to see what was happening! We rewound the last moments and watched aghast as an actress was ambushed by a film crew who recorded her murder cinema verite-style and then waved around her entrails. It was gross but not gross enough to keep me from going back to snoozetown. I never at any time wondered if anything in the film actually happened.

Sometime later I was on a bus coming back from the mall reading the latest FANGORIA magazine. In the letters section somebody was complaining about the atrocity of SNUFF and how disgusting it was that it included a real killing. My stomach dropped and I felt nauseous. Had I inadvertently watched a woman being killed? That poor actress! Here I was supporting her victimization with my rental money! Why don't the police arrest the culprits? They should not rent this movie to people! Why, I do believe there's something morally questionable about killing people to make entertainment! I don't like the idea of censorship but perhaps this movie should be banned! I don't know when or how I came back to my senses but I eventually did. No, they do not rent snuff movies at the mall and yes, the police might intervene if they did. The funny thing is, that one angry letter in FANGORIA convinced me of the film's authenticity even after the film itself had failed on every level imaginable to do so. All I needed was an outraged voice and I began to see the same exact phantoms that they did. I sold my own perception to the wind in a heartbeat in exchange for nonsense wrapped in misguided righteousness. So I guess I did learn something from SNUFF, but that doesn't mean I'd ever want to watch it again.

Traumafession:: Paul T. on Two Electric Company Draculas

Posted on By unkle lancifer

First of all, LOVE THE SITE. I stumbled on it, really, by accident (revisiting my THE WIZ trauma) and it's fascinating, entertaining, and creepy. Maybe I can say that it's therapeutic, too. Being born in 1974, it's nice to know that the Sleestaks didn't just give ME nightmares!

I was reading over the site, and I was shocked to see that some early traumas from my childhood were missing. Namely, THE ELECTRIC COMPANY. Yeah, I loved that show. It seemed to plug right into the 7-or-8-year-old just coming off of SESAME STREET psyche. I was privy to the reruns that seemed to be on TV everyday from about '77-'83. Always great stuff. Entertaining, informative, funny as hell, and then there's DRACULA.

Yeah–a young Morgan Freeman dressed as the Prince of Darkness did a number on me. It was tough to watch–and you never knew WHEN he was gonna pop up and freak you out. I mean, how could they NOT totally be freaking us out with something like this:

I am 37 years old, and this STILL gives me the willies. I'm cool with Dark Knight and March Of the Penguins, but somewhere in the back of my head, I'm waiting to start running from this guy!

ALSO, maybe it was a vampire thing, but I sincerely believe I was damaged by some of the 'scary' Tom Lerher songs on THE ELECTRIC COMPANY, notably THIS ONE:

Is it the "Time For Timer"-like character singing lead or maybe the standup piano? No, I think it's DRACULA appearing at the end in a dark room, ready to pounce on me. Yeah. That was creepy.

First of many…thanks for the site. It's awesome!

Traumafession:: Maren M. on The Hobbit (1977)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Hi, I absolutely ADORE your blog….so many memories (and so much terror!) I don't know if this has been covered but I would like to make a traumafession about the 1977 cartoon version of THE HOBBIT. When I was a kid this cartoon (along with many others) sent me into a spiral of panic. The whole mood of the production is eerie, the music is melancholy, the characters drawn in a grotesque, baroque style. Not to mention there is a hellish scene involving goblins, and another with trolls. Oh my gosh! Even Gandalf, the lovably wise and good, was creepy in it! My parents were still together when I was first exposed to this life altering cartoon, so I had to be around the three to five age bracket. I still remember crying and hiding during the goblin battle. However, I'm happy to report that this trauma did not deter me from loving adventures, or the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Thanks! Maren

Hell Night (1981)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

HELL NIGHT (1981) is shamefully underrated and I wonder what kind of drugs you'd have to be on to not see how superior it is to the films it's usually lumped with. It's often painted as a HALLOWEEN also-ran but it does so much to distinguish itself from the fly by nights of its day that it should be considered a classic in its own right. The set –up is certainly simple but the execution is remarkable. It has a structure all its own and the cinematography, the direction and the score severely surpass what it's given credit for. I can understand that its lack of T&A and gore could have left young audiences back in ‘81 feeling disgruntled, but its multitude of other attributes should be crystal clear by now.

I've written about HELL NIGHT a couple times before; once over at Retro Slashers and once for the book "Butcher Knives and Body Counts" (which is really good even if I'm in it!) Because of that I thought I might skip this FINAL GIRL FILM CLUB selection but wait, I still have more to say about HELL NIGHT. There's still so much I love about it that I have yet to mention. Every time I take a trip to Garth Manor, I find a different room.

HELL NIGHT is about four pledges who spend the night in a mansion as part of an initiation. The place is rumored to be haunted thanks to a dark history. A father so sickened by his children who were all born with deformities killed his entire family there save for one, whom he forced to witness the act. Not all of the bodies were recovered and legend has it that the surviving son still lurks about. The pledges are locked on the property behind a massive razor sharp gate and pranks are planned to make their stay as uncomfortable as possible. The house itself is goth –glorious both inside and out; trap doors, secret passages, underground tunnels, a garden maze; it's all there. Everything is filmed in deep rich tones framed by inky shadows and broken up by glowing candlelight. The pledge kids are dressed in classical costumes from variant eras. Everything adds up to a horror lovers dream come true.

The four pledges form one of the most endearing casts you'll find in any slasher. LINDA BLAIR as Marti Gaines is impossibly adorable with her chirpy voice and before she discovers her true mettle, she is refreshingly freaked. PETER BARTON, as potential beau Jeff Reed, is relatively dull but his misbegotten old school chivalry makes up for it. Marti and Jeff's budding relationship is unusual in how sweetly romantic it is. We're invested in these characters not simply because we get to know them but because we're allowed to witness the fortuitousness of them getting to know each other. A wonderful scene occurs between the two as they connect by trading childhood traumas. As a kid Marti believes she encountered a witch and in turn Jeff recalls chancing upon an elf. The two decide that their joint histories dealing with unreal beings make them both weirdoes and that as such, they should stick together. Forget every bullshit thing you ever heard about virgins surviving in slasher films. It's the outsider who lives. The one who sees more.

VINCENT VAN PATTEN as Seth and SUKI GOODWIN as Denise are meant to illustrate a more carnal side of the same romantic coin but they are both so goofy and good-natured that they only read as charming free spirits. Their "sex" scene is nothing more than a cartoon pantomime that ends in a giggle fit. As rowdy as HELL NIGHT might try to present itself in its opening scenes, there's no mistaking the fact that its heart beats to a corny, old-fashioned drum that was atypical of its time. It's almost like a film from the fifties dressed up like a film from the eighties. In fact, HELL NIGHT with its characters playing house within an empty mansion and its themes of breaking away from parental expectation could be said to strongly shadow REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE.

HELL NIGHT is directed by TOM DeSIMONE and his work is impressive throughout and simply brilliant on several occasions. Let me point out a couple scenes that I think deserve high praise.

GOODWIN's Denise is sprawled out on a bed waiting for Seth to return. This shot is composed like a painting and you get lost in just how good she looks. You can't help it. Then we get the most abrupt and terrifying pullback view of the monster standing over, dwarfing her while she still lays unaware. It's such a strong bait and switch. There is no way to prepare. The viewer is sneakily lulled by one piece of the puzzle and then taken off guard by the bigger picture. Blink and you'll miss it but it's grand.

Marti and Jeff have found a safe zone. He's got a pitch fork ready to do battle if need be and she's taking a breather on the bed. They're safe as houses and snug as bugs. Then we see what they do not. At first it makes no logical sense but the carpet is rising. Eventually we'll discover that there is a trap door in the floor that the monster is (slowly!) making his way through but for those first moments it's impossible to comprehend. Is it supernatural? Another prank? We don't know but whatever sense of safety we might have had is completely shattered.

There is a sequence toward the climax that never fails to excite me. It's as if all the fine elements that have been floating throughout the film collide in one second.VAN PATTEN's Seth returns to Garth Manor convinced he has destroyed the terrorizing monster. In a flash he is yanked off screen. The shotgun he was yielding fires a shot offstage and then flies toward the front door. It lands, it spins on the floor and stalls perfectly aligned with a light shaft. BLAIR's Marti, who had been hiding her face, nuzzled in BARTON's side swiftly jerks her head to look in fear. The head turn is sublimely synchronized with a pitch perfect musical cue from composer DAN WYMAN and it's a thing of perfection. Gold!

Oh there's so much more; the rapping on the window that turns out to be a toy parrot, leaving a corpse behind that has the keys to the front gate, the twisting underground tunnels, the high stakes rooftop escape. It goes on and on. I admit there are some things that may come off more muddled then they should but they are easily cleared up if you watch close (and often) enough. Really this movie is such a rarity not only for its time, but for any time. It's gorgeously shot and it has wonderful characters and if it should happen to be a bit far fetched sometimes well, welcome to the world of film. There are long moments of stillness in HELL NIGHT that probably come across as slow to some today but I love the patience shown and frankly when I'm in Garth Manor, I like to take my time and stay as long as possible.

Because HELL NIGHT borrows heartily from classic, old dark house flicks it's often mistakenly seen as derivative. The past is not mere window dressing here though, bygone eras and ideas are the source of the horror. Much is made of both Marti and Jeff's family backgrounds, each are quick to point out that their lineage does not define them. Garth Manor is a place where the inhabitants have failed to escape the family fold. The monsters Marti and Jeff must battle are creatures trapped inside the boundaries set by their parentage. It's a conflict that many young people engage in on a smaller, less gruesome scale everyday. It's fitting that in the end the greatest threat is destroyed by an iron fence that encircles the estate, a confining line drawn by its ancestry. When day comes, Marti has won more than just her life; she has won the right to any life she chooses regardless of her upbringing. She turns her back to outdated limitations and walks forward.

Maybe I'm imagining that last part but I'm not imaging this: Garth Manor later went on to star in the Fleetwood Mac video "Big Love." Yay Garth Manor! You are hotter than any Robert Palmer chick! Dance, Garth Manor, dance!

Kindertrauma:: Brain Scrub Movie Bonanza!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

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.

I think I might find the trailer for THE CALLER scarier than the movie…

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!

Name That Trauma:: Reader Pho22 On Burning Ashes In A Pool

Posted on By unkle lancifer

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

Grave Encounters (2011)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

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.

Name That Trauma:: Jeremy L. On Blondie Blood

Posted on By unkle lancifer

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!