In the autumn a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of watching THE MIDNIGHT HOUR (1985) on YouTube…
Traumafession:: Troy Z (Stickmann) on Magic Sneakers (1969)
Oh, man. Can't believe I found this: I must have been about 4 or 5 when I stumbled upon this being shown in a darkened corner of a public library in San Jose. If I can recall that little detail from so long ago, you just KNOW it has to have nationwide Kindertrauma appeal to your readership. I recall that I arrived about a third of the way through its screening, just before the "Blue Man" (who I recalled as a vampire) started chasing the kid across the hillside. It was quickly established that the kid was effectively immune from attack, but that didn't make his enveloping into the villain's cape or being menaced with a hand arching over a large box any less terrifying to my little preschool brain.
Sunday Streaming:: Five Netflix Horror Notables
When we first started doing "Sunday Streaming" posts years ago, it was all about picks you could find on Netflix Streaming. Then somewhere along the line I started worrying that not everybody had Netflix Streaming and so the focus switched to YouTube and freebies on Hulu. This week I say we jump back on the Netflix wagon because it's been a while and I figure the important thing is getting the titles out there. If you don't have Netflix Streaming, keep your eyes peeled for these…
House at the End of Time (2013)
I'm going to blame my not being able to shake this Venezuelan haunted house flick for the existence of this entire post. If you dig ghost movies or mysteries, this is a must see that is likely to become a new favorite. There's something genuinely haunting about this flick and what's even more stunning is just how moving it ends up being. Check it out. It left me feeling like I'd just finished a hearty book.
Starry Eyes (2014)
I can't help taking high praise for an indie horror film with a grain of skeptical salt. I get the feeling that reviewers are overly generous and more interested in patting themselves on the back for their noble support than being forthright. Starry Eyes though, actually deserves any and all praise it gets. It fascinating, circling the drain, character study about false hope and self-obliteration and it has the power to disturb you right down to the marrow of your bones.
Housebound (2014)
The less you know about this fun flick from New Zealand concerning a snotty girl confined to a house full of secrets, the better. Most of the joy here comes from never being able to pin anything down and having your expectations turned on their head at every turn. My hat's off to any movie that can pull off being hilarious without losing the steam of its scares and this rollicking coaster ride does just that. Watch it on Netflix but do yourself a favor and order a hard copy too just in case it disappears. I'd say this a keeper worth more than a few visits.
Late Phases (2014)
As a rule, you should probably watch anything that stars Nick (STAKE LAND) Damici because he could possibly be the coolest person who ever lived and I decree, the lone heir apparent to Charles Bronson. On paper, LATE PHASES is almost too good to be true. It's a werewolf movie that takes place in a retirement village directed by the guy who did HERE COMES THE DEVIL and not only does our man Damici play a blind war vet with an adorable seeing eye dog, the film also sports the likes of Ethan Embry, Lance (HALLOWEEN II) Guest, Tom (MONSTER SQUAD) Noonan, Rutanya (AMITYVILLE 2) Alda and Tina Louise. It's not nearly as fierce of a beast as it could have been but that cast, especially the Damici, make it well worth taking a bite out of.
Creep (2014)
I thought maybe I hated this movie but then I realized it was just insanely overrated and presented in an aggressively misleading way. It's weird and uncomfortable at times but I think my day-to-day life is more horrifying than the concept of being hired to do a job and having high-end whiskey thrown at me by a guy who is trying too hard to be my friend. CREEP isn't my idea of horror; it's more of a cross between a parody of OLD JOY (2006) and a budget remake of THE CABLE GUY (1996). It has a few unsettling moments but they're pretty much doused by how unconvincing it all is. Still, it's memorable and Marc Duplass is amusingly shameless and there's enough quotable lines to reference to easily earn it a comfortable corner on the cult couch.
Facebook Apocalypse 2015
If any of you fine folks follow the Kindertrauma fan page on Facebook or have friended my Unkle Lancifer profile, you may have noticed that they both recently up and disappeared. What happened was, Facebook had an issue with Unkle Lancifer not being my "real" name and as the Kindertrauma page was set up by that account, it was assassinated too. Both, by the way, were created before such a rule existed. If you rely on Facebook to alert you to new Kindertrauma posts, I'm sorry, that won't be happening anymore. So far, from what I can see our readership has not taken a major dive since this occurred and it's pretty obvious Facebook was only showing the updates to a fraction of our followers anyway in some lame attempt to get us to pay for them to "boost" their visibility. Frankly, on more than a few occasions, I wondered if posting flyers on telephone poles would be more effective.
I have tried everything to fix the situation and it's basically like having brunch with the monolith from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. I've sent them I.D., as requested, and explained that "Unkle Lancifer" is a nick name/alias/pen name all to no avail. All I have received in return are automated emails designed to look like they are from a human when clearly they are not (and I'm the phony?) They refuse to even acknowledge my grievance until I present them with ID that says "Unkle Lancifer" and of course, nothing like that exists. Their only excuse for that random Draconian practice is, "We take your online security seriously" which is funny coming from the people who badger me for days about items that I happened to glance at on Ebay or Amazon earlier in the week. Robot-cookie-dudes, I looked up that DEATH SPA DVD merely to see if it existed, not because I wanted it (well, maybe I do want it but that's not the point- nor is it FB's business).
This steamroller of a policy has already gotten Facebook on many a drag queen's shit list and it's not hard to see why (more HERE). There are a myriad of reasons why a person may want to use a name other than the one they were born with and many of them far outweigh, in legitimacy, whatever this spurious policy is allegedly trying to accomplish.
My incentive, I admit, was not fueled by a necessity, as I just wanted to present a horror host type persona a'la DR. SHOCK or ELVIRA. There was absolutely nothing conniving or deceitful about that action so it's weird that Facebook provides more wiggle room for hate groups than it does a nostalgic movie site designed to provide entertainment (for free I might add). Even if Facebook does come to provide an actual solution (rather than an empty apology) to the drag community, there's no way to be certain that it will revive my Facebook account (which is ironic considering I've often been mistaken for "Richie" JANE MARCH's male persona in COLOR OF NIGHT (1994). Ooops…spoiler alert).
Furthermore, I don't know how many hoops I even want to jump through for this Facebook thing. In a rare instance of my taste not coinciding with that of the average shut-in, I've never been much of a fan. Some think of it as a necessary evil but I've come to call it by its real name "The Ego Pit of Flaming Insecurities." On the plus side, it does showcase some of the most adorable animals in the world but on the minus side, nothing has been responsible for lessening my view of humanity more. I mean it's basically VIDEODROME. Right? How is it not exactly, precisely and literally (give it a rest, word police) VIDEODROME?
Maybe that's a little harsh. I know some people who get a lot of positive use from it. It's just never been a comfortable fit for me. I guess I've always had some weird instinctive aversion to hive chatter and anything that operates like a mind control parasite invasion from outer space.
I don't know. Does Kindertrauma even need Facebook? We existed before without it and I feel like those were the salad days. I know theoretically you are supposed to desire the largest following possible but I'm more than fine with the clubhouse vibe going on here. The few times a post of ours has been picked up by a larger horror site on Facebook and I have gotten to see the types of comments a more popular joint attracts all I can think is, "Thank God I don't have to digest that type of nonsense regularly."
Anyway, I'm leaving it up to you readers. If you enjoy the convenience of being alerted to our updates via Facebook, I'll just open a new account under my "real" name and we can have it there for that purpose alone. Sure, it'll sting to start over at zero friends but I can't pretend I've never experienced that wonderful sensation before. Let me know. I can go either way. I quit smoking 7 months ago (!) after 25 plus years and if I can quit that, I can drop Facebook quicker than a Christmas tree in January.
Plus the idea of never having to rate the worth of our output again by how many folks deign to "like" it in the Thunderdome kind of thrills me. Not that discovering that Facebook had left my cake out in the rain didn't hurt, it did. We lost a ton. There was a lot of original content (that I'm praying we backed up) and all of the great comments we got from our readers over the years are now gone (Not to play favorites, but I took a screenshot of Nancy Allen's comment, so that's safe).
What kills me the most though is that in the early days we posted so many pictures of the stray kittens we adopted (as duplicitous fiends do) and although we're sure to have saved them elsewhere, I'll miss having them in the timeline order they occurred. I even went through all the five stages of grief: DENIAL (it's a mistake); ANGER (cue MADELINE KAHN flaming head CLUE (1985) gif!); BARGAINING (You can throw out the account that I use to connect with my family if I can have KT's back!); DEPRESSION (I own every album by THE CURE and I'm not afraid to use them); and finally ACCEPTANCE (We'll live and hey, don't they let you post pictures on Twitter these days?).
I'll keep you guys posted and in the meantime here is our TWITTER that you can follow for updates. I realize that's probably just another head sprouting from the same dragon but at least when it breathes fire on you, it does it in 140 puffs or less and doesn't try to charge you for the privilege.
Most importantly we're HERE, as in here at Kindertrauma.com. This is our home and these are our pink walls and around these parts my name is Unkle Lancifer and my husband goes by Aunt John. If that's a problem you know where the door is (it's that pointy "back" button at the top left corner). Everybody else; "nuestra casa es su casa." If you want to talk scary movies or creepy stuff on TV or anything that freaked you out as a kid and made you the horror fan you are today– we've got you covered. I guarantee you'll see stuff here you won't see anywhere else. We'll keep coming back as long as you guys keep coming back and maybe, probably, even longer. Honestly I've always pegged Facebook being to blogs as the freeway was to the Bates Motel, so don't be surprised if this place only gets more interesting.
Five Underrated Flicks by Mathew A.
Yo, Kindertrauma pals! It's been some time since I last wrote about underrated horror flicks (I submitted 3 picks HERE a few years ago), but your recent Labor Day list inspired me and got me thinking about some horror movies that just don't get the love they deserve. As always, I completely understand that it's all in the eye of the beholder, and you might clutch your pearls at some of these being described as "underrated", but, in the end, it's just one simple horror fan's opinion. Now, let's grab a rusty, blood-stained garden spade and dig in!
Boogeyman 2 (2007)
I totally get why people dislike the first one; it's boring, not scary IN THE LEAST, and has absolutely nothing special to offer. The second one, on the other hand, was a huge surprise for me. It made its arrival direct-to-DVD with little fanfare in 2007, and, as I recall, has nothing really to do with the first film. Perhaps zero expectations helped with this, or perhaps I just love Renee O'Connor (yep, she who played Gabrielle in the sorely missed Xena TV series), but I found this to be a blast. It basically plays like an old-school slasher where patients walk around a mental hospital and get picked off in gruesome ways. It's all rather simple, and I LOVE simplicity when it comes to these movies. It also has Tobin Bell of Saw fame playing a creep-tastic psychiatrist.
Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997)
Not sure if "underrated" is the correct term to use here, honestly. Perhaps it's just not as well-known in horror circles. Either way, this hauntingly beautiful yet gruesome take on the familiar story brings the horror in quite heavy doses. Let's be honest here, the original Brothers Grimm tale is pretty horrific, and certainly nothing like the popular Disney version. Sigourney Weaver is chilling as the evil stepmother, and the dark themes from the fairy tale are all intact. Also, did I mention how stunning this film looks? It's a purdy one, that's for sure.
Dead Silence (2007)
This might shock you, but I actually prefer this over director James Wan's more popular films, such as Insidious or The Conjuring. I can't say that it's super scary, but pretty much any movie with creepy dolls or ventriloquist dummies gets an automatic pass from me. And I make NO APOLOGIES for that. The visuals in this thing are insane, especially that ending! Again, it very well might be a case of style over substance, but I simply can't help it. Gotta call it as I see it, and I love what I see here. Also, let's give it up to Donnie Wahlberg, an always welcome (at least by me) presence in these genre films.
Valentine (2001)
This slasher came out right as the late ‘90s teen horror fad was dying out (see below for more on that). Clearly, judging by how this film was received, most people were perfectly fine with that. I'm pretty sure even I recall finding the whole thing a little "eh" when I first saw it in theaters. I was also in high school at the time, so what the hell did I know? Viewing it years later, I have a newfound appreciation. It's actually a pretty cool slasher, very old-school by design, and I absolutely love the killer's mask. Remember how I mentioned I love simplicity in horror films? I also have a weakness when it comes to slashers. Horror films were moving away from slashers during this period and towards those with more supernatural elements and Asian horror remakes. We also had a glut of those movies where the killer ended up being a figment of the protagonist's psyche, or some such psychobabble. When all is said and done, all I really want is an actual, flesh-and-blood killer with a decent motive. Too much to ask?
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Disturbing Behavior (1998), and Urban Legend (1998)
OK, OK, I know… I'm cheating here and I don't care. In my opinion, these 3 films, among others, get unfairly criticized and lumped in with the various Scream knock-offs of the mid-to-late ‘90s. Well, I think they're great. Horror fans tend to snub their noses at horror flicks from this time period, but I have mostly fond memories. IKWYDLS and Urban Legend are pretty straightforward slashers with memorable villains and decent kills, while Disturbing Behavior has a more teen-thriller vibe with some science fiction elements for good measure. Another positive for me with these flicks: they all have plots that remind me of those R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike teen horror novels that were so popular back in the day.
I don't mind if you judge me. Perhaps one day I will look back at this list and judge myself. But for now, I think I'm going to go dust off my copy of Urban Legend and get lost in a time when all we needed to enjoy a horror flick was a killer in a parka with a sharp axe and a fixation with Tara Reid. Rock on, fellow horror fans!
~ Matthew A.
Sunday Streaming: Frightmare (1983)
Often I've revisited a movie that I wasn't too keen on originally to find that I have a new fondness for it. In the case of 1983's FRIGHTMARE, nearly the opposite is true. It bowled me over upon first view and now I think that was more of a right place, right time sort of thing. It just goes to show you how outside factors can really influence a person's feelings about something and how the old thumbs up or thumbs down, "good" or "bad" system of rating movies (or anything) is pretty dumb (or at least shortsighted and limiting).
If I remember correctly, I saw FRIGHTMARE sort of spur of the moment. My Dad took my brothers and I to see some action movie (I'm picturing BLUE THUNDER in my head but I could be wrong) and once we got to the theater, I saw the poster for FRIGHTMARE and naturally had a strong pull toward that instead. (No shade toward BLUE THUNDER intended). Somehow I was able to finagle my way into seeing FRIGHTMARE by myself while everybody else bonded over explosions in the theater next door. Seeing any horror movie in the theater was pretty exciting in those days but there was something especially thrilling and liberating about seeing one by myself. It felt like a fence had been trampled over and I was standing over a cliff and if I leaned too far over, I had nobody to pull me back.
FRIGHTMARE is about a group of crafty kids who are such big fans of celebrated horror icon Conrad Razkoff (played by slightly less celebrated horror icon FERDY MAYNE) that they steal and desecrate his recently deceased corpse and trigger supernatural shenanigans that insure their own doom. What's great about FRIGHTMARE is how it's all about horror films and fandom and how it marries old school gothic horror with the popular tropes of the day and (most especially) how it features a mansion and a decapitation. The effect looks pretty standard today but in 1983, I remember it being quite the money shot.
What's NOT so great about FRIGHTMARE is that it's way too dark (was it always this dark? I can't believe that) and it has a frustrating habit of mumbling and meandering. I don't mean to be an ingrate to this B-movie that once gave me shelter when I was green, it's just that JEFFREY COMBS is in it (rumor has it, he was cast for his resemblance to the already-made decapitated head prop) and once you realize that in two years he'd be put to full, impossible-to-ignore use in RE-ANIMATOR, the whole affair starts looking even soggier by comparison.
FRIGHTMARE is available to watch free online thanks to TROMA. It's doubtful it'll rock your world but it's got some cool ideas even if their execution is wanting. (There's also a CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS moral flapping around which I'm totally down with and adamantly adhere to. You really shouldn't force a dead body to dance with you without expecting it to kill you later). In any case, it'll always have a special chair at my table for initiating me to the fine art of going to the cinema solo. I'm also granting it one extra flapjack for featuring the guy who played Porky in PORKY'S and one extra peanut butter pinecone birdfeeder for being so thrifty as to borrow its poster art off of FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE.
Betsy's Black and White Horror Show
The other night like many horror fans I'm sure, I went to sleep watching BETSY'S WEDDING (1990). Don't judge, I've got a giant stock of sleepy time VHS and I know what I'm doing. Anyway, BETSY'S WEDDING was kinda rubbing me the wrong way with its ambivalent, leaning towards garish visuals and so I decided to tone that shit down by removing all the color via my remote and switching my TV to black and white. Then, who would have thunk it, but BETSY'S WEDDING transformed into some lost, mid-level WOODY ALLEN jaunt and I found myself engrossed with the courtship of ALLY SHEEDY and ANTHONY LaPAGLIA (who incidentally steals the film entire).
I still fell asleep before it was over but the black and white switcheroo was a success. I should not have been surprised at all really, because I had already learned this lesson with THE MIST and GHOST STORY (thanks to Fascination with Fear!) Anyway, I decided to leave my TV black and white for a while and watch some horror movies and see what this homegrown gimmick works with. I wouldn't even try it with something like SUSPIRIA in which color plays such an important role in the film but I've got a feeling that some films might only be complimented by the new garb. Here's what I tried…
HELL NIGHT (1980)
The frat party beginning is a toss up but Garth Manor and black and white work wonders together. Suddenly we could be just down the road from THE HAUNTING.
GHOSTKEEPER (1981)
Holy crap this movie just gets better each time I watch it and you know the snow graduates to a whole other level of engulfing in B&W. How will I ever repay Amanda by Night for turning me on to this fine film? A fruit basket is in order.
THE DEAD ZONE (1983)
Speaking of snow, Geez, isn't THE DEAD ZONE beautiful? I Love me all types of CRONENBERG but on a visual level I think it's my favorite of his. Black and white really brings out the beaten down and past its prime small town atmosphere and the gazebo scene somehow becomes an even bigger knock out (if that's possible). I feel about THE DEAD ZONE in black and white, the way the lady below feels about a certain curtain store….
ALIEN (1979)
Dare I? I'm so far gone at this point I went one even better and watched ALIEN not only in B&W but on a VHS tape so old, it has the nerve to boast about being in HI-FI stereo on the cover! Dead media and backwards technology makes me giddy. I feel like lil' COREY FELDMAN in FRIDAY THE 13TH: Part 4 when he discovers the view from his new bedroom window.
FIDAY THE 13TH (1980)
I might as well at this point! I did just happen to pick up a used copy of the original on VHS this year just so that I could hold it in my hand again. I gotta say, this always-reliable classic worked a far sight better than I imagined it would. Color is not a very significant factor in F13th, in fact, it rarely comes into play but the black and white sure does a lot to deepen the woods and sense of isolation and it sure makes my pal Mrs. Voorhees lovely white sweater pop out against the night sky! That reminds me, me and your Aunt John were at a bar the other day (actually, right after my first draft of this) and they had a TV set to an obscure Game Show channel featuring a game show in B&W and guess who was a panelist? BETSY PALMER, the patron saint of broken cars and serendipitous career opportunities!! Of course I took a picture for you….
Done. Now I'm going to play Michael Jackson's "Black or White" in an effort to alienate any stragglers who didn't stop reading at the mere mention of BETSY'S WEDDING. Am I the only one not buying GEORGE WENDT as Mac's dad? I totally get TESS (AMITYVILLE 3-D) HARPER as his mom though: they've both got that that Midwich Cuckoo look. Let me know if you guys have any other ideas as to what color horror films might work well in B&W!I'm on a roll so far and open to suggestions.
