Here's one for your readers.

I remember watching some movie on TV, anywhere from about 1981 to 1986. It was on a cable channel and it might have been made for that particular channel. Here's the thing. It wasn't exactly scary or traumatizing but it was bizarre. Years later I've always wondered just what the heck that movie was. I want to think it was sort of a lighthearted comedy. Here's what I remember:

An older guy, maybe in his 60's wants to become a tree, so he regularly stands outside with his bare feet in a dirt hole. His friends think he's just being loony. I can't remember if he waters himself or not, but I want to think it ends with him turning into a tree.

Does this ring any bells?

— Tom S.

Greetings fellow Traumatized Tots!

I'm going to start this off in pretty much the same way others have, by gushing over this amazing, informative, and truly entertaining site. It really helps to know that I'm not the only one who suffered through childhood (misery loves company and all that jazz).

While browsing through the numerous Name That Traumas I was reminded of a particularly nasty memory of what I'm pretty sure was some kind of freaky short film on T.V. It was the 80's. Of this I am positive. The plot involved a guy who intended on creating a girlfriend for himself with some kind of weird chemical (I think it was pink colored, but that's not important).

Anyway, he was flipping through some swimsuit magazines and picked a girl he liked and then dropped the weird goo on the girl's image. Poof! She comes to life!

Only there was one problem… her lower half was still stuck in the magazine.

I could actually feel the color drain from my face as this creepy half-girl started reaching for the guy and begging him to kiss her. Then she melted or something. The guy made a second attempt and poured the girlfriend formula over another sexy chick and poof! Another horrible disaster.

This second girlfriend was GIGANTIC and took up the entire room! Once again she begged him to kiss her and in my little child brain I just knew that if he tried she would suck him into her jumbo lips like a piece of gum and start chewing. Then she melted too. Thank God!

But this guy clearly didn't learn his lesson and tries a third time. Poof! Experimental Girlfriend #3 arrives. She was beautiful with a perfect body and long, luscious hair. I wanted to look like her when I grew up… until she moved the hair out of face… which looked like chewed up roadkill. I was rooted to the chair with terror!

This reject from a TALES FROM THE CRYPT comic didn't beg to be kissed like the others but demanded it and even started choking the poor guy! But mercifully she melts away, too. I just knew that this would be his last attempt to make a girlfriend.

I was wrong.

A fourth attempt was made. This one… turned out just fine. The only problem was she kissed a different guy and left the building with him instead of the poor mad (stupid) scientist. Oh well. At least he didn't get eaten. What happened toward the end is kinda fuzzy but I seem to remember the girl-making goo falling on a picture of some weird… cartoon vegetable creature… I have no idea. By that time I started to wander off to check under the beds for giants, mutilated half-torsos, and hideous faced monsters that would kill you if you didn't kiss their slimy, dripping lips.

Please help me find this weird little T.V. nightmare so that I can finally face my demons!

— The Youngest Hewitt

Hello again!

Thanks for naming my most mysterious past traumas! I've tossed a couple of tough ones your way and you never fail to name them. Before I get started on my newest one, did anyone ever manage to find the scary cymbals-monkey PSA? I've been looking for that thing since I read about it on your blog and thus far have come up dry.

This trauma has to do with a Disney film from the late '70s, whose title sadly continues to elude me. It wasn't an animated feature and the trailers featured a little girl with long dark hair and at some point there was a small (possibly man-made) waterfall. I think there may be a well in the film but can't swear to it because the ad creeped me out so utterly that I never stayed in the room past the first few seconds.

Seems to me the girl's hair was also in her face alot, kind of like Sadako/Samara in RINGU/THE RING. I think there was also a large flower somewhere in there but can't swear to it, one of those huge pink things that's used as a wrist corsage. The part of the trailer I saw had the girl standing in what may have been a garden. I remember telling my mom that Disney was making scary movies, which at the time I was pretty unhappy about. Now just about any horror rocks my stripey socks unless it's done by UWE BOLL.

Does any of this sound familiar? I'd love to know what this is so I can revisit it.

Thanks in advance,

— Shannon

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to Pinchy for naming it with CHILD OF GLASS.

This unknown film left me weak with horror and unable to look at the chimpanzee issue from my Zoobooks subscription for years!!! I had to have been in grade school, so this movie would have been around during the late ‘70s to mid ‘80s. Here's the story:

I was waiting in the entryway of my friend's house while she was getting ready to come and play outside. Her two older brothers (teenagers) were watching a movie in the living room and I could see it from where I was waiting. It was about some crazy lady and her sister who watched after her. They had a grown chimp they kept as a pet.

At one point the crazy lady locks herself in the cage with the chimp and proceeds to beat it to a bloody death with a long chain. The chimp is trying to helplessly defend itself and doesn't attack the nutjob. The whole time the other sister is locked outside the chimp's cage screaming and crying for her sister to stop.

I remember being so disturbed I ran out of there and went straight home. It depressed and horrified me for weeks! I have had no luck in finding out the name or details of this movie, Google and YouTube have no answers, so maybe you can track this film down.

I really want to know if the crazy lady ever got her comeuppance!

Thanks!

— Shannon H.

UNK SEZ: Shannon, you have sent in my favorite type of NTT because I think know the answer and the movie in question is so unusual that I almost have to be right. You my friend, must be speaking of 1978's THE MAFU CAGE (aka DEVIATION & DON'T RING THE DOORBELL) which stars CAROL KANE (WHEN A STRANGER CALLS) as one sister, LEE GRANT (DAMIEN OMEN II) as the other and BUDAR the ape as Mafu! Once upon a time this oddity was difficult to track down but these days it's available on DVD and you can even rent it to watch on your computer via Amazon HERE! In the meantime let us all take a moment to enjoy CAROL KANE boogying down with the priest from AMITYVILLE 2!

Hello,

Your site is my newest daily addiction; I can't tell you how many repressed memories have been unearthed by reading the recollections of other readers…great work! Anyway, my personal trauma is a bit obscure, as it doesn't come from a movie, TV show, or book, but hopefully somebody can help.

When I was in my teens, somewhere around 1989-1990, I saw some sort of "underground" art magazine at a friend's house. In the magazine, there was a profile of a female artist whose name I can't remember, but her work was the stuff of pure nightmares, and has stayed with me ever since. The pictures were black & white illustrations (though that may have just been due to the B&W format of the magazine) of nursery rhymes and other images done in a horrific, yet realistic style. The one that sticks in my mind the most was a piece called "Rock a Bye Baby", that depicted a baby's crib perched high up in a treetop. It was a top-down, close-up view that showed the terrified child stuck in a tree screaming at the top of his lungs, just like the nursery rhyme says.

Another piece was a picture of a normal, everyday suburban kitchen. Everything looked perfectly normal, but if you looked really close, there was a small pool of blood oozing eerily onto the floor just at the edge of the frame; it was a brilliant picture that took a mundane setting and injected a horrifying yet subtle hint of the macabre.

The only other one I remember in any detail was a piece depicting a topless pregnant woman cradling her baby bump, but the baby bump had a face, as if she was carrying a Siamese mutant to term.

I believe there were a few other nursery rhyme-themed ones, but I can't remember what they were. In any case, I have been looking for these images online, or at least the artist's name FOREVER, and have come up with nothing. If this rings a bell with anyone, I would be eternally grateful for any leads.

Thanks & keep up the great work!

— MD2112

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to reader zombiefreak for positively identifying Laurie Lipton as the artist in question!