Earlier: Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3 | Volume 4 | Volume 5 | Volume 6 | Volume 7 | Volume 8 | Volume 9 | Volume 10
Name That Trauma :: Reader Eddie Quist on Slaughtered Soap Stars
Love this site, one of my favorites ever since I discovered you guys through a Google search about the still-terrifying made-for-TV flick DON'T GO TO SLEEP. My question is about another made-for-TV movie, since I know they're a specialty of yours.
Around 1982 or '83, I remember a movie airing that followed a group of soap opera stars as they were being bumped off one by one. I don't remember much about it other than the fact that there were a lot of shots from the murderer's POV, which were usually accompanied by his weird, tuneless humming. The only other thing I remember was that one of the soap's male stars was pushed out the window of an apartment building; the cops in the next scene described how he "splattered" when he hit the pavement, which seemed absolutely crazy to me! I was just glad at the time that they only talked about it, and thankfully didn't show the result.
The movie itself was pretty lame, even to a pretty easily scared kid like myself, but the murderer's disaffected humming totally creeped me out. I think the whole thing turned out to be a hoax–there may have been some sort of movie-within-a-movie twist or something, but I can't really remember.
Any ideas?
— Eddie Quist
UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to kinder-sweetheart AMANDA BY NIGHT for flexing her SUZANNE PLESHETTE prowess and solving it with FANTASIES (1982).
Kinder-News:: Kindertrauma Nominated for "Best Fan Blog" By Total Film!
UNK SEZ:: Hey look at this! KINDERTRAUMA has been nominated for "Best Fan Blog" by TOTAL FILM. Many other fine blogs were nominated as well, including some of our bestest pals. We hate to grade-grub but we'll do it anyway, if you like what we do here give us a high five via a click vote! Thanks times a million for recognizing us TOTAL FILM and remember folks, vote for KINDERTRAUMA because we don't even want to go to college! Check out the ballot HERE!
Traumafessions :: Reader Grimpressions on The Haunted: A True Story
I stumbled upon this great site about two weeks ago and I've been visiting several times a day ever since. KINDERTRAUMA has rejuvenated my interest in old horror movies and pretty much anything that creeped me out as a kid. So as I religiously watched every minute of THE WALKING DEAD this Fall I kept asking myself where I've seen JEFFREY DeMUNN who plays, Dale, the older man in the group of survivors. I looked up his filmography and I realised that he played the father in a made-for-T.V. movie that scared the crap out of me as a kid called THE HAUNTED: A TRUE STORY.
I remember getting our first V.C.R. when I was 8 or 9 years old, around the time the first BATMAN movie came out on video, back when it would take a year for movies to be released on video. From that point on I proceeded to tape anything on that looked scary. We only had basic cable channels so I ended up recording a lot of T.V. movies, mostly based on true stories. It became somewhat of an art for me because I'd pause the taping and kept the commercials out so perfectly so that you almost couldn't tell they were recorded from television except of course for all the black fade-out and fade-in's and the family-friendly tackiness that accompanies T.V. movies. One of these movies was 1991's THE HAUNTED: A TRUE STORY, which was based on the case of the Smurl family haunting which took place in Pennsylvania during the 70's and 80's.
The movie was one of the more effective made-for-T.V. films. I started to realise how terrible a lot of them were as I got older and stated to rent rather than watch T.V. The acting was great and there were a lot of scary scenes. The ghosts that haunted the family were so relentless that they even followed the family when they tried to get away on a camping trip. The thought that ghosts could follow you outside of the house that was haunted terrified me.
The ghost appeared mainly as a floating, black mass. The usual events took place, chairs and dresser drawers moved on their own, radios turned on when unplugged, the family would hear voices, and there would be unexplained cold spots throughout the house. The black marks that re-appeared on the walls even after a fresh coating was applied was different along with the creepy pig squeals and snorts that would be heard coming from behind the walls.
The one scene that traumatized me though was when THE WALKING DEAD's own JEFFREY DeMUNN is raped by a female entity. DeMUNN who plays the father, Jack, is watching T.V. in the living room after everyone else goes to bed when he sees the ghost, who is an attractive girl at first, come down the stairs. She picks him up and throws him across the room. She straddles him and, at first, and he seems like almost doesn't mind it. The scary music swells and the ghost gets uglier and uglier and Jack starts to freak out. I finished recording the movie, but I couldn't watch it again for years.
Luckily some kind, or demented, soul posted the whole film in 10 parts on YouTube.
Terminal Island (1973)
In the early days of the VHS tape, my family's video outlet was a glorified kiosk in the mall called "Stage Door Video." The horror section was about the size of a closet door and I'd be surprised if I didn't watch every one. The selection may have been limited but the memories of the movies I viewed via that joint are among my strongest and richest horror memories. I'm not sure if TERMINAL ISLAND really belonged in the horror section, it's more of an exploitation/action flick but the synopsis on the back of the box suggested something not unlike ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (although TI predates EFNY by 8 years) so I was more than game. You rolled the dice back then.
The premise of the movie involves the aftermath of the abolishment of the death penalty. Murderous criminals, rather than being jailed, are thrown on the titular island and left to fend for themselves. I only retained one memory of this film but it stuck to me like Velcro. A female prisoner seduces a male prisoner, applies honey to his junk and then grabs a stick, whacks a bee hive in a tree stump and chuckles as the bees swarm his private Benjamin. It really disturbed me. I couldn't tell you why a person (or a bee for that matter) would behave in such a way. The idea was atrocious.
I never saw TERMINAL ISAND again. I never stumbled across it in another video store and I like to think I covered those grounds like an obsessive archaeologist in my day. Recently I was informed by Amazon that TERMINAL was being released on DVD by CODE RED. I waited the allotted time to purchase a used copy and prepared to confront my tormentor head on. When the DVD arrived, I threw it in the machine in the spirit of a private dare and expected an onslaught of depravity. I wasn't looking for scares just SILKWOOD-shower inspiring psychological grime and garden-variety existential dread. What I wasn't expecting was a dragon with puppy eyes. TERMINAL ISLAND is not evil, it's nice.
Well, truth told it IS super violent, there's plenty of that almost pink-hued, seventies tempera-flavored blood flowing; axes pierce flesh, bullets and explosions rain, people are whipped and kept as sex slaves and political correctness is not even a glimmer in a schoolmarm's eye. Still, I was kind of shocked not by the rampant degeneracy but by the winking social commentary. I got this movie all wrong. Even the dreaded bee attack I came to find was not so much psychotically malicious as it was a deserved comeuppance. That lady even worked alongside her bee victim afterward toward a common goal (which is pretty forgiving considering all the attempted rape between them.) I won't wreck the ending but suffice to say, it's nearly golly-gee hopeful.
The island is a mad LORD OF THE FLIES meets BATTLE ROYALE microcosm overruled by grotesque, primitive "might makes right" ideology and the simple fact that the assholes outnumber the non-assholes. The many work as slaves for the few. (Could never happen!) That is until the last remaining women team up with a small band of tight-jeaned revolutionaries and they, using their superior brains, overthrow their oppressors by any means necessary. Here I was expecting to be all scandalized by this movie but I found myself instead enthralled, vaguely inspired and really happy when the bad murderers died and really sad when the good murderers died. It doesn't hurt that our heroes include a pre-MAGNUM P.I . TOM SELLECK and a post LOST IN SPACE , MARTA KRISTEN. In any case, if you fancy fisticuffs and have a soft spot for chika-chika- wow porn music here ya go; consider TI cloud nine. It's probably not everybody's incarcerated cup of T & A, but what the hell is?
Frankly, I'm most shocked that TERMINAL ISLAND is not more wildly notorious and that's not just my nostalgia-bias talking. Not only is it action packed and covertly clever but I found out it was directed by STEPHANIE ROTHMAN, a rare female exploitation director and the very first woman ever awarded a Directors Guild of America fellowship. It's nothing new to return to a KINDERTRAUMA after some time and discover that it's not quite the creature you left it. Usually it's lost some steam and its fangs have become dentures. In this atypical case, I have to say maturity is on my side because no, it's not the film I remember, it's better. In this case, my monster is now my friend because the years have taught me to take a peek beneath the camouflage tarp. I know now that just as sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, by the same token, sometimes a beehive is much more than a beehive. That lady with the honey wasn't crazy, she was pissed!
Name That Trauma :: Reader Llama on a Another Horrifying Halloween LP
There was a HORRIFYING record that I do not know the name of that was played in music class every Halloween at my elementary school in the late '70s. I dreaded music class in the weeks leading up to Halloween because I never knew when this record would be sprung on me. It involved an old woman, a parson, possibly a graveyard, and a terrifying woman's scream towards the end that would make everyone else in the class jump in joyful surprise and laughter.
It did not have the same effect on me.
I would literally be under a desk rocking with my eyes shut and my ears plugged, very close to a heart attack. I also would be "sick" and stay home from school on music day around this time if it was possible. I was totally serious about not hearing this song. I am curious about hearing it again to see if it is still as frightening to me. It had to have been off of some Halloween compilation from the '60s or early '70s I would guess.
I LOVE your website. I just came across it recently and I visit it every day now. Thanks!
AUNT JOHN SEZ: Llama, I'm not honestly sure the name of your LP, but I wonder if it is related to one Reader Adam N. was looking for this past October…
UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to Kindertrauma DJ Propagatrix for putting the needle on the trauma with "There Was an Old Woman!"
Kinder-News:: Kindertrauma Nominated for Hitchie!
Even though we can smell an elaborate prank that will result in pig's blood being dumped from a bucket onto our heads from a mile away, KINDERTRAUMA is infinity times grateful for being nominated by the one and only LOST HIGHWAY for a GOLDEN TRAILER HITCHIE award this year! To find out more about "The Hitchies" and to visit the many fine blogs who shall kick our humbled asses, travel YONDER!
Traumafessions :: Reader Albert F. on Night of the Living Dead, The Exorcist & The Thing
What scared me as a child most was:
1. A midnight T.V. showing of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. I was 13 years old and a NOLD virgin!
2. Seeing THE EXORCIST on T.V. when I was about 7 years old. I was from a very Christian background so the devil was a constant source of horror.
3. Seeing JOHN CARPENTER's THE THING. At 13 I thought I was beyond childhood terror. Silly boy. The scene where the fella's head dripped off his body and grew spider's legs… well, it stayed with me for a few nights.
