kindertrauma

Sugar Hill (1974)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I'm beside myself with enthusiasm for the 1974 supernatural zombie blaxploitation flick SUGAR HILL. My life before viewing it now seems to be, in retrospect, a sham. One time STARSKY AND HUTCH regular MARKI BEY is both ice cool and fiery fierce as Diana "Sugar" Hill, a woman scorned and reborn as a voodoo vigilante in a killer pantsuit. When Sugar's best beau refuses to sell his groovy nightclub "Club Haiti" to the mob he ends up beaten to death by goons in his own parking lot. Outnumbered and determined to even the score (and then some) Sugar gets by with a little help from her new friends; a geriatric voodoo virtuoso, a top hat wearing, trickster phantom and plenty of silver eyed-cobweb cloaked zombies. No difficulty knowing whom to root for here.

So I guess I thought I was going to enjoy SUGAR as an ironic hoot. I thought I'd bask in its hokiness, take in its eyeball busting fashions and smirk at the corn. Instead I found myself absolutely and fully entertained on every level. It does have a makeshift low budget air and the clothes and acting styles are of a different dimension but that doesn't curtail the movie from being a hundred percent engaging. The plot doesn't involve much more than following Sugar around on her EC COMICS inspired revenge spree but SUGAR has got atmosphere and attitude up the wazoo. Foggy, swampy and colorful, it also contributes a refreshingly original take on the living dead. Let's take a closer look at why I'm all bitten and smitten…

DIANE "SUGAR" HILL

MARKI BEY may lack the overall gravitas of icon PAM GREER but in many ways she's more down to Earth approachable too. Once Sugar gets rolling she's an unflinching comeuppance machine and she delivers her BUFFY-esgue pre-stomping quips like a seasoned pro. When asked how strong her hate is Sugar says, "As strong as my love was, my hate is even stronger." That's my type of woman!

MOMMA MAITRESSE

I have a real issue with actress ZARA CULLY and that issue is that I think she is the funniest person who ever lived. Yes, that's mother Jefferson from THE JEFFERSONS and I could not be happier to see her.

Maitreese is a bit reluctant to get her voodoo on initially but as soon as she sees the results of her mojo, she's all ear to ear smiles (as well she should be). The zombie awakening scene in SUGAR HILL is a showstopper and brings to mind both CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS and MICHAEL JACKSON's THRILLER.

BARON SAMEDI

DON PEDRO CULLY's turn as the fantastically frocked God of the dead "Samedi" is a twisted treat and a half. Samedi appears at will, in many a guise and is a master of lascivious mischievousness. Imagine Candyman and Freddy Kruegar combined under one top hat and then wonder forever why SUGAR remains without a sequel.

VALENTINE

Just because Sugar's main squeeze is recently departed doesn't mean she doesn't have time for romance. RICHARD LAWSON appears as Sugar's old flame "Valentine" who suspects foul play but can't possibly imagine the "fowl" play reality of an animated voodoo killer chicken claw. If LAWSON looks familiar to all you horror fans out there, you might recall him donning a striped sweater in the classic POLTERGEIST.

MORGAN

If you're looking for a big baddie with some full-fledged horror cred, how can go wrong with ROBERT QUARRY? QUARRY's resume includes COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE and THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA plus he starred in both DOCTOR PHIBES RISES AGAIN and MADHOUSE with VINCENT PRICE! Like all good revenge flicks SUGAR saves Morgan's demise for last and squeezes as much satisfaction out of it as possible.

ZOMBIES

Oh, how I love the zombies in this movie. They're less the decrepit rotty kind you'd find in a ROMERO movie and more the pissed off phantasmal kind like you'll find in CARPENTER's THE FOG. Their eyeballs look like silver ping-pong balls sliced in half and they come covered in cobwebs and accessorized with shackles and machetes. These guys are somehow both silly and strangely scary and I will never not like that combo.

THEME SONG

If I had my way it would be mandatory for every horror movie to have a theme song. SUGAR HILL has a doozy in THE ORIGINAL's SUPERNATURAL VOODOO WOMAN! What a great way to instantly get in the mood!

IN CLOSING

What more encouragement do you need to visit SUGAR HILL? Although hard to track down on DVD, SUGAR is currently available on NETFLIX streaming. This is ghoulish fun that packs a punch while retaining a gleefully morbid sense of humor. It's perfect for the Halloween season and fans of CREEPSHOW and TALES FROM THE CRYPT should be doubly pleased with just how sweet SUGAR's vengeance can be.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Crudeman C. on a Phantom Prospector & a Japanese Jungle

Posted on By aunt john

I have two vivid memories of being scared to the point of trauma by something seen on T.V. as a child. I am 42 and believe I was probably about 3 when I witnessed these, so we're talking around 1970-71.

The first image is an animated sequence which featured a phantom prospector in a ghostly covered wagon. The wagon was attached to skeletal horses, and I believe the prospector may have been a skeleton as well. The animation was pretty stylized and cartoonish, but what REALLY creeped me out was the voice of the prospector and horses, which had a haunting echoing quality.

The second image I think may have been from a Japanese horror film. A group of soldiers are walking single file through a jungle setting. The soldiers pass under a tree and as the last one passes beneath it, a snake, vine, or tentacle comes down and wraps around his throat, strangling him.

I've carried these images burned into my mind for almost 40 years, but have never been able to figure out what they're from.

Traumafessions :: Reader Ariel on The Ankle Grabber & The Flat Man

Posted on By aunt john

Okay, so I was a pretty sensitive child and got scared easily, so when my school librarian decided to read a couple scary stories to my elementary class during library time, it wasn't going to end well.

The two stories that traumatized me beyond belief were "The Ankle Grabber," and "The Flat Man," both by Rose Impey. They are two books in a series called "Creepies" and boy are they ever. The following stories are actually supposed to make children feel better about monsters (because the children in the stories are always just imagining them and the monsters are always defeated in the end) but they had the opposite effect on me.

The Ankle Grabber was about a young child who was convinced that there was a monster under her bed. This monster was the Ankle Grabber, and he lived in a swamp that existed under the bed. If you ever looked, he could camoflague it to look like ground, but when you weren't looking it was a horrid sticky mess of a place. The Ankle Grabber lived for one thing: to pull you under the bed and into his swamp. He'd do this by, obviously, grabbing your ankles with his long, bony fingers and pulling you under. His hands were so strong that once he got a hold of you, there was no hope.

The only good thing was that he was stuck there. He could reach up the side of you bed, but if you stayed in the middle, or pressed up against the wall (if your bed was against a wall as mine was) he couldn't reach you. However, the Ankle Grabber was sneaky. In order to lure you closer so he could reach you, he would drag some of your toys or socks closer to the bed, so when you would go to get them – BAM! – you'd be his. This explains why missing socks are always found underneath the bed…

I didn't take this well.

Every night for years (I did it right up into my teens) I would take a running leap into my bed, so my feet would never be susceptible to the Ankle Grabber's long fingers. Whenever I wanted to get into my mom's bed – same thing. A huge running leap, and then landing with a crash onto the bed. The only bed in the house that was safe was my brother's. At the time, he had a wooden bed with drawers for storage underneath. He had no space under his bed, and therefore, had no Ankle Grabber Swamp. How I envied him. Even to this day, I feel uncomfortable with my feet resting beside my bed.

The other story, "The Flat Man" Is about a young boy who likes to imagine that the sounds he hears in the night are a monster called the Flat Man. The tapping at the window? You think it's tree branches, but no. It's the Flat Man tapping, trying to get in. The chugging of a train far off? Nope. It's the Flat Man squeezing himself through the cracks, whispering, "You can't keep me out…" He can even get under the covers! The Flat Man is a creepy character who sneaks his way into your room and then…well I'm not sure. I suppose he "gets you". Whatever that means. Anyway, you can defeat him by shining a light at him, and he crumples up like a ball of paper and blows away in the breeze.

He's not quite as scary at the Ankle Grabber, but that's when I started sleeping with a nightlight. And a flashlight. Also extra batteries in case my flashlight died.

Now you'll excuse me as I curl up in a corner and cry.

Cheers,

Ariel

Carrie (Brat Productions)

Posted on By aunt john

Historically, theater and your dear old Aunt John have had a rocky relationship. Admittedly, I have the attention span of a gnat doing the backstroke in bongwater and the prospect of sitting in a captive position without a regulated commercial break, whereby I can catch a smoke, escalates my innate fidgetiness. I am the last person you want to watch a DVD with if you require absolute silence (UNK SEZ: for serious!) or, moreover, drag to a play. I have walked out on more theatrical productions at intermission than I can recall — 'cause that's I how roll — and yeah, I'm looking at you TOMMY.

That said, I had some personal reservations when I read that local theater company BRAT was mounting a production of CARRIE, a comedy by ERIK JACKSON, based on the novel by STEPHEN KING. And by personal reservations, I mean could I sit still long enough without embarrassing or otherwise raising the ire of Unkle Lancifer?

Well dear readers, after last night's outing, I am happy to say that I sat completely enraptured, when I wasn't comprising my bladder control from laughing, and I did not once give your Unk pause to pretend to not know me. More importantly though, stop whatever it is that you are doing, you have got to go see this stage version of CARRIE! I don't care where you live… now is the time to visit Philadelphia, so get your ass on the BoltBus or JetBlue, and see this chestnut before the final curtain drops on November 7th.

Seriously, I could care less about the Tonys, but if I had the power to be kingmaker and give out such awards, this whole cast gets gold stars. LEAH WALTON steals every last scene in her PIPER LAURIE as channeled by ANDREA MARTIN interpretation of Carrie's kooky mom Margaret White. She does meet her match head on at a poorly attended Tupperware Party (the rapid-fire ‘70s references abounding in this play are beyond awesome) when COLLEEN CORCORAN shows up as Carrie's concerned gym teacher, Miss Gardner. CORCORAN is so on her A-Game as she puts Carrie's bullies (Chris Hargensen, et al.) through what could best be described as a jazzercise showdown.

The play cleverly mashes up the classic novel with the ingenious film and yet has enough of its own gumption to throw in a couple of elements all its own. The music is amazing and the timing on the "Carrie" cue in a certain KANSAS song is beyond impressive. The occasionally wonky special effects don't stand a chance in hell… they are stomped on by the fearless and improvisation-ready cast. Expect more hilarity than horror. If you haven't figured out what makes this archetypal tale a permanent go-to, the message is spelled out for you before the curtain closes. Individuality is a gift not a curse. Go BRAT and go CARRIE… it is a SNELL of a good time!

Traumafessions :: Reader Carmie on the Giorgio Moroder's "Chase Theme" from Midnight Express

Posted on By aunt john

Hello there, love your website!

If you ever have room for this, the one thing that EVER scared me when I was a child (who was frequently taken to see horror films at the drive-in and walk-in) was Giorgio Moroder's "Chase Theme" from MIDNIGHT EXPRESS. I was four at the time, and that damn song was all over the radio, and I mean in heavy rotation. What made things worse was that I used to sleep with the radio on! It never occurred to me to turn the radio off, but then again, I was only four. Of all the things to be afraid of. At least I wasn't afraid of CHER's "Believe."

That dishonor goes to my little brother, who was born twelve years later.

Cheers,

Carmie

Kinder-Editorial :: Kinderpal Erczilla on the Death of Blockbuster Video & the Awesomeness of Evil Dead 2

Posted on By aunt john

I come to both bury Blockbuster Video and faintly praise it. With Blockbuster Video filing for bankruptcy protection, it signals the final nail in the coffin of brick and mortar video stores. Blockbuster itself signaled the end of the greatest video stores of all, the mom and pop owned video store.

My appreciation of all things horror was heavily influenced by the gamble that was picking out a video off of the shelves of the local video store. The proprietors hardly had a clue of the deviance and insanity contained inside some of their tapes. Often the artwork would creatively disguise the crapfest one was about to rent, as in the case of RETURN TO HORROR HIGH or BLACK ROSES. The best moments were when one was able to mine through the stacks of slasher movies and ALIEN rip offs and discover a movie that would rock your socks off.

My older sister and I had such a moment when we picked up EVIL DEAD 2 off of the shelf of our local video store. The store was actually a gutted, double-wide trailer that reeked of mold and old newspapers and the poorly made shelves lined the wood paneled walls. There was a rickety old fashioned bar door that separated the normal videos from the porn tapes. The horror and science fiction tapes were of course very close to that rickety bar door. The store was the perfect mixture of sleaze and low rent cheesiness.

The video box cover with a smooth skull with intact eyes and the three star review from non other than ROGER EBERT were all it took to convince me. The experience was like no other and it shaped my taste in movies from then on. It was one of the only movies that I can recall rewinding and watching from the beginning just as soon as the credits started rolling.

When I heard that Blockbuster was going to open up a store in my small northern New Mexico town, I could hardly wait for it. The reality was rather disappointing. The small horror section was filled with popular mainstream titles and edited versions of movies that I had already seen. The mom and pop stores started to close one by one and took all the magic and mystery with them.

Netflix and streaming video is king now and I certainly appreciate them, but lost is the tactile experience of picking up the video box and being scared and titillated at the same time. If you don't like a movie now, you can just click on a new title to stream or mail back your DVD and get a new one in about a day. If you made a bad choice with a video rental you had it for two days and had to beg your parents to let you go back and get a new one before the weekend was over! No one will be traumatized by having to keep TROLL and GHOULIES for an entire weekend anymore.

My Soul To Take (2010)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

 

 

Hmmm. While watching MY SOUL TO TAKE all I kept thinking was that the direction was serviceable and that the acting was passable but whoever wrote the script needs to be diagnosed and medicated appropriately as soon as possible. Now as I look on the IMDb I see that the writer of SOUL is none other than my darling, my hamburger, WES CRAVEN himself. MR. CRAVEN, if you should be reading this, I'd like you to stop right now and go HERE until I am done.

Is he gone? Are you sure? Oh, my God you guys I am SO GLAD to be home and far away from that movie. It was driving me bonkers. It's just non-stop jabbering from beginning to end, exposition on top of exposition over and over and over again. Rules and numbers and ifs and maybes and blah blah blah. One guy actually falls out of a closet gutted and then is forced to explain how he ended up there for twenty minutes as he dies. "I was coming to see you and then this happened and then that happened and I thought maybe this but then it turned out to be that and then I went over there and you made a sound over there and then…" Holy shit, I get that you are NOT the killer just die already and peace out.

From the very get go we're thrown detail upon detail and are delivered nonsensical procedures that if not done properly will result in this or maybe that and are you familiar with the California Condor? Allow me to read you the Wikepidia page on The California Condor. When the actors aren't squawking then the radio or television is on doing the same thing in the background. It never ends. Now some of this may have been intentional as a way for WES to show what it might be like to have voices in your head all the time but still, I've seriously just taken an Excedrin anyway. Please don't ask me to tell you the plot of this movie because I just can't bear to go over the convolutions again.

It's not scary at all. Well, that's not entirely true, there was a period where I was scared that I myself may be going crazy or perhaps that somebody had put some drugs in my DR. Pepper. Maybe I'm just getting too old. Am I really old now? Everybody in this movie looked like a troll doll and spoke like a gnome. I guess I can accept that somebody might call somebody on their cell phone while running in the woods from a killer after seeing their friend dead but would they call the person who they think is chasing them? I just think that I would concentrate on running. Am I crazy, maybe I'm going crazy?

You know what? I liked the woods. There are a lot of woods in this movie and I liked going there. The look of the movie was kind of nice and autumn-y and the main guy in it was pretty good too. He's supposed to be an innocent "angel" that looses his wings and WES put these two gashes on his back so that was a nice touch. He may have had some gay thing going on with his friend but I always think that when two guys hug in a movie while one is stabbing the other that they really should just get a room already. His sister was pretty.

Oh, well c'mon it's not that serious. We all know WES right? He's the guy who followed up NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET with THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2 and DEADLY FRIEND! Ha-ha! He's probably just joking around with this movie. He loves doing movies like this every once in a while. It's kind of like when my little brother and I would put every disgusting thing we could find in a blender and see how gross it would come out. You're not really supposed to like it right? I don't know, maybe it's me. Maybe the whole thing just flew over my head like a California Condor.

No, no, no, no, it's NOT me. It's not me at all. It's YOU WES and you're just going to have to man up and take responsibility for your actions. Since we've got history and I still do LOVE you even with all your faults, I'm going to give you a blurb for your DVD cover: "It's a movie going experience that you won't soon forget…..(cough) try as you might." Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go to sleep now and dream of a wonderful place called "shut your pie hole town".

 


NOTE: By the way, about half of the stuff you see in this trailer does not occur in the actual film. Do not be sad about that, the movie is long enough as it is.

 

 

 

 

 

Name That Trauma :: Reader Callum S. on a Otherworldly Oddity

Posted on By aunt john

Ahoy! I'm a big fan of the site. I've got a Name That Trauma to pose to you, but it's pretty obscure.

I remember watching T.V. when I was off sick from school, early- to mid-‘90s. Here in the U.K., BBC2 and Channel 4 used to show a block of children's educational programmes on weekday mornings, when the majority of kids were at school, so catching these shows on transmission was a bit of a rarity.

One of these shows featured images which have haunted me in their vague nightmarishness ever since.

It seemed to be your basic E.T. plot – a group of ragtag kids rallying round an otherworldly character to keep it secret from adults. The being in question was a child-sized figure dressed in a ragged, patchwork robe of some kind. It didn't have a face. No eyes, ears, nose, mouth – just a smooth beige head with mannequin-like indentations. As such, it couldn't speak. Despite its inability to see, I remember it moving its head slowly from left to right, as if checking that the coast was clear, before moving slowly down a hallway accompanied by its young companions. I believe the kids also had some sort of treehouse or clubhouse where this horrifying creature was kept.

Although it was shown in the U.K., I think it was made in the U.S. or Canada. I'm guessing it was made in the early ‘90s; the tone and production values were somewhat reminiscent of GHOSTWRITER. No idea of the title.

Any ideas, guys?