kindertrauma

Name That Trauma :: Reader Liam on a Barred Bed

Posted on By aunt john

Congratulations – Kindertrauma is an AWESOME site! Here's my half-remembered trauma:

Sometime in the late '80s/early '90s I saw a scene on UK television; (I think) a man was on a bed, possibly a four-poster, and somehow bars appeared from the sides of the bed turning it into a big cage. I think the bars shot up from the edges of the bed, but I'm not sure.

A very hazy memory, but it scared the crap out of me at the time. If anyone can name this film or T.V. show that would be amazing.

Thanks!

Liam

The Sender

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I've seen the THE SENDER so many times that its multiple gaffs stick out like Sissy Hankshaw's thumbs, yet I'm compelled to return to it again and again. I blame its exceptional cast and unique (especially for 1982) tone. How do I describe this strange, somber, anomaly? The best I could ever do was A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: THE DREAM WARRIORS (or better yet, 1988's BAD DREAMS) as directed by IGMAR BERGMAN. I should point out though that THE SENDER played with the smudging of lines between dreams and reality before our fedora wearing pal Freddy ever did and that our director here is ROGER CHRISTIAN, who will later curse the world (or bless the world if you're a bad movie fan) with the very less than BERGMAN-esque BATTLEFIELD EARTH.

KATHRYN HARROLD (who you might remember from NIGHTWING and the RICHARD LYNCH starring television movie VAMPIRE) stars as Dr. Gail Farmer, a woman who finds herself captivated by a recent admittance to the psychiatric hospital where she works. The patient known simply as John Doe #83 (ZELIJKO IVANEK) is an amnesiac who recently attempted a dramatic public suicide and just so happens to have the pesky habit of projecting his nightmares into people's heads. I'm not talking about "It's the day of the big math test and I forgot to wear pants!" kind of nightmares, I'm talking about the "Whaddya know, the refrigerator is swarming with cockroaches and a rat just crawled out of my mouth!" variety.

The doctor/patient relationship in the center of the film is absorbing enough to steer your attention away from many of the film's imperfections. IVANEK is a convincing outcast with a believable supernatural aura (decades later he will be tapped to play a high ranking Vampire in HBO's TRUE BLOOD) and HARROLD has an earthy, nurturing demeanor that makes me assume flowers bloom whenever she's in the vicinity. As John Doe's past begins to materialize so does his creepy, about as much fun as a barrel of dead monkeys, Bible quoting smother-mother ( a memorably melancholy SHIRLEY NIGHT). Dr. Gail has to basically re-parent the young man to defuse his demons as his telepathic "sending" is apparently all tied up in apron strings. Don't feel left out, emotionless carved in stone fathers, you're represented by shock therapy enthusiast Dr. Denman (PAUL FREEMAN a.k.a. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK's bad boy Belloq) In other words, this is horror made for TEARS FOR FEARS fans.

Though not entirely seamless, this is some legit, classy, acne-free cinema. You know I love my garish neon eighties horror movies but THE SENDER, with its muted, mostly beige color palette and candle lit climax, has a timeless quality that I find comforting. I poked a bit of fun at director ROGER CHRISTIAN's TRAVOLT-ing Sci-Fi train wreck but let's not forget the guy was also the art director for the endlessly influential ALIEN too. THE SENDER's cinematographer ROGER PRATT went on to BRAZIL and 12 MONKEYS and the standout score is from the guy who did ANGEL HEART and LABYRINTH (TREVOR JONES).

THE SENDER's noble, non-pandering stance insured that exactly one cricket bought a ticket to see it in the theaters. Over the years it has gathered a cult of followers but this ambiguous oddity I suppose, for some people, will always fall into the neither fish nor foul pile. (You know the drill, gorehounds hate chin music and eggheads tsk-tsk decapitations…what's a stylish thriller with both to do?) As you can tell, I have plenty of room in my heart for a problem like THE SENDER, its body count may end up being a blasphemous zero but it contains the only car chase scene I've ever found even remotely entertaining. In fact, I'd say it's downright hypnotic.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Amy D. on a Tragic Tunnel

Posted on By aunt john

Hi,

I'm wondering if anyone remembers this movie, I saw it when I was really little probably 5 or 6, I can remember this movie scaring me and it's always been in the back of my mind but I can't place it, it's some kind of kids movie.

A girl is playing in her front yard, it's back in time because she and her parents are wearing old fashioned clothes, dresses down to their ankles. Some men come across them and take them hostage, there's a shoot out with the bad guys and the family inside and someone else outside. There's a secret passage in the fireplace I think it was where you could climb into a tunnel. The father sneaks towards the secret opening and is shot, the mother rushes to him and is also shot, then the daughter rushes to the mother.

The next part I remember is one of the bad guys and the girl climbing into the tunnel, the girl runs away ahead of him and she suddenly screams and disappears from sight, I think it's years later and there's this mystery as to what happened to this girl.

My next memory is of another girl in modern time running down the same passage and falling but a guy catches her or pulls her up before she falls, they both look down and see the skeleton of the girl who fell years before, and I think the guy says something like now we know what happened to _________. He says her name I think. I'm pretty sure this was the end of the movie.

Any ideas? I can still very vividly remember the little girl falling while trying to escape and her parents being shot in the crossfire and collapsing. I would love to know the name of this movie. I'd appreciate any ideas. Thanks!

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! The unstoppable Senski got it with 1983's MYSTERY MANSION!

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Horror fans often times disagree about what they find frightening. I'd like to ask though, is there anyone out there who is not mortified by TOBE HOOPER's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE? I mean, I know I'm old school so you have to fill me in kids, is it possible to watch that movie and not be freaked? To me it's pretty much the cinematic definition of the word horror. I can understand someone not enjoying it, it can be a shrieky headache, and I can understand someone not finding it absolutely convincing or perhaps a tad too comical, but it is unquestionably horrifying, no? Come on, a lady is shoved on to a meat hook for Christ's sake.

Cannibals, chainsaws, rotting corpses, a lampshade made out of human skin… what's not to be disturbed by? Still, even with all of those obvious sources of terror flopping around there is something within the film that fills me with an even more intense feeling of dread. I can handle the physical pain and humiliation on display. It's the uncanny elements that unbalance me; the ominous horoscopes, the solar flares, the feeling that the universe is collapsing in on our travelers. Again, I am old school. What's it like to see this movie when your childhood did not take place in the seventies? Are such people free from the full intensity of CHAINSAW's morbid grip?

The thing that scares the hell out of me in T.C.M. is not the ogre known as Leatherface but the fact that it is a journey backwards to a place that is now dead. Sally Hardesty (MARILYN BURNS) and her wheelchair bound brother Franklin (PAUL A. PARTAIN) are essentially guiding their friends on a tour of their lost, corroded youth. Before they are ever aware of the vicious madness of Leatherface and company, they explore the once livable now dilapidated home of their grandparents. Sally laughs off the fact that she once slept in the crumbling shell but from where the pouty Franklin sits, his chair unable to course the terrain, her squeals of delight sound like (and foreshadow) squeals of anguish. It's almost as if they have stumbled into some kind of Langolier-chewed history that's disintegrating beneath them. They truly can't go home again…there are spiders living there now.

Which brings me to the moment that inexplicably sticks out for me in the film. Sally and Franklin's pal Kirk (WILLIAM VAIL) wanders ahead of the group and enters a room. In an upper corner near the ceiling, he finds a nest of seething and scattering daddy long leg spiders. Trust me here, I'm not one to be squeamish about spiders (they're adorable), but there's something about this bit that gets under my skin. It's almost like an animated scribble, a growing negative space or a thousand cracks forming and the scratching, clattery sound applied over top of the visual is so other worldly sinister and so wildly exaggerated that it chills me to the bone. I'm sure that in the real world a psycho with a chainsaw is more upsetting than a nest of spiders, but in the real world a nest of spiders is polite enough not to act like a LOVECRAFTian tear in the universe.

Maybe I see too much in that mass of spiders or maybe it's the potential absence of anything being there at all that riles me. Do they simply remind me of the daddy long legs I used to encounter on my back porch when I was little (and by encounter I mean rip the legs off of)? Leatherface is ultimately human and no matter what his efforts he'll end up eventually just like his grandfather, barely able to lift a hammer. I guess to me those spiders say that time itself is the bigger monster carving through Texas and that it's a monster that no one can outrun.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Kirsty D. on a Possessed Person With Lumpy Looking Skin

Posted on By aunt john

I posted a post yesterday on the IMDb I Need To Know board, asking if anybody knew what the name of this movie was, but nobody answered. All I remember is a dark haired young man getting possessed or turning evil, and getting lumpy looking skin. There's a scene where he goes under the kitchen sink and while he's under there he sees a hand hanging from the top.

In one scene he's chasing some older woman in the house, I think in the basement, and she tries to run away from him from on one side but then runs into him on the other. It was like a scene in EVIL DEAD 2 when Ash was possessed. AMITYVILLE 2 came on T.V. a couple years back, and I thought for sure that it was the movie, but these scenes weren't in it. I saw it when I was about 3 or 4, it's a distant memory and those are the only scenes I remember.

Just wanted to see if anybody out there can name this movie, I know it's really vague.

Thanks in advance.

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! After further investigation, it was AMITYVILLE 2.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Rotting Rushton on a Finger Eating Dog

Posted on By aunt john

Ok. Here goes.

When I was in elementary school (possibly 2nd grade?), I checked out a collection of scary stories from the library (this part is hazy because I can't remember if I bought this book at a book fair or checked it out). In the book I read a story about a boy who finds his dog lying on the floor in a pool of blood struggling to breathe when he gets home from school one day. He calls the vet and they come to get the dog (either they come to get him or he drops the dog off…either way…the dog gets to vet somehow).

The boy finds himself back in his house after this and hears noises upstairs. While slowly walking up the stairs to check out the noise he receives a phone call from the vet telling him something along the lines of "GET OUT OF THE HOUSE NOW!!! THE OBJECT WE FOUND LODGED IN YOUR DOGS THROAT WAS A HUMAN FINGER!!" at this moment the boy FLEES the house and the cops are already pulling in (my guess is the vet called them before the boy) and they run inside to apprehend the possible suspect.

Moments later they bring a man outside the house clutching his hand and the boy sees that one of his fingers is missing. I think he was carrying a large knife as well. I remember being terrified of going into my house when I got off the bus every day and would always stay in the kitchen to do my homework since the door was right near the table.

All of this is quite fuzzy to me and I apologize for leaving out any details but I guess my question is this:

Does anyone know the name of the book that this short story belongs to? Or even the name of the short story would be wonderful! I would LOVE to re-read it again. I think there was another scary story collection that featured a large rat on the cover with creepy red eyes. The background was red too I believe.

Anyways, if anyone can help that would rock!! Thanks!!

— Rotting Rushton

Traumafessions :: Bjarke"Eshbaal" J. of Horrible Horror on Freaky Fred from Courage the Cowardly Dog

Posted on By aunt john

Hello once again Unk and Aunt and all you wonderful Traumatots out there who continue to brighten my journeys on the internet with your delightful Traumafessions and Name-That-Traumas that keep me constantly on the prowl for the gems you manage to dig up. It's nice to once again be writing to you.

Ever since I sent you my traumafession about the Groke way back in…I think it was October or September… I have tried to think of something else from my childhood that had frightened me… but either I was a more hardcore kid than I thought, or my parents were just too protective of what I saw, or I am a forgetful ninny, since absolutely nothing came to me at all, both to my relief and my disappointment.

That is, until one day, searching for various nostalgic stuff on pages like Youtube, I stumbled across one of my favorite cartoons from a young age… COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG (I was 9 when this show was on. Bear with me – I am well aware that I am in the younger end of the Kindertrauma guests).

Anyway, I loved Courage. For one, the dog was a delightful character, second, even back then I had my delvings in the macabre with the writings of J.K. Rowling and Danish author Dennis Jürgensen and third, it was absolutely hilarious and wild.

For those who do not know the show's premise, it is quite simple: Courage is a pink dog who lives in the middle of Nowhere (literally) with farmer couple Eustace and Muriel. Every day, something strange and creepy would happen, and it would be the cowardly dog's job to save his owners even though he was scared out of his mind. The show was often just as creepy as it was funny, and is probably the straightest played horror I have seen for children in cartoon form.

I loved every single minute of it, but as I sat rewatching my childhood and laughing twice as much since I now understood ALL the jokes rather than just half, I would soon know fear… in the shape of the most frightening "monster of the week" from this fantastic show… Freaky Fred!

The episode was a nightmare unlike the others – the premise was basically that Muriel's nephew Fred was coming to visit… but it turns out he is a loony barber with quite a strange fetish for cutting people's hair. During some mishap, Courage ends up locked up with Freaky Fred in the bathroom while Eustace go to find something to fix the door with… and Freaky Fred just ADORES our dear little puppy's hair and continues to shave him with childish glee.

And that childish glee was the frightening part. The entire episode were told in a rhyming, sing-song tone of voice with creepy children's singing as background music. During these musings, he would tell of the various people he had shaved and described it as an urge that made him act…. "NAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHHTYYYYYYY."

That "Naughty" was the single scariest word in existence for me – it was said in a completely different tone of voice, a malicious growl from the very darkest pits of his throat. While I watched this in English on Youtube, I still distinctly remember his Danish voice… which was even happier and gigglier, just making everything worse.

Don't get me wrong, it was as funny as every other episode… but Freaky Fred sure as hell freaked me right the frig out!

Today I recognize it as a delightful Sweeney Todd parody… but back then… good Lord, it was terrifying. Especially since you can hardly say Courage even wins, as he winds up completely shaven before Fred is taken back to the Looney Bin.

And thus ends my tale of the freaky barber that scarred my fragile psyche. I hope you enjoyed it.

Play nice, or I might get…. "NAAAAUUUUUGHHHTYYYYYYY."

— Bjarke "Eshbaal" J.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Karen on an Artistic Killer Teen

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I have a real stumper – just a few flashes of memory. An unpopular teenage guy is walking home and is taunted by a younger girl on the way. He throws a rock at her – maybe he hits her with a rock – anyway, she dies. His mother's solution is to move him into the basement and conceal the entrance to the basement. His mother dies, and another family moves in. I remember he steals food from them at night.

The final scene I can recall shows him stabbing one of his paintings/ drawings/ murals in the subject's eye and blood coming out. Saw it on T.V. in the mid-‘70s. I don't know if it was made-for-T.V. or if there'd been a cinematic release.

Cheers,

Karen

UNK SEZ: Karen, that one's a cinch, you're talking about the made-for-television classic BAD RONALD from 1974. It starred SCOTT JACOBY and was based on a novel by JOHN HOLBROOK VANCE. If you'd like to know what we here at Kindertrauma think about that movie, just buy the DVD (there's a link right down there on the right) and check out its back…we're proud to have a laudatory blurb posted there for all to see!

Hospital Massacre

Posted on By unkle lancifer

There's one last Valentine chocolate in the box and it's called HOSPITAL MASSACRE, known in some parts as X-RAY; it's working title was the sublime BE MY VALENTINE…OR ElSE! Directed by BOAZ DAVIDSON (by the way, I'm still broken hearted by the conclusion to BOAZ's THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN…how could you, DIANE FRANKLIN !?!), this early eighties shocker has somehow avoided DVD capture though its giant silver MGM VHS box can be spotted hiding out in the back alleys of Amazon.

Kids, we're talking a 1982 slasher that takes place in a hospital, is centered around a second rate holiday and kicks off with a prologue revealing a unsettled grudge from the past! Sounds like it can't fail right? Sure it can! HOSPITAL MASSACRE puts the "ail" in fail but it's just so screwy and peculiar that I can almost forgive it for cutting into my valuable PS3 time. Let's take a look at the symptoms, shall we?

BARBI BENTON

As if sashaying her way through HEE-HAW and FANTASY ISLAND wasn't enough to enrapture me, BARBI BENTON (born Barbara Klien) also starred in the uber-incredible DEATHSTALKER. Plus, the gal's got….er….PIPES!

TWO OF THE THREE BLOODY BIRTHDAY KIDS!

In H.M.'s opening we learn that when BARBI's character Suzy was a child, a spurned admirer killed her brother on Valentine's Day. I thought it fortuitous enough to find BLOODY BIRTHDAY's super creepy SUSAN HOY playing young Suzy when suddenly up pops the ever-brilliant BILLY JACOBY as the crazed, can't take a hint psycho. Horror-synchronicity at its finest!

MY BLOODY VALENTINE NOD

Early in the film an elevator ride is cut short when the doors slide open to show three men in HARRY WARDEN gas masks, a nice playful jab at that other earlier released Valentine horror film!

LET ME OUT!

Poor Suzy just stopped by the hospital to pick up some routine test results but because her stalker switched her X-rays, the doctors, along with their seven foot tall nurses, won't let her leave! H.M. may think it's a slasher but it's really a SNAKE PIT movie at heart. Which is good because SNAKE PIT movies are as campy as they want to be and that's why I love them. (Slap me five 1985's HELLHOLE with JUDY LANDERS and RAY SHARKEY and 1990's COMMITTED with JENNIFER O'NEIL and RON PALILLO!!!)

THE FREAKS SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH!

So what if the surgeon killer is more goofy than scary, the chanting occult soundtrack is wildly inappropriate and the pacing, on occasion gets slower than an IV drip. HOSPITAL MASSACRE has a kooky KAFKA on Quaaludes vibe that should carry lovers of cult film straight on through to the other side. I was a doubter myself until BARBI stumbled into a room with three patients bandaged head to toe that just start convulsing like break dancing marionettes. Like most of the film, it's surreal, funny and not meant to be taken too seriously. Plus, in HOSPITAL MASSACRE you get a decapitated head in a hat box, that's a pretty good Valentine gift, right?