Here's another one. The movie THE CRAFT by ANDREW FLEMING (1996) is a very good one, but for me one scene in particular stands out; the one with the "lose-your-hair curse" that Sarah sends to Laura. It always gave me the creeps whenin the pool she's starting losing hair… aarghhh!

Bye,

Riccardo

I have searched for this for years, and have found nothing…but I remember in great detail a song on SESAME STREET (this would have been 1980 or before) called "Surprise!" It involved various scenes and cast members from the show doing silly things that involved an element of surprise. Then at some point in the song, someone knocks on Oscar's trashcan and Maria pops up in a red devil suit and with a deep scary voice proclaims, "Oscar isn't here!!"

This scared the piss out of me as a kid and I would like to see if it still does, but I find absolutely no reference to this scene and no one who remembers it…I know I am sane, but I would love to see this again or at least hear from someone who remembers it.

Thanks,

Stephen

UNK SEZ: No luck finding that "Maria as Satan" clip Stephen, but I did find this old clip of Oscar which reveals him to be a natural ginger! He's even singing my theme song "I love trash!"

Dear Kindertrauma team,

My name is Marc Hendriks and I'm the author of the anthology Monstruos. This is my traumafession:

Now, for the first time, I am bringing to you the full story of what happened on that fateful day in 1985, when I was eight years old. My friends, I cannot keep this a secret any longer.

Back in the swinging eighties, I was known by peers and relatives alike as a spineless momma's boy. Eager to rid myself of that stigma and to be thenceforth known as a tough guy, I boldly stepped into my BFFW's (Best Friend For a While) bedroom and demanded to be shown his copy of a magazine devoted to MICHAEL JACKSON's Thriller video. My buddy reluctantly obliged, warning me that the pictures in the magazine might prove too much for me. Obstreperously waiving his concerns, I grabbed the magazine from his hands, opened it at a random page, and was confronted with a photo of MICHAEL JACKSON transforming into the werecat.

All color drained from my face and I tossed the magazine out of the window. Those teeth, those yellow eyes…it was too much for me, all right. Way, way too much. Gone were the thoughts of wanting to be a tough guy, born to be bad. I bolted for the door, screaming for my mom as fresh salty tears trickled down my cheeks.

My bemused friend not only had to physically support me on my way home, but also endure repeated cries of "I'm hallucinating! I'm seeing the JACKSON werecat behind that tree/that lamppost/that car!"

When my mom answered the door for us, her first reaction to the sorry state I was in consisted of an indignant "Have you been giving my son alcohol?!"

I let my friend take care of the explaining, ran up the stairs and hid under my bed; surely, the JACKSON werecat wouldn't be able to get me there.

The next day at school, I learned that my friend's pinky swear to keep things under wraps had been superseded by the enormous LOL-potential of my mental undoing. Every kid who owned a copy of the Thriller magazine brought it to school after lunch break, waving it in my face in the hope I'd turn on the sprinklers again. I didn't, for the harmless picture couldn't match the sheer terror of the JACKSON werecat I'd encountered in my nightmares the night before.

Kind regards,

Marc Hendriks

Hello Kindertrauma!

I'd like to share with you a couple of things that scared the holy whatsit out of me as a kid, if I may. I was reminded of the first one by your recent post about Super Naturals – here in the U.K. we had a Super Naturals comic, and there was a separate strip in it about an evil ventriloquist doll, just called, I think, "The Doll."

If I remember correctly, a young boy goes to live with foster parents, and discovers the ugly doll in his bedroom. I think it belonged to the foster carers' dead son, and the dad goes mental and chucks the doll in the bin, and the image that always stays with me is how the doll scratches him as he throws it away…brrr!

The other thing that had a deeply unpleasant effect on me as a kid was Disney's THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS. I only managed to gather up the balls to watch the full film a few years ago, and discovered it to be a weird sci-fi thing, but the idea/image that always bothered me was the parts of the film which used the POV of some invisible force watching people…in the woods!

I couldn't go in or near wooded areas for YEARS; I even had to avoid large front gardens with a lot of trees in them, because I was certain the "Watcher" was in there, being all creepy.

Regards,

Rev. Austin