Traumafessions :: Reader Marc Hendriks on Michael Jackson's "Thriller"
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The next day at school, I learned that my friend's pinky swear to keep things under wraps had been superseded by the enormous LOL-potential of my mental undoing.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
Kindertrauma Funhouse :: Xmas Horror
Would you just look at all these stills from Christmas themed horror flicks I scrounged up! How many can you identify?
If you're not sure, feel free to guess. If you don't care to guess, leave a comment telling us which Christmas movie (horror or otherwise) is your favorite!
One lucky commenter is going to win a fabulous Kindertrauma T-shirt sort of like the one worn below by Kinderpal Taylor!
Note: The Kindertrauma prize t-shirt will be white and size medium, large, or extra-large (winner's choice!) with the same artwork as the one Taylor picked up at Kindertrauma Mart.
Also: The winner will be announced tomorrow so that everybody will get a chance regardless of time zone! (Step it up Left Coasters!) Good luck to all!
Traumafessions :: Rev. Austin of They Call Me Potato on Super Natural's "The Doll" & The Watcher in the Woods
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,
Name That Trauma :: Reader Greg M. on the Death of a Traveling Salesman
Hey, your site's wonderful. It's great to read about people's trauma.
I have one from the early ‘60s. It was a film I saw as a kid on television. Maybe it was black & white, but who knows. Maybe it was an anthology T.V show. I don't think it was a feature. I've checked ONE STEP BEYOND and BORIS KARLOFF and ALFRED HITCHCOCK, but I still can't find it.
A woman decides to kill her traveling-salesman husband. She types his fake suicide note on a typewriter. She (somehow) kills him and (somehow) gets rid of his body. All I really remember is her saying, as she cleans up the murder scene, is "Everything…everything" so she won't forget any clues.
And maybe there's a shot of the typewriter falling/plunging underwater, but I might be making a memory from THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER.
Any clues as to what this episode was?
Thanks,
Greg
UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Thanks to Reader Thunderknight for getting it with DEMENTIA 13!
Traumafessions :: Reader Eric McDade on Fallen Angel
Hey again guys:
I'm not quite sure if it's just me, but I'm assuming that many folks my age were equally affected by the mid-eighties triad of The Bomb, AIDS and Crack, whose growth-stunting effects on the young teen mind were unmatched at the time.
Being in 7th grade and watching THE DAY AFTER (Thanks Andi T.) three nights in a row was, for me, terrifying.
AIDS didn't even need a made-for-TV movie to screw up a 13 year-old, hormone-riddled mind.
And, thank you, CRACKED UP for showing us how even such a fun thing as smoking pot can quickly lead to the untimely death of a budding high-school sports star.
Now, before The Big Three came at me, I had been content to believe the biggest concerns in America were with their far more innocent analogs, Bulllies (MY BODYGUARD), Premarital Sex (see a very special episode of GIMME A BREAK), and just plain-old Pot (Do yourself a favor and get a copy of the ABC Afterschool Special, STONED with SCOTT BAIO.)
And somewhere between these two groups, my brain was branded with an indelible memory.
Perhaps, not so indelible, as I don't really remember every aspect of it.
I just remember the icky-ness of it.
And the icky-ness was huge.
At least the way I remember it.
Aside from The Big Three, one of the largest psychic scars I garnered as a kid occurred upon viewing FALLEN ANGEL.
In it, RICHARD MASUR plays a consummate creep, and DANA HILL is the newest addition to his softball-team / kiddie-porn ring. Mostly, what I recall is a never-ending bounty of pills for the kids to enjoy and a cooler full of Orange Crush to wash them down with, accompanied by a blurry cascade of satin jackets and too much lip gloss.
The only line I can remember enough to butcher is from when a more experienced girl tries to get DANA HILL's character to ease into the whole gig, telling her, "It's no big deal. Just show a little skin and give a toothpaste smile."
Anyone?
P.S.: By the way, all that icky-ness from FALLEN ANGEL would eventually come flooding back to me in a tidal wave of revulsion while watching DANA HILL chew gum and blow bubbles on the train in EUROPEAN VACATION.The sounds….
UNK SEZ: Eric, I was traumatized by FALLEN ANGEL too; I never watched ONE DAY AT A TIME the same way again and I think RICHARD MASUR's mustache alone should have been arrested for indecency! As disturbing as that 1981 television film was, who can deny the fact that DANA HILL delivered a fine performance, just as she was always known to do. DANA seemed to be in just about everything in the early eighties (most notably in SHOOT THE MOON opposite DIANE KEATON and ALBERT FINNEY ) but then disappeared due to poor health. Thanks to her signature raspy voice though, she went on to do a lot of voice over work in popular cartoons like GUMMI BEARS. Sadly DANA died of diabetes in 1996 at the age of 32. If anybody out there would like to help people with diabetes in honor of DANA this holiday season, just do some shopping HERE!
Ink
INK is a glaringly original, "Fake it ‘till you make it" shoestring budgeted indie that audaciously envisions itself as a grand scale, epic fantasy. If you take a leap of faith and hold tight to its coat tails, it will show you a fascinating parallel universe the likes of which you've never seen; if you are rigidly resistant to its unapologetic non Hollywood esthetic and sometimes woeful dependence on community theater acting skills, you're likely to be kicked to the curb and left empty handed. This is a movie that fittingly feels built to detect and separate the stubbornly cynical naysayers from the hopeful dreamers in its audience.
When I was just a wee sprout, my Granny felt the need to inform me that when I was having a good dream an angel was sitting on my bed and telling me a story (so far so good) but when I was having a bad dream, a demon was doing the honors. Turns out it's not a very soothing idea to wake up from a bad dream as a child believing that a demon was just in your room, but INK reveals that it does make for a compelling starting point of a movie. Little Emma (QUINN HUNCHAR) not only wakes to find such a demon still lurking, but is also kidnapped by him and drug into a creepily beautiful netherworld.
Emma has been stolen by "Ink," a troll like creature stuck in a spiritual limbo who plans to use her as a bargaining chip to join the ranks of the dark side. Not so into his plan is Liev (JESSICA DUFFY) a good guy, guardian angel type who vows to save her. That's my simplified take anyway; the movie itself offers an impressively dense mythology involving Incubi, storytellers, pathfinders and other dream world denizens that I can't get into here because it's borderline TOLKIEN. Really, INK feels like an adaptation of a decades long comic book that you never heard of. Those susceptible to fetishizing sci-fi/fantasy minutia get your pens out and plan multiple viewings.
Although INK's whole backyard stage production of LABYRINTH vibe would be enough to recruit me as a fan, the fact is (and I have to tread softly here as to not ruin anything) it's ultimately damn profound. Unlike the many cult films it's bound to be compared to, what's at stake in this universe is nothing less momentous than the human soul. Don't be surprised if you are left contemplating just how far life's indignities have veered you off course from who you once were.
Writer, director and composer JAMIN WINANS is apparently fearless. If there are any limitations to low budget filmmaking he either didn't get the memo or refuses to acknowledge it. If he was ever an underage drinker, I'm sure he was never carded, so convincing is he that he deserves to walk among the big kids. I don't have any money, but if I did I'd be investing it all in his next film. It's not every day you witness straw spun into gold.
Like all great things INK is too unusual to be loved unanimously, but something tells me that the depth of the passion it's sure to inspire in some is all the acceptance it needs.
Note: Special thanks to reader Chris for telling me about INK!
Traumafessions :: Reader Donna P. on The Little Drummer Boy
As Christmas draws near and the RANKIN AND BASS specials start popping up on television, I recall a particular RANKIN AND BASS production called THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY. I hadn't seen it in over 30 years so my memories were a bit fuzzy but I was pretty sure I remembered a scene that disturbed me as a child–bandits rob the little drummer boy's home and set it on fire, the boy escapes but his parents perish. The scene that particularly upset was the boy looking back at the house to watch his mother engulfed in flames while tears ran down her face.
Today I found the movie on Veoh.com and decided to watch it, wondering if I'd remembered that scene correctly. When it got to the part about the bandits, there was the house burning, but no weeping mother. Did they cut it out I wondered? I kept watching it and sure enough, later in the movie there is a scene where the boy is angry, remembering what happened to his parents and very quickly their faces appear on the screen, the mother with a tear on her cheek, surrounded by flames. It seemed to be more of a montage of what the bandits did, rather than an actually depiction of his mother burning to death, but as a child that's how I interpreted it.
