kindertrauma

Kinder News:: Me Heart Superjail!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Because I have fashioned my lifestyle to resemble that of BAD RONALD I count on you kids out there to keep me up to date about what's going on in society. So hows come nobody ever gave me a ring on the horn to tell me that I have a new favorite cartoon style T.V. program named SUPERJAIL? Thankfully I heard two gossipy neighbor ladies whispering about it over the clothesline the other day (actually, my pal Mattito Lauttito gets the undying gratitude.) otherwise I'd still be in the dark!

For those somehow less in the know than myself, SUPERJAIL is one of them Adult Swim thingamabobs. The animation is wondrous, bouncing between LINDA BARRY primitive (check out Alice's buck teeth.) to elaborate and surreal BOSCHIAN landscapes. The best part is that SUPERJAIL is the most violent and twisted thing you have ever seen. It's not all guts and gore though, there is a trippy WILLY WONKA attitude that will leave your head spinning. The more you watch the more you love! Wet your whistle with the clip below than check out full episodes of the bestest show ever created that does not involve vampires HERE

Traumafessions :: Reader Smidget on Don't Look Now, Burnt Offerings, & Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Posted on By aunt john

I have another one…..sigh.

I was totally traumatized by two ‘70s movies. Well, two OF the hundreds of ‘70s flicks that scared the pants off us…but anyway, these two are DON'T LOOK NOW (I think that's the title, with DONALD SUTHERLAND dealing with the death of his daughter) and BURNT OFFERINGS (the chauffeur). The thing that scared me in the first one was the little lady in the red cape that turned around unexpectedly. My God, I almost died. She was so ugly and it was so unexpected for me. BURNT OFFERINGS, it's obvious, that damn chauffer with the big grin was making me think of Mr. S. the whole time. Ugh. But that movie was so creepy in a lot of ways – I remember I was upset that the father tried to drown the kid – we had a pool. That kid was rather annoying though.

Oh wait, one more in the annals of my brain, DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT? Wait, let me check. No, it wasn't that one, it was DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK. OH my. I was so scared of this because at Grammie's house, they had those same little "doors" in the room that the little critters/gnomes were trying to drag the main character into. Total Trauma. As for DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT, I've never seen it, also tagged as THE FORGOTTEN of 1973, and I am adding it my Netflix queue now. Thanks for this site….so much fun!

UNK SEZ: Good traumafessions all Smidget! Thanks for bringing up DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT. I'm not sure if has been mentioned here yet. I remember that movie playing on late night television as a kid and everything about it from the rural setting to the amateur acting used to unnerve the hell out of me. I did a little poking around and found that you can watch the whole movie (with a surprisingly good quality picture, considering) on Youtube HERE!

The Final Destination

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Hey, I almost forgot to tell y'all about my FINAL-D film-going adventure! Now that I've had some time to mop the psychedelic residue of R.Z.'s H2 from my brain, I remember that I saw THE FINAL DESTINATION on the same day! Now where R.Z.'s movie was so batty delirious that even if you hated it you could not get it out of your mind, the fourth installment of F-D is so by the book procedural that even if you loved it, it's hard to retain anything of what you saw.

Of course it's all types of fun watching bystanders either crushed under heavy objects or blown to smithereens (I know that sounds harsh, but when you're in a theater that features about a dozen audience members talking into their cell phones you can really start to develop a "Let God sort them out!" mentality) the problem is that going through the motions of watching yet another group of people slowly figure out the rules of the franchise might have you wishing that a buzz saw would land on your own head.

I like that they moved slightly away from the teeny bopper vibe of PART 3 and tried to bring a more assorted variety of people into the fray ala PART 2, but still most of the so-called characters are indistinguishable from each other. Please Hollywood people, I'm not suggesting you hire good writers or anything, but at least cast girls with different hair color so I know who is dying (Another free tip: Throw a pair of glasses or a baseball cap on one!) Speaking of hair color, I like how we've moved past the kill the black guy first thing (so much so that you just KNOW that the black guy is not going to die first), so let's say we drop the whole ginger guy is a bullying asshole routine too huh? (Oh, and don't bring back ginger guy is the comic relief nerd either ‘cuz I didn't like that either!)

The saddest news is that the 3-D is not up to MY BLOODY VALENTINE standards. I don't know if it was a technical issue or if the movie was just so dishrag dark that it didn't stick, but I was only impressed about a quarter of the time. Truth be known, I have to admit to laughing like Bart Simpson viewing an episode of ITCHY & SCRATCHY on several occasions, so that's a good thing. (The opening credits that showed all the kills from the previous installments in x-ray were a nice touch too.)

I think the word "serviceable" was invented for movies like this; it's really just time filler for when you are tired of mowing down pedestrians in GRAND THEFT AUTO. Remember how spooky the first installment tried to be with that dark shadow force roaming around and the tree branches that turn into skeleton hands (or was that the second?) that cool stuff is nowhere to be found here. Truth is, anyone who holds the climax of his movie in a suburban mall and then ignores the opportunity to demolish the HOT TOPIC store, just isn't trying hard enough.

Traumafessions :: Joel Bryant & Deven Green Spectacular!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Awhile back we reviewed a movie called BABY BLUES, an above par indie flick that not only impressed both A.J. and I with its effectiveness in the suspense department, but also with its strong performances. One of those strong performances belonged to JOEL BRYANT. I'm only exaggerating a little when I say that shortly thereafter JOEL BRYANT headshots were hung in our lockers at school and we began spending an inordinate amount of time at the local malt shop discussing his dreaminess. I can admit now that perhaps one of us should have given more thought to the JOEL BRYANT FOREVER tattoo but this was all the way back in May when we were young and impressionable. Can you really blame us though? Check out the peepers on this guy…

Further stalking… I mean research resulted in us finding out that JOEL is happily married. Now normally that would have cooled our jets some (pretend) but as it turns out he's married to DEVEN GREEN the notorious Youtube superstar responsible for the "WELOME TO MY HOME" parody videos you've doubtlessly seen. (She also turns out to be the hilarious BETTY BOWERS.) Suddenly we had two people to idolize! Where would we find the time? Luckily the two are known for collaborating as a comedy duo so that their fans may worship both in one quick swoop!

Unrequited appreciation is the name of the game at Kindertrauma Castle (no matter how much cash and free time we donate to the community the locals still dump their trash in our front lawn and pelt us with cantaloupes when we retrieve our mail). So you can imagine our unbridled joy when we received a (unsolicited, I swear!) communiqué from JOEL thanking us for the review and saying he was a fan of the site. How awesome is this guy?

Wouldn't you know it that a week later the four of us Me, Aunt John, JOEL and DEVEN are spending a glamorous weekend in Las Vegas. Aunt John and JOEL may have ended up getting arrested and spending the night in the drunk tank but DEVEN won forty grand playing poker and I fulfilled my life long dream of performing SCRITTI POLITTI's "Perfect Way" in a karaoke bar!

O.K. that last part only occurred in my mind but I did weasel Traumafessions out of both JOEL and DEVEN on account of I'm always thinking of you readers out there! Enjoy these two traumafessions from two super cool people and then go visit them at their home turf HERE!

Joel Bryant:

I don't want to date myself (that's why I got married – rim-shot!), but the most traumatizing thing that EVER happened to me was seeing the original POLTERGEIST when it was in theaters. From the front row. Age at the time: 8. And I've never been the same since…..

My brother and I were spending the summer at my dad's house (as part of the divorce settlement, my dad had to deal with us every summer. We enjoyed the spoils. How bad did POLTERGEIST traumatize me? Even my parents divorce comes in a far, far, far second place to watching that damn flick!). Up until that time, I had become a huge RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK fan. I'd watched it at least a million times by my best estimate; and I was slowly becoming a movie junkie.

My dad had some friends that had seen POLTERGEIST. They came over and asked if my dad would like to take us with them to see it again. I was trepidatious at first because I knew that "poltergeists" were bad. I had fought them before in Dungeons and Dragons. They were easy to defeat, but were definitely considered "monsters."

My dad's friends would have none of it. They described the movie as "no big deal." In fact, to paraphrase their exact words: "You've seen RAIDERS how many times? You know the ending with the faces melting and everything? Well, that happens in POLTERGEIST, but that's about the worst thing that happens. The rest is really harmless. You'll be fine."

My brother and I believed them.

We were at that young age where you want to see every film from the front row (granted, this was before arena seating and ridiculous sound systems). We settled in, excited, in the middle of the front row.

Then the movie started.

I don't need to give a synopsis of the film, but this is how we watched it:

Within 30 minutes we were in the 10th row. Then the 20th row. Then in the back row by the door. By the end of the film, we were literally hiding under the seats in the back of the theater. Shaking. Literally shaking. It took a while for my dad to find us.

That night I didn't sleep a wink. My dad had to sit up all night next to my bed because I kept waking up, crying, shaking and generally having the same sleep as a flu-riddled crack addict. I could not stop seeing images in my head and imagining that everything in the house – EVERYTHING – was attacking me. That lasted a good week.

I was able to get some sleep over the course of the summer, but my dad had to spend most nights by my bedside.

It took me until I was 20 years old to even think about watching a horror film again. I finally gathered up the strength to watch NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET because it's mostly tongue-in-cheek. That type of movie I can stand. A true horror film? I honestly can say I will never have the nerve/spine/energy/desire to watch one.

(Ironic considering the shout-out that KinderTrauma gave me for my work in BABY BLUES.)

How scarring was POLTERGEIST? To this day – and I'm in my mid-30's now – I can't sleep with the closet open if it's of the hinged-door – not the sliding-door – variety (in fact, even when I'm awake, I insist that the closets be closed). I can't have branches or silhouettes of branches outside of my window lest they break through and try to eat me (O.K., I know it sounds stupid, but it's true!). I can't sleep if the T.V. is static and I get nervous in an all-dark house. Graveyards still kinda freak me out and forget ever, EVER owning a stuffed clown. In fact, I was so rattled by that film (and that clown scene in particular), I can't even own or sleep on a bed that a killer clown doll would be able to crawl under. Hell, I might as well say it: Screw clowns in general!

I know these quirks sound a little BILLY BOB THORNTON-ish, but I fully blame what will always be considered by me "The Scariest Movie Of All Time."

To any parents taking their 8-year-olds to the theater, take it from me:

See a Pixar joint and leave the POLTERGEIST's in the Indian Burial Ground where they belong!

Deven Green:

In the isolated, boreal forests of Northern Canada where I was raised, I experienced something but never made the connection until recently as to why I can't go into graveyards or hospitals. I had been traumatized.

My Grade 7 friend, M* got hopelessly lost in the frozen woods by the river. He illogically tried to traverse the partially frozen river. As he negotiated his way across the rocks he slipped and landed on his back. The water rushed over him and kept him pinned down. The rope he had around him winched its way up his body and slipped around his neck. Two hunters heard his initial scream and raced to the river's edge. They could do nothing as he was held under the water laying face up slowing drowning.

I attended his funeral service (actual burials were only in the summer) and thought that I should have felt something other than the nothing I did feel.

In taking a summer job at the only hospital, which was usually empty, I roamed the halls for hours until I discovered a locked room. I stole keys to secret inside and there was M "alive." It looked like he was covered in a contraption of hockey helmets and wires from head to toe…that is how I could best describe it. I read his chart: the freezing water had put his body into a state of hibernation but the energy of the river had somehow wrenched his spine almost from his body…or something like that. There was a pillow with a face imprint in it by his bed. All I knew for sure was that there was no body in his casket.

I never went back in his hospital room again as I was immediately fired.

Summer of that year the frozen earth warmed enough so all the bodies which had died in the winter were now buried in the small graveyard. The town councilman, known for his temper and his drinking, got so drunk one night he took a backhoe and dug up the entire graveyard. M had been his son. I figured he must have put a pillow over his son's face to finally get him physically buried but now that he was actually gone he couldn't let him go. He had done a lot of destruction to the graveyard. So much so that to this day NONE of the bodies match up with any of the tombstones.

*(Out of respect for his family I won't use his name)

(In Defense of) Halloween 2

Posted on By unkle lancifer

There's no way to put this delicately so I'm just going to come right out and say it. I really enjoyed ROB ZOMBIE's HALLOWEEN 2. If you kids want to stop visiting your Unk here at Kindertrauma, I'll understand. Maybe I'll just set myself adrift on a block of ice like an unwanted, elderly Eskimo. If it helps, I can assure you that your Aunt John would really hate H2 if he ever saw it, so at least you know there is one person you can still count on roaming these halls.

First off, let me make it clear that I have no automatic allegiance to ROB ZOMBIE due to my being a roustabout delinquent who yearns to do that devil sign thingy in your face and play air guitar after tee-peeing your house. I think he has a fetching beard and all, but I'm not committed to him in any way as a symbolic anti authority figure or anything. ( I'm listening to OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN's "Have You Never Been Mellow?" as I write this, if you require further proof). It just so happens that I always seem to end up enjoying his movies…even H2!

Now, let's just take HOUSE OF 1,OOO CORPSES and DEVIL's REJECTS off the defending table, last I checked it was sort of O.K. to like those in some territories. The real rub starts with his remake of HALLOWEEN. To be honest my love for the HALLOWEEN series is pretty fanatical, so much so that I even enjoy blatant rip-offs of the film. When R.Z.'s first HALLOWEEN came out it didn't so much bring to mind JOHN CARPENTER's classic movie to me as it did that movie's sleazy imitators, films like ROMANO SCAVOLINI's NIGHTMARE IN A DAMAGED BRAIN and JOE D'AMATO's ABSURD. Those are not particularly well-crafted films, they take the HALLOWEEN premise and run off with it like a stray mutt stealing a hot dog, but I loved never knowing how far into the realm of unpleasantness they might go and I admired their wild tactless enthusiasm.

So too with ROB's film, nobody could ever really touch upon CARPENTER's deft directing hand or the lightening in a bottle fatalistic vibe of the first film anyway. Even ZOMBIE' naysayers may admit that if nothing else he brought in a willingness to explore uncharted territory to a franchise that was becoming sadly domesticated. Yep, he made some weird decisions ("Love Hurts"), but I'd rather that than uniform predictability and more running in circles chasing runes or…uh, I swore I wouldn't mention his name but it rhymes with Rhymes.

ROB's sequel works in much the same way as the first film but suddenly he has the audacity to wedge surreal arthouse imagery into the mix. Sometimes it's maddeningly effective (an alarming pumpkin headed demon tea party of some sort) and sometimes it steers close to drunk relative embarrassing (the first vision of SHERI with the white horse is a "hide his car keys" moment for sure).

Speaking of that horsey! What a troublesome mare, not only was it allegedly stolen from DAVID LYNCH's barn but it comes complete with a title card explaining its meaning for all you dum-dums out there (hey wow, it even appears in a Rorschach image in shrink MARGOT KIDDER's office). I know, I know, It's like ROB graduated from the VINCENT GALLO school of audience appreciation and wants to cram his diploma up your nose, but still, what's going on here is all so very nutzo crazy outlandish I can't peel my eyes off of the screen. In fact, I cannot believe this movie is playing in malls across America or that it is a sequel to a major franchise. If you take Mike Myers out of the equation it, at times feels, like you have stepped into some run down theater circa 1981 and are just watching the most rabid, taste defying trash-fest ever made…and yeah, I'm saying that's a good thing!

Visually H2 is craptasticly glorious, cinematographer BRANDON TROST (who scuzzed it hard for CRANK 2 as well) makes everything either resemble a cigarette damaged Polaroid or a third generation BAVA bootleg. ZOMBIE gets a lot of grief for his so-called trash aesthetic but I'll take his, clutter happy, neon SANFORD & SON approach over the unrecognizable sterile world seen in other slasher remakes like PROM NIGHT and WHEN A STRANGER CALLS any day of the week. I'm not talking phony out of date SE7EN inspired faux-weathering like you'll find in the SAW films either, ZOMBIE's greasy hodgepodge feels authentically piss stained and may actually give you fleas. It's not all gutter stompin' by a long shot though, some of the images (like the skeleton with Myers mask crucifixion bit) are just stunning.

Now, the grainy, damaged look of the film will come as no surprise to anyone, but the thing that keeps me fascinated about ZOMBIE's world is that his characters actually get beaten and damaged too and fittingly it isn't pretty or inspiring or even fun to behold. Nobody digs down to find a magical powerful self to save the day here. Laurie Strode is a shrill basket case, Sam Loomis is a narcissistic opportunist, victim Linda's dad has gone postal and the Brackets, Annie and Sheriff Lee, are just barely holding it together. (Hopefully the intriguing dialogue from the trailer that has Annie confronting Laurie about not being the only one whose "life was trashed" will appear on one of the inevitable Director's cuts…actually any additional scenes involving HARRIS or DOURIF would be greatly appreciated).

As we know, dear Michael is the most damaged of them all and I get the argument that some of his mystique is lost now that we have what? A full half hour of background information on his childhood, (jeez, it's not like we know his PIN number or anything). Plus really, this is Mike's 10th outing, just how much of a blushing virgin do you want him to be?

Of course, dramatically speaking, we're not talking UNCLE VANYA here, but I really applaud the fact that these people are negatively affected by their experiences and are physically and mentally scarred. I'd rather that than the typical unrealistic horror movie survivor's reaction of arms defiantly akimbo or stoic martyrdom. In other words, regardless of ROB's reliance on f-bombs, in this depressive beat down atmosphere you never have to worry that the film will end with Laurie yelling, "Trick or treat mother fucker!" while landing a fatal blow to her bro (that's very important to me!). There's no way of disguising the fact that ZOMBIE feels compelled to trample on some icons here (especially Loomis), but as far as I'm concerned this is a mucky alternative dimension where anything goes.

I'll admit that ROB is not exactly HITCHCOCK when it comes to setting up a suspense scene, he's more likely to just bludgeon you with imagery and hope something sticks. I'm O.K. with that not being his strong suit because I do think he has something else to offer. This guy does not paint by the numbers, in fact, he paints in broad drippy obnoxious strokes and I frankly adore how raw and intuitive it all feels. He's like the guy in art class who acts like he doesn't give a rat's ass, makes the biggest mess, finishes before everybody else and then ends up with the only work that has any type of energy in the room. He's not afraid of making HUGE mistakes, and I think in the end that is worthwhile and keeps my interest more than any slick streamlined product ever could. Nobody has any business at all expecting a movie like this to be widely popular considering just how off the wall and surly it ends up being, I however, while fully admitting that it has problems with momentum, especially near the end, find it to be rather refreshing, particularly in its ambivalent attitude toward fan boy expectations.

As a youngin' there were some horror movies that I found easy to love J.C's HALLOWEEN was one, HELL NIGHT, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME are other examples. These were movies that were scary in their own way but in the end offered rather romantic visions of terror and the plight of the victims involved. On the other hand there were these other movies like MANIAC, PIECES (hilarious now, not so much back then), and the aforementioned NIGHTMARE IN A DAMAGED BRAIN that pushed me beyond my safety zone and seemed horribly chaotic and made no promises to me about sticking to a tasteful, or even comprehensible path. ZOMBIE's movies always remind me of artier versions of those latter movies mentioned and H2 is no exception. As much as I respect being in the hands of a technical master who can wrap everything up in a tight bow at the end, as a horror fan, I sometimes require the thrill of taking a walk with somebody who may just do something nutty and random, somebody who just might push me off a cliff for the hell of it and offer no explanation later.

To me HALLOWEEN 2 represents a schlocky anarchistic side to the genre that is nearly dead. (From the look at the critical response nobody's planning a big funeral either.) Then again none of the other movies I've mentioned (including the original HALLOWEEN by the way) were spared the critical sword upon arrival either. If you consider yourself a fan of cult cinema though you might do well to realize that H2 is what it looks like when it's recently hatched. Here you have it without that helpful twenty-year long chasm between you to make it more digestible and fuzzy cute. It's not pretty is it?

Ultimately, this movie does not need any recommendation from me; it's bonkers enough to rally its own crowd for years to come. I will say this though, in my opinion ZOMBIE's HALLOWEEN 2 is a throwback to the good old days when horror movies still aspired to be reasonably horrible and had little interest in tap dancing for the approval of the mainstream. True, it has some serious fumble moments; it's messy, ugly and feels a bit like a spit in the face as well, but it's willingness to tread off the beaten path (I'm not kiddin' remember that pumpkin head tea party I mentioned?) and its feral unapologetic energy left me feeling invigorated and even hungry for more. I say bring on that crazy loco Director's cut!

O.K., you can delete me from your Myspace page now, I can take it…love hurts.

Traumafessions :: Reader Andi T. on The Day After & The Dollmaker

Posted on By aunt john

the day after

O.K. you two, I haven't seen these two traumas listed as of yet… (but I'm not all the way through the archives either).

What about that movie THE DAY AFTER having to do with nuclear fall out and how it would devastate the whole country? We were in the early ‘80s with threats of the cold war looming. They then put this movie on T.V. with warnings to parents about how traumatic it might be to children viewing. And yet there my family was with a big ass bowl of popcorn. I just remember seeing a child bleeding from his backside and it made a tremor in my stomach of revulsion I can feel to this day.

Which brings us to the next trauma I feel is worth mentioning, and several of my gal pals concur. The movie was THE DOLLMAKER…early ‘80s JANE FONDA, a Mom in the depression times that whittles dolls out of wood who not only gives her own daughter a friggin' tracheotomy, on what I think was just a run of the mill dining room table, but who also later has to witness her daughter die as her legs are being crushed by a train down at the local train track…VIVID and AWFUL, AWFUL, AWFUL!

I know I'm not supposed to be trying to hog all the trauma moments by listing a ton, but these were really gnarly and I couldn't pick the one that was worse. 🙂

Name That Trauma :: Reader Eric D. on a Tricycle Murder, Rib Hungry Aliens, & Martial Arts Maniac

Posted on By aunt john

Hello KT,

I have three movies or shorts that scared the living daylights out of me as a child. Funnily enough I saw two of them at the same childhood friends house. I have the impression his parents didn't think we'd remember any of these movies, oh how wrong they were.

The first I am fairly certain was a black and white short film involving a kid riding his tricycle in an old man's cornfield and pumpkin patch. It seemed set in the fall season. The old man who owns the land seems to think there is an animal in his patch and decides to go out and shoot it. The child is accidentally killed. My memory is hazy of what happened next. All I remember is pumpkins and corn filled with blood. ‘70s I believe.

The second, and I believe this was a movie w/color, was a ship in space somewhere. At one point in the movie a man is out on a walkway on the spaceship keeping in contact with a control room. The men in the control room are apparently trying to track down a noise. The man on the walkway turns and says something like, "There's nothing out here." All of the sudden an alien/monster pounces on the man and rips apart his rib cage. ‘80s I think.

The third is a martial arts movie where the hero wields a chain with a blade on the end of it (or at least he is by the end of the movie). When he whips that thing around, gore follows. I couldn't tell how old this movie was; it was in color and could be from the ‘70s thru the ‘90s.

Does anyone recognize these films or shorts? I would love to watch these movies again as I am a pretty big horror film fanatic now.

Thanks Kindertrauma, great site!

Eric

Kinder-News :: Rob Zombie's H2 vs Final-D in 3-D!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

This weekend should prove to be a riveting one for horror fans as ROB ZOMBIE's sequel to his take on slasher-piece HALLOWEEN goes head to head with the fourth installment of the increasingly popular FINAL DESTINATION franchise. I know not everyone is a fan of ZOMBIE's last effort but yours truly is and even naysayers have to admit that the most recent released TRAILER looks pretty interesting ( C'mon haters, at least agree that THE MOODY BLUES' "Nights in White Satin" is used to amazing effect!). Of course being "interesting" may not be enough when combating the awesomeness that is the perfect marriage of disaster porn and 3-D that THE FINAL DESTINATION offers. Then again, only one of the two films offers a WEIRD AL cameo…decisions, desisions. My only option is to see both but I encourage everyone to see at least one. I can't guarantee either film's quality but something tells me that either way you're going to have a fun time. When was the last time you got to sit in a movie theater filled with like minded horror fans looking for a good scare? C'mon, it's time to support our favorite genre, plus just think about it kids, popcorn, blood and air conditioning, what's not to love?