kindertrauma

Traumafessions :: Reader Jenna P. on VHS Covers & Simplicity Sewing

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I just found your site today, and it's great.

Around 1987, when I was 5 years old, I have very distinct memories of being in the video store with my mother. I didn't look at the children's movies though. She would always find me in the horror section, looking at the back of the VHS movies. I remember one picture in particular, a woman in a bathtub holding a toaster. I'm thinking there had to be another picture, such as a leg sticking out of the tub, and the toaster was next to it, maybe. I have no idea what this movie was (I doubt I was a very good reader at 5 anyway), but I don't remember being scared of the picture, just interested. I enjoyed the back of other movies too; I do remember THE THING, MONKEY SHINES, and a movie about flesh eating ants. I'm pretty sure this is where my fascination with death began. I believe the term is death hag. I can view death pictures, like Nikki Catsouras, and there's no problem. It's pictures like the entry on MR. SARDONICUS that terrify me, to this day, at 26 years old.

Another thing that scared me to death was the cover of one of my mother's Simplicity Sewing magazines; I'm guessing from late ‘80s/early ‘70s. The picture was of a young woman with long brown hair (no bangs of course), her mouth was making a small O shape, and her hand was up in front of her. The fingers on her hand turned into a pair of scissors, a thimble…a little rolly wheel thing on her middle finger (this was in front of/below the O of her mouth). The mouth shape and the fact that her fingers "became" scissors is what scared me. Early Photoshop I guess. I would beg my mom to make that face and then it would freak me out and I would make her stop. Funny. I found that picture online once but unfortunately I can't find it again. I hope I find it before I have a kid so I can scare her with it.

Also the usual fare: Wicked Witch in the WIZARD OF OZ (actually, the monkeys), Chuckie, FIRE IN THE SKY, and IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS are the movies that really got to me, that I lost sleep over or slept with the light on. Today, of course, I love horror movies, esp. zombies. I think we can all agree the scariest part is when the characters lose the local T.V. and radio stations. At that point, you're on your own. The end is nigh, huh? This is why I keep a shotgun under my bed and drive an SUV.

I sure wonder about that toaster lady, though.

LAST MINUTE UPDATE: Hey, look! Aunt John somehow found that cover!

Name That Trauma :: Reader Lars K. on an Artist Stalked by Satan

Posted on By aunt john

Dear Kindertrauma,

First of all, let me tell you guys you rock! Love the site! As an artist and designer I get a lot of inspiration from obscure movies and T.V. such as the ones you write about and your site always rocks some cool shit.

Second , I have kind of a kinder-trauma that I would love to hear if you could shed some light on. I'm Danish, so I have no idea whether this thing has been on American T.V. I'm sure it's not a Danish production, but maybe European.

I only remember it vaguely, but I believe it's a claymation short about an artist who paints the devil (maybe as part of a mural in a church), and then the devil comes to life and chases the artist!

I don't remember the ending, but it made quite an impression me – maybe, because as I said, I'm an artist myself.

All the best,

Lars K.

Kindertrauma Funhouse!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Time flies and DVD collections dwindle. Some of these are going to be hard kids! How many of these horror movies can YOU name?

Home Movie

Posted on By unkle lancifer

There is something really wrong with the Poe children (real life siblings AMBER JOY and AUSTIN WILLIAMS): they don't talk much, they show cruelty towards small animals, and they are getting sent home from school for biting people. Father (NEAR DARK's ADRIAN PASDAR) thinks religion is the answer while mom (CADY McCLAIN) votes for psychotherapy. Meanwhile, as matters escalate it's clear to the audience that both parents regardless of their beliefs, really worship at the altar of denial.

HOME MOVIE is one of those found footage films like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, CLOVERFIELD and [REC] that places the viewer smack dab in the action thanks to the notion that some people like filming things more than they like staying alive. It is fascinating in places, frustrating in others and I think one's enjoyment of it will probably be determined by how tightly they cling to the whole "this is reality" thing.

Personally I'm torn, I love this film's cryptic foreshadowing and its refusal to identify the origin of the evil involved, and yet parts of it feel like a cheat. For example, the parents seem incapable of retaining any knowledge of previous insurrections on the part of their children. If your kids killed the goldfish, moved on to frogs and then graduated to crucifying the cat, wouldn't it be logical to keep them away from the family dog? On the other hand, this may be the only movie I'll ever get to see that features ADRIAN PASDAR in a pink bunny suit, so like I said…torn like NATALLIE IMBRUGLIA.

I think there is a strong story here that deserves better than having to slavishly touch base with the whole "fake reality" trope at regular intervals. Those who enjoy pointing out puppet strings can have a field day ripping apart the incongruities that abound. Better time is spent perhaps appreciating the legitimate creep factor and the subtle psychological game play, which is ultimately a great deal more interesting. I have to say as much as I didn't buy the film's central conceit; there are certainly scenes that really work fantastically at getting into your brain and staying there like a bad jingle (or an ice cream truck tune).

HOME MOVIE is effective enough to stand out from the crowd, but for maximum enjoyment it might be a good idea to take a leap of faith in regard to its fuzzy logic. It may not be able to convince you that it is "real," but I wouldn't be surprised if it was persuasive enough to have some parents out there locking their bedroom doors at night anyway.

Trauma-Shots :: The Day of the Locust

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Get ready for the ultimate SPOILER…the last ten minutes of JOHN SCHLESINGER's THE DAY OF THE LOCUST (1975) is all kinds of mind-screw crazy. I know it's hard to believe but I ain't joshin' kids! It may be based on a NATHANIEL WEST novella and it may concern 1930s Hollywood, but this epic drama has a real scorpion sting to its tail. I don't relish ruining the movie for ya, but I'm worried maybe you wouldn't watch it otherwise, even though it does have a horror lovers dream cast; KAREN BLACK (TRILOGY OF TERROR), DONALD SUTHERLAND (DON'T LOOK NOW), BURGESS MEREDITH (BURNT OFFERINGS) and a very young JACKIE EARLE HALEY (our future FREDDY KRUEGER!)

JACKIE's character Adore, just might suffer one of the most disturbing fates of any child in the history of film and he's such an incredible brat that you may not care. Things then go from bad to holy sh*t as mob brutality mixes with JACOB'S LADDER-type hallucinations and soon you're left understanding what it might be like to have HUBERT SELBY JR. rape your eye socket while singing select tunes from PINK FLOYD's THE WALL in your ear. Put this on a double bill with DAVID LYNCH's MULHOLLAND DRIVE and throw all your dreams of making it big in Tinsel Town right into the dumpster…

NOTE: The below (like I said, disturbing) clip is from the ending of the movie… so STAND WARNED before you watch!

Name That Trauma :: Reader Jeanette W. on a Super Stretch Arm

Posted on By aunt john

Hi there,

This may be a long shot but can anyone help me track down this film? I remember watching it when I still lived at home with the parents so it is definitely pre-1976. I can't remember how old I was, probably around 12 or 13 so could be about 1969 or ‘70.

Anyway, the one bit that I remember vividly is an oldish lady lying in a bed and this person goes into her room. They speak for a while then the lady says she will turn the light off or on, not really sure, but her arm just stretches out towards the light switch on the other side of the room and just keeps on going and going until her hand reaches the switch.

Now it doesn't sound so bad but when I watched it, I remember covering my eyes because it looked so creepy. Tame by today's standards but scared the hell out of me at my tender years.

Can anyone help?

Thanks,

Jeanette

Basket Case

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I first became aware of FRANK HENENLOTTER's BASKET CASE through gore photos spied in FANGORIA magazine in the early eighties. As gruesome as those images were, they still could not prepare me for the reality of finally watching BASKET on VHS. It wasn't that the film was all that tense or scary, to my young mind it was just so dang…weird. Its shoe-string budget, sleazy locations, campy dialogue and generous doses of nudity and splatter left me more perplexed than anything else. What a strange world must lie outside of suburbia!

As I grew older my tastes did not so much mature as exponentially mutate. It wasn't long before this once perceived eccentric oddity was so up my alley that it was parked in my garage. BASKET CASE is now my type of movie. It flirts around with enough body and identity issues to be read along the lines of early CRONENBERG, but there is a playful mocking attitude toward dialogue and a reverence toward life's outsiders that reminds me of early JOHN WATERS. FRANK, if you are reading this, I just compared you two of my favorite people on earth.

To those unfamiliar, BASKET CASE introduces us to Duane Bradley (KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK) a young man with a basket filled with some serious family baggage in the form of his sibling Belial. The two were born conjoined but where Duane is "normal" in appearance to the outside world, Belial is a globby mound of flesh so off putting that professional doctors questioned his humanity. As teenagers it was decided that the two should be separated so that Duane could lead a "normal" life and Belial could….well, die in a trash can for all anybody cared. Now the two brothers are on a mission to track down those who separated them and make them pay for being insensitive jerks by ripping off their faces.

It all may be kooky and cartoony on the surface, but there is a spine of genuine tragedy holding it all together. As Duane becomes more comfortable in the world at large, discovering allies and potential romance, Belial becomes increasingly threatened and adds a few new names to the kill list. As committed as the two are to each other, Duane rightfully is tempted by his potential normalcy and Belial is rightfully loathe to lose, not only his free hamburger ticket, but also his only means of transportation. It's a co-dependent standoff of epic proportions regardless of the fact that one of its players is for the most part, a glorified hand puppet.

In a genre rife with repetitive recycling BASKET CASE is a true original. It delivers scares, it delivers chuckles and it delivers a sad little tale of a relationship jinxed by the fact that only one of the two concerned has the luxury of dreaming to break free.

Traumafessions :: Reader Smidget on Mr. Sardonicus & Co.

Posted on By aunt john

I just stumbled on this site this morning – it is SO GREAT.

I just saw DEAD OF NIGHT last evening, and that movie lead me to Kindertrauma via IMDb…so hooray!

What scared me most? A few things:

And the big one – MR. SARDONICUS. That movie scared me so much I couldn't even think about seeing it again, even now. I was about 11. We were not allowed to watch horror films, but the ones above are the ones that I somehow saw, probably at Grammie's house. MR. S. was at a friend's house the one time I was allowed to sleep over!

Thanks for having a site like this,

Smidget

Traumafessions :: Reader Jenn S. on Required Readings

Posted on By aunt john

I LOVE this site! I have already found a couple of things I forgot about, and a couple others I never knew the name of.

I have to admit though; some of the things that traumatized me most as a kid were books. Not even "scary" books. These were books that we were supposed to read for book reports and such with those little silver seals on them indicating they were depressing enough to scar us for life or something. Mind you, this was grade school.

I think the most depressing ones I read for school were:

  • MY BROTHER SAM IS DEAD
  • THE ONE-EYED CAT
  • CHILDREN OF THE DUST
  • WATERSHIP DOWN
  • And some book about an autistic kid who gets killed by a swan (I'm still afraid of swans and geese to this day)

(AUNT JOHN SEZ: Was that SUMMER OF THE SWANS?)

Seriously, why these were all on the required reading list for 3rd graders? I mean, granted, my dad was slightly sadistic, so I was reading some Kafka as a kid, but not until 5th grade.

Madonna's New Orphan!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Yowza! Who's that borderline material girl with the preachy poppa who's causing a commotion with all her sidewalk talk? Why it's that into the groove lucky star SHANGHAI SURPRISE's Madge "This used to be my playground" Ciccone! (She of the international smash "American Life")! Don't tell me she's trying to justify her love by adopting yet another orphan! Heads up Esther, you don't know Esther! This beautiful stranger is NO angel. She may act like she's crazy for you, but don't be a gambler, this Russian dolly is a bad girl who'll open your heart with a knife and then stab you deeper and deeper and over and over! If you cherish your life, if you'd like to live to tell and die another day, we say keep it together and dump this pseudo-tyke before it's bye bye baby and the coroner is dressing YOU up in a body bag!