AUNT JOHN SEZ: Normally, your Aunt John turns a blind eye towards the siren-song shenanigans of M.I.L.F.s…. but I am finding it super-hard to resist these blazers, shoulder pads, and dance moves.
Name That Trauma :: Reader Joe D. on Warden Eating Dogs
I have a vague recollection of having seen a movie on T.V. many (many) years ago (early to middle 1960s) about a cruel prison warden who kept these fierce hounds as guard dogs. I recall that the prisoners were mistreated, perhaps they were political prisoners, and, at times tortured, and, perhaps, fed to the dogs. I also recall that their blood was sometimes drained, and, perhaps consumed by the warden (none of this is very clear to me and given the time, none of this would have been explicitly shown). I recall the film had a Mexican or Spanish setting, but this may be my own childish interpretation of the uniforms of the guards (I was a child, and may have misread the setting).
However, the conclusion was something that has frightened me for years, even though it was an off-screen event: the warden, fleeing from some disruption in the prison (perhaps a revolt, I cannot recall), is torn to death by his own dogs. His shrieks and the dogs' howls were quite vivid and terrifying, "blood-curdling" as goes the cliché.
Perhaps this is why I am, to this day, so wary around dogs.
UPDATE: It seems Joe D. (with assistance from Leonard Maltin) has answered his own question with 1958's BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE…
Name That Trauma :: The Vicar of VHS's Co-Worker on a Leprous Lady
Here are his clues:
Scene 1: An Asian-looking guy is stuck in a closet or something and he can look into the room and there is a woman laying on a cot and her skin looks like she has leprosy or something. He's locked in there and there are two people trying to dig through the wall to get him out. The leper woman wakes up and comes to the door and knows he's in there, so the guy flips out and starts beating his way through the wall with his mag light. He gets through and they cover the hole.
Scene 2: The same girl with the leper skin is reaching into a glowing mirror or doorway and is pulling some kind of demon or monster into our world, dimension, or whatever. There is another girl in the room and she heroically charges the leper chick and knocks her into the portal and falls in with her. At the same instant some dude throws something on the portal and it closes. I remember the chick reaching out to get saved and that always creeped me out. The dimension where the demon/monster was like water…if that makes any sense…like the chick was floating down into water reaching out.
Not much to go on, I know, but if it were easy everyone would do it. That first clue had me thinking THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS, but nothing else in it fits and my co-worker knows T.P.U.S. and swears that's not it. Hope you guys can solve this mystery, or else I'll have to do laundry.
AUNT JOHN SEZ: Since the holidays are the times that we should be doing things for others, let's put on our helper hats and see if we can spare the VICAR OF VHS the indignity of doing laundry and into a free t-shirt. If anyone knows what this one is, please sound off in the comments or shoot us an e-mail.
UPDATE: It took reader EegahInc all of two minutes to recognize this one as JOHN CARPENTER's classic PRINCE OF DARKNESS!!
Traum-merical Break :: X-Mas at Toys 'R Us
AUNT JOHN SEZ: If anyone out there actually got the Viewmaster's Talking 3-D thing-a-ma-bob with MICHAEL JACKSON's THRILLER cartridges, please e-mail Aunt John immediately, and then marry me.
Kinder-News :: 'Tis the Season for Santaphobia
You can't blame kids for loving old Saint Nick, for every year he brings them toys on Christmas Eve and then splits without requiring any sort of face time. Sounds like the perfect relationship to me, so how come parents have to ruin this perfect symbiotic alliance by shoving their toddlers on his lap and taking pictures?
Thankfully my parents never pimped me out in such a fashion. Contrary to popular belief, being forced to sit on an old, fat, gray-bearded stranger's lap for a photo shoot is not my idea of a good time. Obviously many children agree with me because 4 out of 5 Christmas snapshots involve Munchian howls of disapproval by the child involved.
There's even a BOOK out right now celebrating this sadistic ritual abuse. Which means for less than whatever it would cost you to see whatever crappy holiday movie is in the theaters right now, you can ogle at the anguish of confused terror stricken kiddies. How Kindertraumatic!
Note: For even more Satan Santa-induced horror look HERE and HERE.
The Dark (2005)
I kind of enjoy this quiet brooder that many seem to despise. I can't disagree that it's far too familiar and that nobody needs another "Where's My Kid At?/ Not Without My Undead Daughter!" flick. Maybe I'm just a sucker for its Isle of Mann pretending to be a Welsh seaside location. Then again I've always had a thing for hometown heroine MARIA BELLO who, if she donned a fake mustache, I'd marry tomorrow (sorry A.J.!) I admit that THE DARK may not reinvent the wheel-o, but the cinematography is borderline gorgeous and even though it has maybe five too many endings, it's got a passionate core that's enviable.
BELLO plays Adelle, an emotionally distant mother who carts her young daughter Sarah (SOPHIE STUCKEY) off to the isolated shabby chic home of her estranged ex (SEAN BEAN). Nightmares of losing her daughter become prophetic as the little girl ends up being whisked away by the crashing sea. In actuality, she is trapped in a mythical Welsh underworld known as "Annwn." Soon after a girl similar in age as the missing daughter appears and it becomes evident that a trade of some sort has been made. Unfortunately, folks who return from Annwyn are worse for the wear and tend to have a highly toxic effect on livestock and a general schleprockian disposition.
Following the requisite searching of the local library's microfilm collection, Adelle decides the only way to get back her real daughter is to force a trade back by chucking the new kid off a cliff. (Personally I would have kept the depressing Wednesday Addams chick and let my iPod wearing mouthy brat to her new home.)
I doubt THE DARK could rock anybody's world, but it's a perfect time-waster on a winter night. I rather enjoyed learning about the refreshingly low key limbo like dimension "Annwyn" to boot. The whole affair is more spooky than scary, but MAURICE ROEVES is perfect as the salt of the Earth handyman Dafydd and flash back scenes of homemade lobotomies are actually kind of cringe worthy. Extra kudos are earned by showcasing a suicide cult learning the hard way that the first step off a cliff is a real doozy.
More than anything though, this movie has the world's most profound, yet borderline hilarious pie-in-the-face door slamming scene I think I have ever witnessed, That's gotta count for something!
The Year Without a Santa Claus
Hey kids! Unkle Lancifer here and boy have I got a treat for you, it's an early Christmas present from Kindertrauma legend Mickster! Our dear pal was kind enough to send us her views on one of our all time favorite Christmas specials, THE YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS. Is there any greater holiday gift than having a friend who is as cool as Mickster? Not in my book! Take it away Mickster….
The title alone of this 1974 RANKIN/BASS classic sparked terror in the hearts of children. Like all RANKIN/BASS stop-motion specials, it features the voices of stars from the past. SHIRLEY BOOTH (TV's HAZEL) voices Mrs. Claus and MICKEY ROONEY (ANDY HARDY Movies) once again voices Santa Claus. The special begins with Santa, who has a terrible cold, being advised by his doctor, who acts suspiciously like Ebenezer Scrooge, to stay home this Christmas. Santa proceeds to call the elves to "cancel" Christmas. Okay, how many Christmas specials over the years have frightened children by claiming that Christmas could be canceled? Of course, as adults we know this is ridiculous, but as a child, it is a traumatizing idea.
Sparked by an idea from Mrs. Claus, who does an awesome dance number in drag, those super intelligent elves Jingle and Jangle set out to find people that still believe in Santa. Jingle and Jangle bring Vixen along with them. All three end up in South Town and begin their search. The genius elves pretend that Vixen, who is suffering in the Southern heat, is a dog and she is thrown in the pound. Jingle and Jangle question a group of children to see if they believe in Santa, which they don't. They do, however, meet one nice kid named Ignatius "Iggy" Thistlewhite. In the meantime, Santa finds out that Jingle, Jangle, and Vixen have traveled into the "cruel world." Santa races to bring them back and meets Iggy. Iggy is promptly put in his place on the subject of Santa through a wonderfully sad song sung by Santa (in disguise as Mr. Klaus) called, "I Believe in Santa Claus."
Excuse me, I have to wipe the tears from my eyes just thinking about this song. Mrs. Claus comes to get Jingle, Jangle, and Iggy. They all travel to see Snow Miser. Mrs. Claus requests that the Snow Miser let it snow in South Town, USA. What follows is probably the best remembered sequence in the special.
As a child, I found characters of Snow Miser and Heat Miser frightening. I think it was because they were so much larger than Mrs. Claus and the fact that they had creepy miniatures following them around. At the same time, Santa retrieves Vixen and returns to the North Pole. He receives a special letter from a little girl (singing "Blue Christmas") that changes his mind about Christmas.
Sorry, I have use some more tissues as this song makes me weepy too. Let's stop for a commercial break. Take it away Mother Nature!
With the intervention of Mother Nature, Heat Miser allows snow in South Town. All is well again as Santa goes out on his yearly trip. This special premiered in 1974 and I am sure I watched it then, but I was too young to be traumatized. However, I remember specifically being traumatized by it two years later in 1976. I was so upset at one point that I left the room crying. I was convinced that Santa was not coming. My mom had to bring me back to the living room to finish watching.
- "I could be Santa Claus"
- Iggy feels the guilt of not believing
- "The Snow Miser Song"
- "The Heat Miser Song"
- Don't mess with Mother Nature!
- "Here comes Santa Claus!"
Traumafessions :: Reader Bigwig on Operation
My sister and I were part of a "board game" family. Many an after-school evening or a Saturday was spent playing the whole gamut, anything from Ker-plunk, to Don't Spill the Beans;  Uncle Wiggly, to Parcheesi. We had ‘em all, and it was all good fun.
That is, until the dreaded "Operation" game found its way out of the closet and onto the kitchen table.
I'd like to revisit this "Classic", which showed up one Christmas, although it was most certainly nothing Santa was asked for by means of a list.
From the illustrations on the box and game board alone, you just know something is horribly, horribly wrong.
The premise is you, the "Wacky Doctor" (that is to say, you, granted  the temporary license for a first-grader to perform surgery),and your friends take turns trying to remove problematic organs from all over the bloated, naked body of an irritated looking man with a CRISPIN GLOVER-inspired haircut. The man is all pale and fleshy. The organs and such are white like bones. The openings in his body where they reside are, of course, blood red.
Oh, it's supposed to be amusing enough…he has an Adam's Apple shaped like a little plastic apple, a Funny Bone, and a Charlie "Horse". But here's the rub…touch the metal sides (exposed nerves I would wager) with your metal tweezers when performing an extraction, and what do you get? A loud, God-awful buzzer noise and his nose lights up bright red! Based on the "wackiness" factor of the doctors on the lid of the box, and the fact that the uninsured man is clearly conscious through these harrowing procedures in spite of there being some kind of gas tank pictured, it's pretty evident that he is going through a living nightmare much the same as TIM ROBBINS in JACOB'S LADDER, and you are playing the role of one of his demonic tormentors. I can only guess he was "gassed" just long enough to get his corpulent form up on the table, and carved open. Where did he come from? My guess is he was a homeless "Joe Everyman" found on the streets, probably offered a free lunch in exchange for some volunteer work. Â The fun ensues when he wakes.
The lid artwork also sports such tools to be used as a bone saw, an oil can, and a blow torch! One doctor is smoking a cigarette as he operates, with the ashes falling in the man's face. The other doctor is wearing no pants. Wacky, indeed!  I'm sure it was only the technological restrictions of the 70's that kept the buzzer noise, jolting as it was, from being what it was intended to be: a long gut-wrenching scream of pain and terror sound clip.
Yet the wackiness continues, in spite of the poor fat man's objections, and gleefully another inept surgeon gets to take a crack at these procedures.
Look at the board again. Clearly, the patient is looking down at all the openings that have been hastily been carved into him, and he's none too happy about it. Even if he has been numbed, open-heart surgery (removal, actually) is just one of the gruesome extractions to take place while he is helpless to do anything but watch. His fate will take one of two paths, that of continued unsuccessful extractions and mind-blistering pain until the young "doctors" lose interest, or being dumped in a bathtub full of ice water, without ribs or kidneys, and a note telling him to call 911, if he wakes from the shock.
This is what echoed through my mind, when I was slated for a tonsillectomy at age six. All the assurance in the world going to sleep and waking up with a big bowl of ice cream did little to quell the fears of an "Operation."
Name That Trauma :: Reader Griffin on a Virtual Lion Attack
Hey, I got a good Name That Trauma question for you.
I remember seeing ages ago something on television in the early ‘90s that might've been a movie, a made-for-T.V. movie or an episode of some T.V. show.
I'm guessing whatever it was, it was from the early '90s as well.
Anyway all I remember is a man and woman, presumably a couple enter some sort of room that's an African Savannah (I'm guessing it was probably a virtual reality room or something) and a lion starts heading towards them to eat them, but then they find that they can't open the door to escape!
That's it, I remember it being cheesy, but for some reason the idea of both a man and a woman being eaten by a lion was quite disturbing to me.
AUNT JOHN SEZ: I'm not lion lying when I say I have no clue. Does anyone out there know this one? Feel free to leave your guesses in the comments or email them to us at kindertrauma@gmail.com.
STATUS: This one has yet to be confirmed but one thing that folks agree on is that RAY BRADBURY is most likely responsible for Griffin's trauma! (see comments section for more.)