kindertrauma

Traumafessions :: Reader Turnidoff on ALIEN's Facehugger

Posted on By unkle lancifer

ALIEN was the first real horror film my parents allowed me to watch. My mother saw it in the theater when she was eight months pregnant with my sister. That kind of freaked her out. I always heard stories about the "chest-burster" scene and my imagination would run wild with horrifying visuals. A few years later it aired on broadcast T.V. I was about 9 at the time, and my parents only let me watch up to the part where the facehugger dies and JOHN HURT wakes up. Conveniently, there was a commercial break right before the infamous scene, so they sent me to bed.

At that time, in my mind, the alien wasn't the 8-foot, phallic-headed monster we all know and love, it was the spidery facehugger. That's what I thought popped out of Cane's chest and picked of the crew systematically one by one. I had to imagine what the rest of the movie was like with this facehugger killing all the crew.

The next day I drew a comic book called "ALIEN 2!" The plot was simple: The Facehugger escapes the ship and falls to Earth.HAL LINDEN from BARNEY MILLER fame was a beat cop who stumbles upon the facehugger who wakes up and starts destroying the city… and the only one who can stop it is, HAL LINDEN of course.

When I finally saw the entire film a few years later, I wasn't disappointed. As a matter of fact, I was floored. It has become one of my top favorites of all time.

I guess it just goes to show you that sometimes your imagination is not always better than the real thing.

UNK SEZ: Turnidoff, do not sell your vision of a HAL LINDEN starring ALIEN sequel short. Although JAMES CAMERON's take is very difficult to top, yours, if made as you envisioned it, would certainly not be the worst ALIEN sequel in existence. I also think it is very generous of you to want to assist Mr. LINDEN's jump from the small screen into multiplexes. I always thought his mustache was made to be seen larger than life, on the big screen. In fact, now that you mention it, HAL's 'stache just may be the absolute perfect foil for a wayward facehugger!



NOTE: TV GUIDE ad from HERE, ALIEN toys from HERE.

Earlier: Turnidoff's take on MADAME.

The House on Sorority Row (1983)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

 


For a film that begins in flashback mode and whose action ignites with a prank gone wrong, THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW is a relentlessly original slash excursion and easily one of the best of its kind. The plot may sound familiar, a group of sorority sisters being offed one by one by someone they wronged, but the execution is blow-you-away slick and suspenseful. Unlike most prank gone wrong flicks, the crime here is a recent one and the looming specter of discovery by authorities helps to add yet another level of anxiety. It's no surprise to learn that director MARK ROSMAN at one time worked alongside BRIAN De PALMA for the potential victims here in no way have clean hands. ROSMAN, credited with the script as well, also knows a thing or two about keeping a viewer on their toes and questioning everything. Who is responsible for the escalating body count and why is always frustratingly just out of reach.

As many interesting queries as the movie raises the biggest one is how did the lead actress KATHRYN McNEIL (also of MONKEY SHINES) escape major A-list stardom? She looks pretty incredible on film and she exudes a regal ferocity that should have had her stealing parts from SIGOURNEY WEAVER or at least NICOLE KIDMAN. As the lone voice of reason amongst her pack, some of what she is required to say and do is a bit hokey by today's standards, but that's part of her charm. She comes off as worlds, or at least decades, removed from her very-eighties cohorts. All in all you could not ask for a better lead in a film like this. The viewer can't help but to follow her like a puppy.


The most fascinating thing about H.O.S.R. to me is how it subtly gets darker and more twisted with each scene so that by the end you can't believe you are watching the same film you began with. Early scenes are bright with chirpy birds and corny music, and then eventually you end up in the grimmest of Gothic arenas surrounded by a darkly grandiose score (not to mention very creepy clown wallpaper). There is even a side step into SUSPIRIA-like neon psychedelic dream imagery. As a whole, the movie is like one of those sped up film shorts where you watch fruit rot right before your eyes.

H.O.S.R. is less concerned with its character's sexuality then most slashers (although the requisite "bad girl" does know her way around a water bed and crankin' up a jack-in-the-box means certain death), but the themes it does focus on are just as common. Wrongs from the past resurface just like the corpse that won't stay submerged in the swimming pool and forced accountability is the order of the day. Authority figures are routinely stifling or duplicitous and when we are granted access to the dorm's hidden attic room, we are shown symbol after symbol representing the false happy facade of childhood. Although there's not much new ground broken here, it's hard to cite many of its contemporaries that present these ideas with the same amount of grace and aplomb.

My only gripes would be with the slightly off dubbing of the wicked cane-carrying housemother Mrs. Slater (LOIS KELSO HUNT) and I hate to say it, the open ending which many people adore. I admit it is legitimately classy in a BLACK CHRISTMAS ('74) kind of way, but the film has worked itself up into such an incredible crescendo at this point that, to me, it feels like being pushed out of a car at high speed. The latter part of the film, when it has come down solely to McNEIL and the killer (who is now donning the most horrific harlequin/jester outfit you have ever seen) is just TOO GOOD and should have gone on for at least another 15 minutes. (I would even sacrifice the awesome new wave party band FOUR OUT OF FIVE DOCTORS to make this happen!)

H.O.S.R. was a huge financial success that made almost twenty-five times its budget back. Why there was never a sequel (preferably one that takes place right after the events like HALLOWEEN II) I'll never know. Without giving away the identity of the killer, I'd just like to say that he or she could have been a serious contender as an indelible horror icon. I personally would buy every action figure, t-shirt and poster they could produce. On the other hand, maybe that's just what makes this masked killer so uniquely powerful, rather than overexposure and tangled story lines we have an ambiguous, mysterious threat that for all these years has remained securely hidden in the shadows. Your mind can have a field day filling in the blanks and perhaps that's the point. This scary jester may have not made it into big screen movie sequels, but maybe at the end of the day, starring in an actual nightmare or two is the more dignified gig.

NOTE: This review is in conjuncture with DINNER WITH MAX JENKE, for another take on THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW, stop by and visit HERE.

Name That Trauma :: Reader Emilee on Little Girl vs. Mirror Monster

Posted on By aunt john

Hi, I am so glad I found out about your site!

When I was little I saw this terrifying movie that gave me nightmares for years, and I have been trying to figure it out for 10 years. My friends think I'm crazy. It was probably either late ‘80' or early ‘90s. The only part I can really remember is a little girl being chased by a big brown monster with horns or something, and she is in her room and the monster is in the mirror.

The mirror is one of those old long oval mirrors that stands on its own. I know it's vague. I think the little girl had dark brown hair. At first, I thought it was the trippy version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND that came out in '85, but I have watched it and that's not it.

The girl and the mirror are totally different.

I think I may have seen this other movie around the same time. If you can help me, I will not know how to thank you. It's killing me that I can't figure out what movie I saw.

Please help!!

UNK SEZ: Emilee, I'm not sure about this one. At first I thought it was MIRROR MIRROR (1990) based on your description of the mirror, but I think the beast in that movie is more of the scraggily hag variety. Then I thought of RIDLEY SCOTT'S LEGEND where the beast in question does have horns and the girl (MIA SARAH), though not a little girl, has dark hair. The beast indeed enters through a mirror at one point in that movie, but from what you've said I get the idea that the action takes place in a more traditional bedroom rather than the fantasy world depicted in LEGEND. You can watch that scene HERE. Let me know if that could possibly be the one you're looking for, otherwise I have to throw it out to our readers to assist! In the meanwhile, through my research, I did discover that a very similar occurrence as the one you mentioned once befell upon SESAME STREET's Grover who took his own monstrous mirror confrontation in absolute stride…

Name That Trauma :: Kinderpal Absinthe of Gloomy Sunday on a Girl Drawn and Quartered by a Big Rig

Posted on By aunt john

I came in on my father watching a movie and sat down with him.  I was coming in mid-movie so I don't know the whole plot but there was a guy and his girlfriend and a psycho bad guy that was after them.  The bad guy kidnaps the girlfriend and the hero goes after her, he catches up to them in some kind of parking lot at night.  The girl is now chained to the back of a huge semi truck by her legs – her arms are chained to some kind of fence or pipe coming out of the ground.  Bad guy watches it all from his side mirror and keeps laughing, smiling and revving the engine of the truck.  Good guy is pleading with him and finally tries to get closer to free his girlfriend, bad guy stomps on the gas and the truck screeches away amidst the girl's screams.  Now they didn't show the scene of her getting yanked apart, they just cut to the bad guy and the good guy but I was so bothered by the whole thing.

I kept asking my dad, "Is she okay, what happened to her, he didn't pull her arms off right?"

My dad finally told me to go and play in my room so I never saw the end of that movie but I had dreams later of that same scene and it has haunted me all this time.

UNK SEZ: This grizzly act can only be the work of RUTGER HAUER! Absinthe, your pop must have been watching 1986's THE HITCHER. What a crazy scene huh? I'm still kind of shocked. That was JENNIFER JASON LEIGH getting yanked apart and C.THOMAS HOWELL was the guy who had to stand by and watch it happen. It seemed good ol' J.J.L.'s acceptance into the final girl club was as good as written in stone, but maybe her application got lost in the mail or something. As disturbing and as counter intuitive to horror tropes as this scene is, you can be thankful that your young mind missed out on the way THE HITCHER serves up french fries…talk about finger licking good!

Traumafessions :: Reader Brian on the Carol Burnett Show

Posted on By aunt john

There was this episode of THE CAROL BURNETT where they show her being sucked down a bathtub drain. They show her slinking all through the drainpipes. I had to be three or four when I saw this. It took my parents months to even get me in a bathtub to take a bath without screaming my bloody head off. Even to this day, knowing rationally that it can't happen, I get that weird feeling around tub drains.

Traumafessions :: Reader Miriam67 on The Nightmare Before Christmas

Posted on By aunt john

It was just this morning that I suddenly remembered something that totally freaked me out as a child. When THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS came out, I was ten. I remember seeing commercials for it on T.V., and there was one commercial that featured the one scene after Jack dresses like Santa and visits all the houses leaving creepy gifts. There's one boy holding a present and his parents go, "What did Santa bring you, honey?" and he pulls out a scary shrunken head and they scream.

That always totally scared me and it was years before I actually watched the movie. It's one of my favorites now, go figure. I looked on You Tube and found it. The shrunken head is right at the end, at 1:17. Still gives me a bit of a shiver.

Horror Movie Bar Crawl

Posted on By unkle lancifer


Alcoholics and horror fans alike know that when you're jonesin' for a fix, beggars can't be choosers. In these instances any old place will do. Yet we all have our personal favorite drinking spots where we feel most comfortable and at home. Here is a list of my favorite drunken horror hang outs, the bars in horror movies that I return to most often and where I sometimes even score one on the house.


THE HOWLING (Name Unknown)
Now this is my type of joint, just regular people sitting around shooting the shit and enjoying brewskis, burgers and billiards. Nobody puts on airs here and they're very friendly to out-of-towners. My only advice is to be very specific about how you want your hamburger cooked; the last time I ordered one rare they let it cook through the entire closing credits!


MY BLOODY VALENTINE (The Cage)
Moosehead fans rejoice! This is the place for you. After a hard day in the mines you couldn't ask for a more relaxed vibe. They'll even let you play five-finger fillet on the tables! Stand warned though. Don't get bartender "Happy" started on the olden-timey days. He'll really talk your ear off!


A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2 (Don's Place)
Somewhere in the heart of Springwood lies this notorious gay bar. Don't ask me how to get there; I don't remember a thing. I do know that it's hidden in a dark alley and that's rarely a good sign. From what I recall, the lighting left something to be desired, but that may have been due to my ill-fitting leather cat mask. It's definitely worth a stop-by if you're interested in the more adventurous scene (i.e., S&M gym teachers), but I'd keep my eyes on my drink and who's serving it at all times.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (The Silent Woman Pub)
The only drawback to this fine establishment is that it acts like a magnet for drunken Shriners. If you don't have a problem with listening to "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" sung in your ear all night, everything is Jake. You can't beat the location, it's within walking distance to Crawford Academy and it's adjacent to a draw bridge in case you want to play a little game of "Chicken'!


THE HUNGER (Unknown Goth joint)
This place is more of an after-hours club than a bar, but I bring it up because if you go, you are guaranteed to have the time of your life. First of all, you can still smoke there, which is a major plus (actually thanks to proprietor TONY SCOTT the whole place is literally filled with smoke!), and you won't just hear groovy tune-age from the likes of BAUHAUS, you will actually get to see them perform live! Plus, if any of you swingers out there are looking to score some ANN MAGNUSON tail, this place is really your best, and only option.


FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 (Casino Bar)
I love this place!!! There is always a great mix of locals, and I still hold the Q-bert high score there! It's quiet enough that if you want to talk bar stool psychology, you know like why mongoloids are such mother-loving murderers, your friends can actually hear you! The staff is all around attentive, even if they do spend more time flirting with customers than actually clearing away empty beer bottles.



THE EXORCIST (The Tombs)
This place is very crowded, you should know that from the get-go and it may take you a while to get served, but once you've found a booth Beelzebub's you're unkle! I like to take all of my priest buddies here and get them completely, stone cold wasted. Since this is Georgetown, it's not long before Father so-and-so is straddling a jukebox and performing a sax solo just like ROB LOWE in ST. ELMO'S FIRE! I would also recommend the establishment from THE NINTH CONFIGURATION which was also penned by WILLIAM PETER BLATTY, but I think if you went there you might get your face punched in.


HALLOWEEN (The Rabbit In Red Lounge)
A source of plenty of schoolyard speculation, this out-of-the-way Haddonfield, Illinois night spot is famous for its lenient policies regarding proper age verification. ROB ZOMBIE's remake may have split fans down the middle in the T.M.I. department, but few complained about his remodeling of this particular joint. Rabbit re-dux has got girly-girls doing the hoochie coochie!!!


AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (The Slaughtered Lamb)
It's not the friendliest place on Earth, but at least it's warm. What you're really going out of the way for here is atmosphere and the Slaughtered Lamb just reeks of old world tradition. Dart throwing, joke telling and if you go often enough, you're just bound to bump into DROP DEAD FRED (RIK MAYALL) playing chess! Just don't ask the regulars about the five-pointed star on the wall and, above all else, remember the Alamo!



THE SHINING (The Overlook Bar)
If you want to go high class, I always suggest a hotel bar. Not only are they required to keep the place relatively clean, but also it's usually teaming with yummy transients you'll never have to speak to again. The Overlook Hotel's bar is so fricking swank that Replicant God Dr. Eldon Tyrell (JOE TURKEL) is the gosh darn bartender! Whenever I want a refill of the good stuff, I just slam my glass down and say, "I want more life f*cker!"

So, when I want to tie one on, those are my personal favorite horror watering holes. If there's some place that you dear reader frequent that you'd like to recommend, the comments section is all ears! Just remember I prefer nuts to pretzels, AND I'm on a limited budget.

UPDATE: Once again our brilliant readers have spoken and these are their top choices when it comes to wetting their own horror whistles.


Amanda by Night and Aunt John can be found tying one on at "One Eyed Jacks" from TWIN PEAKS. Sometimes they'll even bounce over to sister establishments "The Bang Bang Bar" and the "Pink Room" Slow down you two, the night is young!


After Amanda calls it a night and returns home to her hubby. Aunt John finds consolation with PHEOBE CATES at Dorry's Tavern from GREMLINS.


Mamasweetpeaches and Erczilla are all about The Winchester from SEAN OF THE DEAD and why shouldn't they be?


Tank and the Mickster (who also raves about the club from FRIGHT NIGHT) know that the best jukebox is at NEAR DARK'S "Shit Kicker Heaven" where there always seems to be an ALIENS cast reunion taking place.

PLUS: After all this drinking you might need some late night diner grub. Amancebado suggests Beakman's Diner from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and Theauldlangsyne sings the praises of a joint you may have seen in THE BIRDS.

Traumafessions :: Reader sbd on Tarzan Escapes

Posted on By aunt john

Sometime during the ‘70s, a local T.V. station used to show old action movies and serials on Saturday mornings and at one point they showed TARZAN ESCAPES.  Another possibility is that I saw this first at the Saturday Morning Fun Club which was similar fare put on by a group of students at the University of Texas (where my Mom attended) who got a hold of a theatre on campus on Saturdays and provided popcorn and reams of discarded copy paper to make airplanes to throw at the screen during goofy moments – I also remember some funny smelling smoke that seemed to hang above the last few rows of the theatre…  Anyhoooo.

There is a scene from TARZAN ESCAPES which seems to have floated into iconic status – at least all the references to it I found online don't mention the specific movie it's from and just refer to it as basically occurring in just about every TARZAN movie ever made, but I don't think that's the case.

What happens is this: a party of pith-helmeted white explorers are being led back to civilization by their friendly native guides through the jungle when they encounter a big, not-too-friendly tribe.  A trade deal begins and goes wrong because frankly, head bwana devil is a pigheaded idiot.  Instead of killing the explorers right there, everyone is dragged back to the jungle village where much partying ensues and where the main entertainment happens to be, of course, the execution of the explorer party.  Now the most fun way to do this apparently is to whip up a gizmo consisting of two spring-loaded tree trunks crossing each other and held in place with a single release rope (imagine what the Professor from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND would come up with if he was an escaped Nazi scientist), and then lash a poor captive to both trunks just below the cross point, cut the release rope, and watch what happens.  Mr. Hayes wasn't about to let the Saturday Morning Fun Club show everything (this movie also marks where MAUREEN O'SULLIVAN was cast out of her skin-tastic loincloth bikini from TARZAN AND HIS MATE and into a mid-thigh tunic) but what they did show, the hapless struggling schmuck being tied up upside down in absolute terror ('cause you know if you're being tied below the cross of two spring-loaded tree trunks, things are going to suck pretty quick) and then the tops of the trunks suddenly whipping away from each other accompanied by the most horrendous grown man scream you've ever heard, was enough for my fertile little imagination to fill in all the details.

Cripes!  What's worse is, TARZAN actually shows up right after the first guy is ripped apart, but while they're grabbing the second guy and ripping the bejeebus out of him, he's pussyfooting around secretly cutting the ropes of the other captives.  Finally, just before the first white guy – of course – is about to get his E ticket punched, TARZAN calls in his herd of elephants to break up the party and saves everyone.

My memory of this scene has a "big-screen" quality to it – part of why it made such an impact – so I think it likely the Saturday Morning Fun Club was responsible.  It also had enough force that, until I watched the movie again recently, my recollection was of this tree thingy being utilized many times even though they only actually show it working on the first guy.  Regardless, I still remember the power inherent in that device as it loosed its stored up energy on those poor screaming extras.

Name That Trauma :: Mr. Canacorn's Co-Worker on Psycho Primates

Posted on By aunt john

Last week a coworker glanced over my shoulder and asked what in the hell I was looking at. I explained the awesomeness that is Kindertrauma and he seemed appropriately impressed. Then he hit me up with his own "Name That Trauma" that left me totally stumped. So, I'm turning it over to you boys and the faithful readers of Kindertrauma….

My co-worker is very guarded about his age, but I know he's older than I am (36). His memory involves a movie or show he saw on television as a child. It could have been in black and white or in color. All he recalls of the plot is that there were some scientists performing super secret experiments on chimpanzees somewhere in the Arctic (or some other cold as a witch's tit kind of place). And get this; the scientists are being murdered off one by one by someone or something.

It's the last scene that has haunted him for years. The lone surviving scientist gets locked out of the lab and is stranded outside is below freezing temperatures. He furiously bangs on the reinforced door begging to be let back in and who appears in the small window of the door? One of the chimps, looking all smart and malevolent! You see, it was the chimps committing the murders all along! Needless to say, my future coworker was freaked the hell out of his short pants…

He's scoured the Internet looking for any clue about what movie or anthology series this could have been and has come up empty handed for years. Anyone have a clue? I'm guessing it's pre-PLANET OF THE APES and probably from some show like THE OUTER LIMITS.

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Mr. Canacorn, as a member of the same age-bracket as your guarded co-worker, I would like to believe he is referring to the seldom-aired, season three B.J. & THE BEAR Halloween special. Readers of a certain age will recall that season three of the GREG EVIGAN-helmed, big-rig situation comedy marked the departure of pesky Sherriff Elroy P. Lobo (CLAUDE AKINS) and heralded the introduction of the "Seven Lady Truckers."

Led by the immensely talented JUDY LANDERS as the appropriately named "Stacks," (her character had an insatiable appetite for pancakes from what I can recall), the "Seven Lady Truckers" aroused great friction and drove a wedge between the titular B.J. McKay and his best friend Bear.

Feeling spurned and dejected, the usually easy-going Bear reached his boiling point on the Halloween special, when he methodically hunted, brutally tortured, and savagely killed the "Seven Lady Truckers." B.J. of course had no idea who was behind the murders until the final, gory decapitation death of LANDERS.

Advertisers were mortified by the monkey violence, and the episode only aired in Eastern Europe and parts of Southern New Jersey. In the U.K. it was released theatrically as B.J. AND THE BEAR: AN EXPERIMENT IN FEAR, and was considered a major bomb.


Of course none of this actually occurred in what polite society refers to as "reality," so I am going to ask our astute readers for help. Does anyone have any idea as to what killer monkey show Mr. Canacorn's co-worker is talking about? Leave your guesses in the comments, or e-mail 'em to us at kindertrauma@gmail.com.


BONUS: Click the Bear button below to hear one of the best theme songs in the history of modern television!

UPDATE: Reader Ivan just sent in the following tip:

A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH: An awesome movie–I caught this on the old NYC ABC late movie–at first I thought it was a (good) ripoff of CARPENTER's THE THING, but the TV Guide set me straight. And it IS good. I'll never forget that damn monkey staring through the door at poor ELI WALLACH…

UPDATE: Big ups to reader Ivan for nailing this one! Another Name That Trauma! solved.