kindertrauma

Name That Trauma :: RATSAWGOD on Hairy-Handed Hitchhiking Hag

Posted on By unkle lancifer

name that trauma!

I'm looking for a short film that I saw as a teen that was based on the famous urban legend "The Hairy-Handed Hitchhiker." A woman picks up an seemingly innocent old lady hitchhiker late at night. She is soon unnerved by the old lady's odd behavior and then the sight of her hairy arms. She tricks the old lady into getting out of the car and then takes off, leaving the old lady behind. She realizes the old lady has left her large purse in the passenger seat. She looks inside and discovers a large, bloody axe or machete.

The short film I saw pretty much follows this to a T. It changes up the ending a bit by having the woman driver call her boyfriend after ditching the old lady hitchhiker, feeling guilty and foolish for having tricked her and leaving her stranded in the middle of nowhere. The boyfriend agrees to get in his car and find her. The woman driver goes into the local sheriff station to report the poor abandoned little old lady so any patrol men might find her and drive her to safety. She hands the sheriff the purse that she left behind. The sheriff opens the purse to search for ID. Out comes the machete. The young woman's eyes widen.

The film cuts back to the boyfriend in his car pulling up to the old lady at an intersection. He opens the passenger side door and the old lady gets in, clutching another purse in her hairy hands. The light changes from red to green. The car doesn't move. The little old lady gets out of the car and shuffles off. The light changes from green to yellow to red. The car is still.

I've found plenty of info about this urban legend on-line, but NOTHING about this very cool short film made from the mid-to-late 80's. It was around ten minutes long. Does anyone know what it was titled and where I might find it to see again?

UNK SEZ: RSG, I would absolutely love to see this but like you, I had no luck in finding it on the interwebs. Coincidentally I am very familiar with this tale because as a young teen, my older brother actually had the gall to tell me it happened to HIM! His tale occurred at our local mall, King of Prussia plaza, THE greatest (and apparently most dangerous) mall in the world. In his big fat stinking lie, the old lady pretended to have misplaced her car and asked my brother with a recently acquired driver's license if he would drive her about the parking lot and aid in her search. Once in the car, my brother noticed that the old lady had very hairy legs and asked her to get out. As she was departing the vehicle (luckily this was the type of psycho who takes orders from 16-year olds) a hatchet that she/he was concealing by clutching it between the legs (!) fell out of her/his dress and onto the parking lot floor…I of course thought this was the most incredible event that had ever taken place and sadly fell for this tranny fish-tale, hook line and sinker. (In my own defense, I never fell for his story about being asked backstage and wooed by JANET JACKSON!) If anyone out there reading this knows either the name of the short film that our beloved RATSAWGOD is speaking of, or even why in the name of God my brother is such a big fat stinking liar please contact either Aunt John or myself via comment or email (kindertrauma@gmail.com).

UPDATE!! Mystery trauma solved! (see comments) Thanks to Seethingblue!

Kinder-Art :: Stephanie Metz

Posted on By unkle lancifer


How nice is that above image? Those are sculptures made out of wool and they're of teddy bear skulls!! That is the artwork of Stephanie Metz who I learned about from my pal RATSAWGOD's blog !!! If the idea of a teddy bear's skull isn't interesting enough, the idea of bones made out wool just throws the coolness factor of those pieces straight into the hemisphere! Me likey and me likey big time. Stephanie can explain herself and her beautiful art better than I can, so go to her SITE and read her artist's statement if you're so inclined. I myself must now go rip to shreds every teddy bear in my extensive collection and see what makes them tick!

The Good Son

Posted on By aunt john

Life just served young Mark Evans (preternaturally saucer-eyed ELIJAH WOOD) a steaming shit sandwich with a heaping side of SUCK! After his mom succumbs to cancer, Mark's tall drink of Philly tap water father (DAVID MORSE) jets off to Japan on business and dumps him off at his uncle's house in scenic Maine. Unfortunately for Mark, his temporary housing situation involves living under the same roof with his mildly depressed aunt Susan (WENDY CREWSON), she's grieving/ blaming herself for the loss of a toddler son who mysteriously drowned in the bathtub, and his psychotic cousin Henry (America's then box-office golden child playing against type, or was he?, MACAULEY  CULKIN). At first, relations between the boys are pretty cool, and Henry includes Mark in his favorite pastimes of taunting the neighbor's dog and dropping a dummy off a highway overpass. Henry's sinister behavior escalates, and Mark tries to warn any and everyone that will listen that Henry is a full-blown whack-a-doodle. Of course no one believes Mark's wild accusations, and he ends up being sent off to therapy. Aunt Susan finally manages to put two and two together when she stumbles across her late son's rubber duckie in Henry's woodshed workshop. Without spoiling the action, the ending is a real cliffhanger (literally), and Aunt Susan is forced to make a cinematic choice normally reserved for the likes of MERYL STREEP.

On the surface, THE GOOD SON has all the elements of a camp classic. CULKIN takes a page from the PATTY McCORMACK/Rhoda Penmark playbook and knows how to turn on and off the crazy at the drop of a stuffed dummy onto a crowded expressway. The lack of actual kills by CULKIN though, is what keeps THE GOOD SON from being an actual contender in the killer kid genre. Sure, he tries to ice his sister, but she lives. He tries to shove his mom off a cliff, yet fails. He doesn't even manage to take out a single motorist with the appropriately named effigy Mr. Highway! Yeah, he cops to drowning his unseen younger brother in the bath, but we never even get a flashback! If you're going to base a whole movie around a pint-sized psycho, you really need to give him or her a measurable body count.

  • Henry causes an interstate pile-up with the help of his pal Mr. Highway
  • Crack-the-whip with little sis results in a scene that was sadly overlooked on our ICE SAFETY LIST . Doesn't anyone ever listen to WALKEN?
  • Mark freaks out when he thinks Henry has poisoned the family's food and goes apeshit on the refrigerator
  • Lil' Mac drops the F-bomb


Kinder-News :: Unkle Lancifer Spent 1992 in a Coma

Posted on By unkle lancifer


One of my favorite things about co-hosting the seventies throw-back variety show KINDERTRAUMA is that I learn something new everyday, either by researching traumafessions or by the comments left by you, our dear readers. Yesterday, after one of my favorite people on Earth, cousin KITTY LECLAW, mentioned TINA YOTHERS in a comment, I went about finding a suitably embarrassing clip of YOTHERS to send her way. I inadvertently fell into a youtube k-hole that resulted in my discovery of the video game NIGHT TRAP. How did I miss out on this? What the hell was I doing in 1992? (I shudder to think, was that the year I was a frequently blacking-out, devout CURVE groupie or a well-paid white lotus yoga instructor?) The late DIFF'RENT STROKE's DANA PLATO starred in this live action video game where players attempted to save slumber party girls from roaming vampiric marauders with the use of security cameras and hidden traps. The game was banned for being indecent, is partially responsible for the video game rating system used today, was ranked the twelfth worst of all time by ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY, and was even publicly lambasted by none other than CAPTAIN KANGAROO. Again, where was I and what was I drinking when all this was going down? If I'd only known I would have been all over this like a suicidal pigeon on rice! Check out this scene from the game and tell me the cackling evil "adult" characters are not right off of ELM STREET…


Yeah I'll admit it, I've watched that clip about ten times now. That bed-trap lady cracks me up, and hows' bout that rad music score? This game looks way too awesome to me. It smacks of that rarely found perfect mixture of oddly creepy and patently ridiculous. Oh 1992, I'm so sorry that I ignored you, apparently you were not so boring after all!

MORE ON NIGHT TRAP:

  • A fascinating mini-doc about the controversy HERE
  • The amazing, beyond reason slumber party scene that includes the NIGHT TRAP theme song HERE
  • NIGHT TRAP on Wikepedia HERE
  • The NIGHT TRAP "movie" in 5 parts HERE

The Possession of Joel Delaney

Posted on By unkle lancifer


In this pre-EXORCIST possession thriller, well-to-do New York divorcée socialite Norah Benson (SHIRLEY MACLAINE) is horrified to discover that the younger brother she dotes on Joel (PERRY KING) is possessed by… wait for it…a poor person! (Her repeated, panicked complaints that Mr.Tonio Perez has "entered" her brother's body also suggest that she's worried that he might have gone gay too). Forget that this no longer roaming spirit also has a nasty habit of decapitating women; Norah seems more taken aback by the fact that he's Puerto Rican and hails from the wrong side of town. This is one deranged movie folks. The first half, with its bizarre cuts and awkward freeze-frames comes off as so early-seventies twisted that you're tempted to forgive the slacky pace (a Santeria ceremony scene goes on for what seems like centuries). And for most of the running time, lil' bro PERRY comes off as your average pouty, privileged, ne'er-do-well with a hangover rather than any real threat to Norah and her kids. Then BAM! The film's final act, which takes place in an isolated beach house, has got to be one of the most eff'd up things ever allowed to be filmed. KING suddenly appears clad in leather with a thick accent and a switch blade and begins smacking Norah around, forcing her son to dance a naked jig on a coffee table and her now crying daughter to eat dog food out of a bowl on the ground. This circus of the mental scars is all observed by his decidedly ineffective psychiatrist's decapitated head which rests dripping on the refrigerator. I've seen many an insane movie before, but this eleventh hour lycanthropic switch from JACKIE COLLINS to JACK KETCHUM is like being bitch slapped across the face by a granny you believed to be comatose. This film's relative obscurity can be blamed on its overshadowing by the cultural Juggernaught THE EXORCIST, but the truth is its overall tone is defiantly alienating and MACLAINE's spoiled, arc-less character is difficult to route for. It's hard for me to diss a movie that is so liberal with the beheadings, but what's missing here that THE EXORCIST had in spades is a real sincere belief in the supernatural. MACLAINE is warned as much by a man who offers to exorcise the lingering lout from her brother. He tells her "You have to believe to make it work" and I think the same applies here. THE POSSESSION OF JOEL DELANEY is not without effective and certainly shocking scenes, but like its main character, it seems to be more terrified of poverty, discomfort and earthly unpleasantness than the world of the unknown.

Kinder-News :: It's a Hard-Knock Death

Posted on By unkle lancifer


If you're like me than you've spent countless hours wondering why, oh why, the creators behind the fantastic FACES OF DEATH advertising campaign and the makers of the runaway box office hit ANNIE don't set aside their multiple differences and manufacture a line of commemorative plates that will appease the rabid fan-base of both films at the same time. Such a day of peace and understanding where folks put aside personal egos in order to create a larger harmony is far off indeed. Hence, I fired up the kindertrauma kiln this past Sunday and produced a line of plates that I plan to utilize at our next extravagant dinner party. There are only eight, and two of course are reserved for myself and Aunt John, that means most of you will have to use the far-less special GREMLINS PAPER PLATES left over from last year. I'm sorry, but if you want to sit at the big kid's table you most be prompt! (And no Mickster, unlike at our last fiesta "I came all the way from Alabama" will not be accepted as an excuse to arrive fourteen hours late with a biker gang in tow!)






Traumafessions :: Rob of Natsukashi on Faces of Death

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I was a tough kid to spook. Perhaps it was my subscriptions to FANGORIA, STARLOG and parents who unknowingly thought HEAVY METAL was just a comic about rock music (now who could have told them that?). Sure, I fell victim to the jump scare at the end of the original FRIDAY THE 13TH with its lulling, swelling "everything's peachy" score before Jason jettisons from the water and helps ADRIENNE KING perform an Eskimo Roll on the canoe. I was creeped out by those aforementioned beady little Jodie the Pig eyes that blinked outside the window of a house in Amityville and was scared to death of all things Bigfoot, be they confrontations with the Bionic Man Steve Austin, or even when he landed a Saturday morning TV gig with some WILLIE AAMES-like fella named Wild Boy). But with a childhood spent gorging on gore, I was particularly jaded, as I was more interested in "just how" they made THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN actually melt (since it predated the "bonus features" days of the DVD, I was forced to actually "read" about it in the pages of FANGORIA.

I needed something more genuine in order to burn its place into my pre-pubescent brain.

Enter the friendly neighborhood pot-head who manned the counter at the local video store who happily handed over a copy of FACES OF DEATH to a child who did not even reach the double digits in age. "All of this is real, man," I distinctly remember him whispering as he slipped it into the bag, along with TAPS, the fall guy if my parents decided to ask what I had rented. TIMOTHY HUTTON was such a nice young man and the TOM CRUISE fellow could be going places! After a few phone calls to neighborhood reprobates, we found the perfect screening room, as one friend's parents were leaving him in the care of his older brother (15) who was as equally as interested in the copius and gratuitous gore we had our hands on.

As a child coming of age in the 80s, FACES OF DEATH represented the Holy Grail of Horror for us. It was one where there were no special effects. No actors, no Karo syrup and food coloring. It was all real. For the VHS box told us so.

As an animal lover, I had to turn away from all the actual killings of our furry and feathered friends. I would later do the same during CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, which used the same techniques for shock. Killing slow-moving, defenseless sea turtles, as done in HOLOCAUST, does not impress nor frighten me.

It opened with a heart transplant that is as common today as anything you'd see on the Discovery Health Channel, but that was enough to whet our appetite for destruction. Of all the images of bear maulings, monkey-brain eating and alligator tussles, the one image that haunted me was the image of a body washed ashore on the beach. Perhaps because I live in a coastal community, or maybe it was just he after-effects of seeing JAWS one too many times, it was something that would remain with me years after all the other hoaxes in the film became prevalent to me. It played with some rather bizarre carnival music that made it all the more awkward. (After a subsequent viewing trying to pinpoint all the fake footage, I realized that this, too, was faked).

The one that really gave me a chuckle watching as an adult, was one that featured "footage from two tourists who were visiting a national park" (in typical generic fact-giving commentary). In it two moronic tools pull up in a station wagon and proceed to empty a loaf of bread to a passing bear. The male "tourist" apparently gets out (apparently dedicated to his craft and seeking better lighting). When the bear decides that he would like a little meat with his Wonder bread, he supposedly turns on the cameraman. What was notably obvious was the shot that showed both the man with the video camera and the bear in full frame. Just where did that shot come from?

Nonetheless, for years I would carry with me the images of FACES OF DEATH feeling as though I had somehow crossed the line of innocence, into the world of adulthood. And it was one I was not ready to visit again when FACES OF DEATH 2 hit the shelves the following year.

UNK SEZ: Thanks Rob for venturing into places your Unkle Lancifer can never go! As big of a gore fan as I am, and trust me too much is never enough, I turn all kinds of yellow at the thought of FACES OF DEATH. I remember my older brother renting the first one and as soon as I realized what they were about to do to that chicken, I went chicken myself and was right out the door! Sure, if I see an axe planted into someone's face in a FRIDAY THE 13TH flick I stop just short of cheering, but if I'm flipping channels and come across a real operation I quickly flip right on by (I might even cross myself). One thing I do appreciate about the FACES OF DEATH series is the consistently uniform lowbrow box art. Anytime I see those crude, smiling, skull faces staring at me, I know I'm in over my head!

NOTE: For all you kids who like to wax nostalgic about the films of your youth, Rob's website NATSUKASHI was built in your honor (The name means "place of fond memories"). Taking a new look at films watched long ago, he pays special and specific attention to how perceptions change over time. Take off your shoes and step into NATSUKASHI !

NOTE: I can't take credit for that swell FACES OF DEATH lunchbox. That image was swiped from the FACES OF DEATH Myspace page.

Traumafessions :: Reader Taylor on Indiana Jones & the Missing Head

Posted on By unkle lancifer

When I was a really little kid in the early 80s and was too young to go see the coolest movies, my parents would get these "read-along" storybook versions of movies for my brother and me. They were very short picture booklets that came with tapes of someone (usually not the original actor) in character telling you what happens in the story as you flip through the book…You'd know to turn the page when you heard a chime. I remember that we had them for the STAR WARS movies, and E.T. (I specifically remember young DREW BARRYMORE as Gertie really hamming it up on the tape struggling to pronounce "extra-terrestrial").

To my trauma: In the booklet for RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, there was a still from the movie of the part where Indiana Jones is leaping from a horse onto the side of a truck. To my mind, because of the position of Indy's body and his arms, it looked like he was missing his head. This was utterly terrifying to me…I'd always shut my eyes whenever I'd get to that page in the book, then open them again when we got to the next page (I couldn't really flip ahead, not without the chime allowing me too, for God's sake!). I guess I was really too young to follow the story very carefully, even being totally spoon-fed the dumbed-down version, because I saw it as: "Indy's having adventures, having adventures, LOOK OUT FOR THE HEADLESS MONSTER-MAN, having adventures…"

I couldn't find the actual still, but I grabbed it from the scene on Youtube for you. I'm at work, so I don't have the DVD to get it…But I think the Youtube-quality makes it even eerier…


UNK SEZ: Taylor, this traumafession cracks me up! I love it! It just goes to show you, no matter how hard we try to shield our kids from kindertrauma, kindertrauma can be found in just about anything! I guess it's just a natural and necessary part of growing up and of learning the difference between real and imagined dangers. I also should congratulate you on your bravery and sense of duty for patiently waiting for the record to chime before turning the offending page! I found the below image on eBay, is this the diabolical record that stands accused?


AFTERTHOUGHT: Taylor I can't stop thinking about your traumafession! I would like to share one of my own personal bogey monsters. A creature that crawled out of the mists of my not fully formed brain and whose creation can only be blamed on me. Her name was MARY WOLF and I was quite sure she had committed herself to my destruction. Her name was derived from my misunderstanding of an overheard conversation about the comic MARY WORTH. (Why someone should be discussing MARY WORTH and not APARTMENT 3-G I'll never know!) At first she was an actual wolf, but later I remember there was a picture on the cover of an old children's encyclopedia of an African mud mask with straw hair that I was convinced was the demon's true image captured. In any case, she didn't come from an R-rated movie, she did not spawn from a creepy commercial or song or from anything that I was exposed to that I should not have been. MARY WOLF (or is it MERRY WOLF?) came from me. When cars drove past our house at night they'd shoot squares of light across my bedroom ceiling. I imagined all of those blocks of light were road signs and warnings that read "BEWARE OF MARY WOLF!" and "GO BACK NOW!" I just wanted you to know that she has lived in an iron cage in the back of my brain until headless Indy sprung her free early this morning. I hope they are not planning to team up!