kindertrauma

TRAUMAFESSIONS :: Reader Brad W. on DARKROOM

Posted on By unkle lancifer

 

 

There was a show on when I was little called DARKROOM. It was kind of like THE TWILIGHT ZONE and they told different horror stories each week. One episode was about a girl who was convinced that this guy she knew was a vampire and nobody believed her. At the end she is proven wrong and is all relieved, but then the guy says at the last minute "I'm not a vampire…I'm a werewolf!" and attacks her. Just thought you should know that this was the scariest thing I can remember seeing on T.V.

UNKLE LANCIFER SEZ: Brad! God bless you! I had nearly forgotten about this show! The episode that sticks in my brain is one that involved toy soldiers coming to life and attacking a guy. DARKROOM was hosted by JAMES COBURN, ran from 1981-82 (7 episodes, 16 stories in all) and is not currently available on DVD. The episode you mentioned is called "The Bogeyman Will Get You" and was written by PSYCHO scribe Robert Block. Believe it or not, it stars a young HELEN HUNT and telenastie-fave QUINN CUMMINGS (THE BABYSITTER, NIGHT TERROR). I found a great episode guide HERE and if you're up for it, you can watch the beginning of the episode you mentioned HERE. Unfortunately that scary ending is nowhere to be found, but maybe that's for the best. Another interesting thing that I discovered is that the stories in the much-loved theatrical anthology film NIGHTMARES were all originally written for the show DARKROOM, but were considered too intense for television. Man, Brad you lit a fire under my shoe! Now I gotta find me some more DARKROOM!


KINDER UPDATE: Talk about Synchronicity! It has come to my attention that one of your Unkle Lancifer's favorite people Jeff Allard, just posted a great piece on this very show. So, for even more developments in the DARKROOM make sure you stop by and have DINNER WITH MAX JENKE !

 

Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Maybe it's a blessing that the made-for-television sequel to ROSEMARY'S BABY, LOOK WHAT'S HAPPENED TO ROSEMARY'S BABY has fallen into obscurity. You'd have to be out of your mind to expect a PATTY DUKE television movie to compete with ROMAN POLANSKI's masterpiece, but you wouldn't be so out of line to expect something a bit more interesting than what's been done here. To tell you the truth, I remember catching this on television as a kid and finding parts of it seriously scary. An early scene that shows DUKE as Rosemary trying to escape the clutches of the seemingly all-powerful devil cult with her satanic tot in tow, I'm happy to say actually held up to my memory. Conned by a brainwashed (by phone no less) TINA LOUISE, DUKE enters a bus ahead of her child and finds the door slamming shut behind her with great force. Trapped and alone she bangs on the window at the back of the bus to no avail as it goes screeching off leaving her son in the clutches of the enemy. If that were not disturbing enough, a quick investigation of the sinister vehicle (while demonic voices chant naturally) reveals it to be without a driver and operating itself! Gotta admit it still kinda gives me the willies. Unfortunately there's a lot more movie after that well done bit and it's all downhill from there. Considering that the 1976 production was obviously riding the coattails of the recently released THE OMEN, one wonders why the makers of this film didn't crib more liberally from that success. Everything involving DUKE and her young child on the run from evil Satanists is cheaply done but automatically fun. Flash-forwarding the "action" years into the future is a mistake that the film should never have attempted in the first place. Lizard-faced STEPHEN McHATTIE is well cast as the adult demon seed Andrew/Adrien, but has little to do but act confused. RAY MILLAND is a great pick to take over for the deceased SIDNEY BLACKMER as cult leader Roman Castevet, but it doesn't make up for the sinful waste of a downgraded returning RUTH GORDON as wife Minnie, who rarely does more than echo her husband. The ending that involves the birth of Andrew/Adrian's baby daughter after a drugged rape by secret Satanist DONNA MILLS might be a little more chilling if it didn't negate everything that we've just viewed and pushed us right back to square one again. Hopefully Satan's satanic granddaughter will have something more diabolical in mind then donning mime make-up and doing interpretive dances to mid-seventies glam rock as a way of expressing her devilish heritage.

  • Rosemary's hellish fate of being trapped on a bus for eternity (It could be worse, at least a mentally challenged ROSIE O'DONNELL is not seen on board with her)
  • TINA LOUISE's faulty southern-ish accent is as convincing as her decade plus age progression that is achieved by putting her hair up into a Mrs. Garrett-sized bun
  • Pre-dating ABRE LOS OJOS (OPEN YOUR EYES), duel identity symbolism is achieved with a face mask worn on the back of Andrew/Adrien's head (although in this case a sub-CAPTAIN KOOL AND THE KONGS rock act is playing in the background)
  • Satan's son not only has a questionably close relationship with his soon to be mock-crucified pal Peter Simon (DAVID HOFFMAN), but saves most of his rage for leather daddy motorcyclists
  • Rape by DONNA MILLS

Kinder-News :: The Truth Behind Chris Higgins' Blackout

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Oh Chris Higgins, you certainly are one of the more self-indulgent of THE FRIDAY THE 13TH final girls, aren't you? In the third installment of the franchise you get a lot of sympathy mileage not only from your long-suffering boyfriend, but also from anybody within earshot when you recall a vague incident that occurred two years prior to the events in the film. As you tell it during a double-exposure flashback, after your boyfriend dropped you off on the night in question, you got into a fight with your folks and then ran off into the woods seeking solitude. Resting under a tree, you were confronted by a disfigured man ("Almost inhuman" are your words) who you grappled with and the next thing you knew you woke up at home in bed. Then comes the part that we here at Kindertrauma have trouble with; you claim to have blacked out the sordid details of that encounter. Chris, really? You're going to use the old catchall excuse "the blackout?" Unfortunately for you Chris, Kindertrauma's scandal happy investigators were able to unearth 10 minutes of extra montage footage that was edited from the film at the last minute by Paramount. If we may be so bold Chris, it seems your problems have less to do with Mr. Voorhees and more to do with one JACK DANIELS.

Kinder-News :: Defending the BULLET

Posted on By unkle lancifer

defending SILVER BULLET
Your Unkle Lancifer does not hate SILVER BULLET, he just doesn't get all the love for it. Many readers, whose opinions I respect, adore this COREY HAIM-starring STEPHEN KING adaptation. If you are a SILVER BULLET enthusiast here is your chance to speak up and defend the honor of your beloved movie! This upcoming Friday (6/6/08) we will post all the positive SILVER BULLET valentines you kids can come up with alongside an unbiased take from your dear old Aunt John. If you have some positive words on this furry flick send them to us at kindertrauma@gmail.com and let me know what I'm missing. Who needs an unenthusiastic review from yours truly when you guys can spread all the SILVER love together?

In other Kindertrauma news, Aunt John put down his bottle of Peppermint Schnapps and pack of Virginia Slims long enough to upgrade our operating system to WordPress version 2.5.1. He also has made the commenting process user-friendlier by installing a WYSIWYG-editor. Now you can make hyper-links, make items bold or italicized, and spell-check before you post your comments. Also, he has incorporated user icons into the commenter process via Gravatars. Creating your own icon is easy and free, just visit http://en.gravatar.com/ to create your icon (make sure that the e-mail address you use with them is the same one you used with us when you first signed up as a commenter). If you do not create an icon (and you don't have to if you really don't want to), the default image of Kindertrauma's mascot clown will appear next to your name in the commenting section.

Tourist Trap

Posted on By aunt john

tourist trap

You know, it's never a good sign when the second victim of a slasher movie casually throws out an insightful synopsis of the events to come in the first ten minutes of the movie:

"These tourist traps are all alike. They give you a big build up, and when you get there it's nothing but a roadside trap with a bunch of cheap trinkets."

— Eileen (Lolita, heart-shaped sunglass wearer; asphyxiation-by-scarf victim)

Prior to the ominous warning, two carloads of nubile teens merges into one after the first car encounters a flat tire on a back road somewhere off the highway. Woody, the ripped-ab driver of the first car pushes his flat tire to the nearest gas station and ends up falling victim to a supernatural impalement by a lead pipe after being confronted by a menagerie of automatons in the back room of a deserted bar. But wait, it gets weirder. The second car of teens picks up Woody's traveling companion, and the gang eventually ends up following his trail to Slausens' Lost Oasis, an old-timey house of wax road-side attraction. While driver Jerry tries to figure out what is up with his suddenly failed transmission, the three girls in his car set out to exploring in their tube tops and hot pants and naturally end up skinny-dipping in a pond. (The lone tube top hold out is final girl Molly who is demurely dressed not unlike Holly Hobbie.) Whilst frolicking and splashing about topless, as girls in the late ‘70s were wont to do, their fun is interrupted by the shotgun wielding Mr. Slausen (square-jawed CHUCK CONNERS) who invites the young ladies back to his creep-tastic wax museum. Back at the super-boring museum filled with mannequin displays of Davey Crocket, Sitting Bull and the like, Slausen cautions the girls not to leave and to not go near the house located behind it. He claims that his brother Davey, who is responsible for crafting all the piss-poor wax figures in the museum lives in the house and shouldn't be disturbed. Naturally, the trio splits up and Eileen (ROBIN SHERWOOD) meets her demise in the off-limits house. Becky (CHARLIE'S ANGELS most forgettable angel TANYA ROBERTS) ventures after Eileen and ends being held captive in the wax-museum workshop basement in the off-limits house along side the driver of the second car Jerry, where they witness the plasticization murder of some other random young gal who happened upon Slausen's Lost Oasis looking for gas. Their captor, presumably the aforementioned brother Davey, first wears a wax mask resembling a bloated ELIZABETH TAYLOR meets SHAYE SAINT JOHN in a dark alley before swapping it out for an even creepier ROBERT GOULET-looking mask (Later in the film, it gets even more surreal when he dons a LINDA EVANS mask). This leaves goody-two shoes Molly (JOCELYN JONES), who Slousen has taken a shine to, to figure out what has happened to her friends, and what is up with Slousen's wax shrine to his late wife. Eventually Molly figures it all out (SPOILER ALERT!): there is no brother, Slousen is completely cuckoo and the man behind the ROBERT GOULET mask.


Released in 1979, the undeniable May-December sexual tension between Molly and Mr. Slausen in TOURIST TRAP is evocative of the questionable dynamic later exhibited in 1980's MOTEL HELL between motel proprietor Vincent Smith and motorcyle-crash hanger-on-er Terry. What differentiates the two, and makes TOURIST TRAP all the more enjoyable, is Slausen's completely unexplained supernatural powers. He can close windows, he can make mannequins move, he can even strangle a girl with a scarf without using his hands. He is pretty amazing in my book, and it's his surreal powers that elevate his wax museum from being just, "a roadside trap with a bunch of cheap trinkets" to a destination I'd like to check out on my next vacation.

  • Woody's impalement via a flying pipe, amongst the other projectiles that are launched at him while he is trapped (very evocative of Margaret White's demise in CARRIE)
  • Eileen ties on a scarf a bit too tight
  • Sitting Bull takes out TANYA ROBERTS with a tomahawk
  • The SHIELDS AND YARNELL-esque movements of the supposed wax figures
  • The closing shot with Molly and her dummy pals driving down the highway

Sniffles Takes A Trip

Posted on By unkle lancifer

sniffles

The tale of a comfortable self-possessed urbanite seeking leisure in the country only to be horrified by what he finds there is nothing new as confirmed by a recent viewing of SNIFFLES TAKES A TRIP (1940). Sniffles begins his journey full of hope and excitement. This is heartily expressed through a gleefully optimistic tune sung by the mouse that imagines a journey complete with babbling brooks for swimming and playful squirrels. Sniffle's naive innocence is exposed as soon as he discovers a sign pointing the way to his destination "Country Meadows." Upon the sign an ominous black raven harks a warning, but Sniffles, in his giddy state, misidentifies the harbinger of doom as a Robin and squeals in delight. Most of Sniffle's misunderstandings of the new world around him are harmless enough, a purple mustachioed, RIP TAYLOR-like predator is in actuality a common fly for example. Two frightening eyes that appear out of a lagoon expose Sniffles' lifelong fear of alligators, but in reality, they are simply the peepers of a passive hop frog. These false scares are traditional in horror and it is only when darkness falls that the dire reality of the situation the little mouse has gotten himself into becomes clear. In the light of a campfire, Sniffles mind begins to completely unravel. Left alone with his own ideas, the peaceful country landscape he once coveted transforms into a vision of hell that would make Dante take a dump in his dungarees. Hideous beings reveal themselves hiding all around him (or are they only in his mind?). At first Sniffles attempts to douse his raging fear by telling himself that the black velvet death that waits to engulf him is "peaceful," this as slithering, twisted eel-like shapes twist around mocking, gnarled demon-possessed trees and a winged demon explodes out of the sky heaving sulfur smelling breath and the silent song of damnation. If there is any question of whether to stay or to flee, it is answered by the eyes…the horrible demonic, death-promising eyes that seem to be popping out of every conceivable crevice, whispering prophecies of a violently brutal gang rape. Evaluating the scene, Sniffles does indeed flee so quickly in fact that his signature hat spins off his head with such gusto that it makes an uncanny whine not unlike that of a U.F.O. stuffed to the gills with Theremins nose diving into the Washington Monument. DELIVERANCE, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, WRONG TURN and now SNIFFLES TAKES A TRIP. If you go in to the woods today you're in for a big surprise, the surprise is you are either going to die like a hog in a slaughterhouse or completely loose your mind…

Bad Moon

Posted on By unkle lancifer

 

Bad moon werewolf
After 1981's one-two punch of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and THE HOWLING, it seemed like, thanks to advances in special effects that, the sky was the limit for werewolf movies. With the exception of a few kibbles here and there, (DOG SOLDIERS, GINGER SNAPS) we're all still sort of waiting. The truth is it takes a bit more than special effects to make a werewolf tale work. Both of 1981's big doggies sunk their teeth properly into the "curse" element of the lycanthrope mythos and presented us with likable characters who struggled morally with their afflictions. BAD MOON can't hold a candle to those two aforementioned films in the characterization department but it does give it the old college try. Director ERIC RED, who wrote the vampire addiction tale NEAR DARK, has some first hand experience balancing action and pathos but, for the most part, every bone he throws here lands just shy of the mark. Based on the novel THOR by WAYNE SMITH, which is told entirely from the family dog's point of view, BAD MOON as a movie naturally had to switch focus. Rather than spending our time in a German shepherd's head (which actually is not such a bad idea) we are left with what amounts to a story about a sister (wooden as a cigar store Indian MARIEL HEMINGWAY) who opens her door to a sibling (STREETS OF FIRE survivor MICHAEL PARE) who is secretly battling urges he cannot control. Where do you draw the line when dealing with a destructive family member? What if said family member's behavior is endangering your child? BAD MOON's 80 minute running time doesn't allow for adequately getting into these matters, and werewolf fans may be checking their watches anyway waiting for the fangs to sprout. PARE is sympathetic as hell which may work against the drama here, but I think most of the blame can be placed in the lap of a now ridiculous (then just crappy) mid-nineties flavored CGI transformation scene that is almost impossible to recover from. Once fully turned, the beasty that wrecks havoc looks pretty damn good and his threatening attack on HEMINGWAY's tot MASON GAMBLE provides some much needed, late in the game thrills (Thankfully a traveling flimflam artist bounces in to be properly shredded too).  I think if you go into BAD MOON knowing that its intentions are modest, you can have an entertaining enough time. The scope is compact but it's not without some genuinely intriguing (and in the case of the wooded surroundings, well-shot) scenes, just don't expect too much fur to fly or to be left howling at the moon.
indelible scenes 

  • The sex disrupting original tent attack in Napal
  • Watching WEREWOLF OF LONDON on T.V
  • Heartbreakingly BENJI-like "dog being taken to the pound" scene
  • After the protective family pooch Thor is thrown in the kennel, Pare opens his fly and takes a territorial piss on his doghouse. If the movie had more scenes this darkly clever it could have won best in show!

 

Traumafessions:: Reader Greta on Watership Down

Posted on By unkle lancifer

 

watership down scary
 

So, when I was little I sat down to watch this cartoon movie about bunnies on HBO – and it turned out to be this vivid blood-wrenching movie! There were tractors and farm equipment plowing into these bunnies – I freaked out so bad – completely hysterical, my brother wasn't allowed to finish watching it. I still get queasy when I think of it.     

 

 Unkle Lancifer sez: Pink is the new black and WATERSHIP DOWN is the new SUPERMAN 3! Greta joins READER MATT N. in naming this hoppingly morose bunny tale the Traumatizer du Jour. Yours truly will never be old enough to swallow the grim life realities and existential horror that WATERSHIP DOWN funnel feeds and that's fine by me. I like my cartoon rabbits dressed up as Carmen Miranda and taking left turns in Albuquerque!     

Mausoleum

Posted on By unkle lancifer

 

mausoleum
Great googily moogily, what in the name of hell is wrong with MAUSOLEUM? Why is it such a sleazy f-d up train wreck from the opening scene to the last? The acting is exhausting to witness, the story seems shoved through a shredder and then pieced back together using duct tape, and every scene is filmed in the ugliest way humanly possible. I feel like I need a SILKWOOD shower scrub right about now. What's it about? Hey, I'm just the guy who finished watching it how should I know? It's something about a lady (big boobied BOBBIE BRESEE who was nominated for the now meaningless SATURN award for her role) who gets possessed by a demon and then screws and kills anyone she comes in contact with. All I know is that MARJOE GORTNER was the voice of reason in this thing and that's never a good sign. The one shining spot (besides the bizarre special effects by FRIDAY THE 13TH PART IV: THE NEW BLOOD director JOHN CARL BUECHLER,… did I mention that BOBBIE's possession escalates to a point where she actually grows demon GHOULIE faces on her breasts?) is SANFORD AND SON's LAWANDA PAGE as the maid who basically speaks for the audience when she scans the situation, chugs some hooch, says, "Enough grieving, I'm leaving!" and heads for the hills to the sound of something not unlike the famous BENNY HILL tune. Yes that was probably the most backward, out of date, racist thing I've seen in a movie in a long time, but frankly I was with her! If there's ever a re-make I nominate myself to play that role. What good can I say about MAUSOLEUM? I gotta tell you, for all its ineptness it started freaking me out after a while not because the filmmakers had any clue of what they were doing, but just because the whole thing was so relentlessly sordid that it started to effect my view of the world at large. O.K., I admit it I did love all the scenes where possessed, glowing-eyed BOBBIE floated people into high spaces with her psychic powers and then dropped them to their deaths, I'll grant you that, but if I never see her seduce a delivery guy or a gardener again that will be fine by me. If you're like me and are constantly looking for new inventive ways to destroy the relationships in your life I suggest you track down MAUSOLEUM show it to someone who thinks they like you and then watch them head for the hills LAWANDA style!
indelible scenes

  • LAWANDA steals the movie
  • Boobs with teeth
  • Art gallery owner impaled on sculpture
  • Aunt floating with visible crane
  • "You thought I didn't exist!"

 

mausoleum
Here you go kids, knock yourself out: MAUSOLEUM's one shining moment of originality, purple demon boobs!
mausoleum
MAUSOLEUM speaks to the primal male fear that once married, PLAYBOY BUNNY trophy wives will turn into RUTH BUZZI.        Â