User blog:TheAzumangaDaiohFan/My Childhood Trama! 10/31/2017

Hello there ladies and gentleman. This is Hailey Sawyer here and I've recently watched YourMovieSucksDOTorg's four part video series called Childhood Trauma. In this series, Adam talks about a variety of movies and TV shows that scared him when he was younger. I thought it was an interesting series and I kind of wanted to do the same thing. However, rather than make a video on the subject, I decided to make a blog post about it. So, without further ado, here we go!

The THX Sound Bumper
When I was younger, my family had a huge collection of VHS tapes that took up most of the shelves of our gargantuan TV cabinet. Because I had so many to choose from, I would pop in a VHS tape almost every day. Now most if not all of these tapes had various advertisements and bumpers before the actual movie. While most of these things didn't bother me all that much, there was one bumper that really stuck out to me. On some of the VHS tapes I watched, there would be a bumper for the THX Sound System.

In this bumper, it starts out with a somewhat quiet sound of a trumpet playing a low note. But as the bumper goes on, the trumpet gets quieter and quieter as another higher pitched sound (which might be from a stringed instrument) grows louder and louder until it reaches a point where it's almost deafening.

What made this bumper traumatizing for me was the fact that I was overly sensitive to certain things like loud noises. For my younger self, every second of this bumper seemed to drag on for an agonizingly long time and when it finally reached the climax, I would almost always cover my ears or cry, especially if the volume was turned up too much. Fun fact! I was deeply disturbed by cows mooing when I was younger. Why do I bring this up? Well, there was one VHS tape witha variation on the THX bumper that included cows mooing. So on top of having to deal with really loud noises, I also had to deal with the cows whenever I watched that particular bumper. Great! By some sort of miracle, I was able to calm down after watching the bumper and felt fine once the actual movie started. As an adult, I'm much better at dealing with loud noises, though a few are still an issue for me like blenders and vacuum cleaners. However, the THX bumper and its variations will always be one of those bumpers that I'll never forget.

The Cave Scene (Barney's Campfire Sing Along)
Now I know what some of you are thinking. "Wow! You were traumatized by Barney? Lol Wuss!" Well, here's the thing. When I was really little, I used to like Barney. Sure it wasn't great even by preschool TV show standards but I thought it was entertaining enough for me. I remember owning two Barney VHS tapes. One was a Barney Christmas movie where Barney and the gang visit Santa and his wife in the North Pole and the other was Barney's Campfire Sing Along. Between the Christmas one and Campfire Sing Along, I probably watched Campfire Sing Along the most. While both these movies were mostly quite tame, there was one scene in Campfire Sing Along that just didn't fit with the rest of the movie.

In this scene, Barney and the gang are exploring a cave. While they're exploring, they make some noise to see if any one else is in the cave with them. One of the gang members eventually hears an unfamiliar voice laughing along with the rest of the cast and asks who it is. The voice says, "Nobody here but me," and everybody runs out of the cave screaming. Once they're out of the cave, the film focuses on the opening of the cave for at least a few seconds. The film then zooms in on a bipedal bear wearing a nightgown and cap walking out of the cave holding a candle. The bear then says, "Spring comes earlier every year," and slowly walks back into the cave.

I think one of the reasons why this scene was traumatizing for me was how the scene was executed. For the first part of the scene, there's no background music. Instead, the only sounds you hear are the voices of Barney and the gang, the sounds of water dripping, and  the echo of the voices. This part of the scene is much quieter and more atmospheric compared to the rest of the film, which made my younger self feel rather uneasy. When the gang starts to laugh however, it makes it seem like nothing is wrong and creates this sense of security. Once the unknown voice is acknowledged by one of the gang members, it gives them a reply and everyone runs out of the cave. When the scene holds on the entrance of the cave, the thing that scared the gang is revealed as it waddles out of the cave. To me, this was the most frightening part of the scene. Not only did the bear have lifeless looking eyes but the way it moved seemed rather unnerving. The best way I can describe it is that it was kind of robotic but not in the way where its movements were jerky. It also didn't help that this thing appeared again in a later part of the film, though to be fair, it wasn't on screen for as long.

The other reason why this scene was traumatizing for me is because it kind of comes out of left field. Like I said before, this movie (as well as Barney in general) is rather tame. So this type of scene wasn't something I was expecting to see. After my first viewing of the film, I didn't want to watch it ever again. However, I did eventually change my mind and watch it a few more times, skipping this scene on each subsequent viewing.

Looking back, this scene for the most part seems more comedic than scary. I think this is because when the bear gets involved, they play some goofy music in the background to try and offset the first part of the scene. Not only that, but the bear's voice sounds vaguely similar to Barney's and the dialogue they give him isn't very intimidating. However, this didn't stop the scene from scaring the ever loving crap out of me back in the day and I'm not sure if there other people out there who feel the same way about this scene.

The Peanut Vendor Animated Short (1933)
So back in 2008, I would often go on YouTube and watch things that my ten year old self would enjoy. One day, I was browsing YouTube when I stumbled upon this short animated... thing... that was originally released in 1933. From what I understand, it was an experimental piece of stop-motion animation involving a monkey singing and dancing along to a song called The Peanut Vendor. While the video link I provided isn't the exact version I saw, it was the best version I could find as other versions either had poor audio and/or video quality. While most of the video isn't all that scary, there's one part that is consistently horrifying, especially to my ten year old self. That of course would be the monkey.

Not only do its eyes take up half of its face but there are scenes where the monkey stares directly into the camera for more than two seconds. Oh by the way, the monkey is in most of the film. While the film is under five minutes long, it feels much longer with that terrifying monkey on screen most of the time! I mean Jesus! I get that this film is experimental animation but that doesn't make the monkey any less frightening to look at. Despite this however, it doesn't even compare to the next entry, which is...

AVGN Episode 36 Halloween (Angry Video Game Nerd)
So back when I was ten years old, one of my favorite things to watch on YouTube was the Angry Video Game Nerd or Angry Nintendo Nerd as he was called back then. While this series was intended for a much older audience, it didn't stop me from watching it. One of the episodes I remember seeing was his review of Halloween for the Atari 2600.

At about eight minutes and thirty one seconds into the video, the camera focuses on the Nerd's uncovered window as he looks for another game. About a couple seconds later, a white face slowly appears on the other side of the window as a music cue plays.

Maybe it was because I was watching this video at night when I first saw it but, this was the moment where my ten year old self became utterly terrified and stopped watching the video. I mean, the idea of having a creepy stranger looking through your uncovered window at night was something that really freaked me out as a kid and still does to this day. That's right! Unlike some of the other entries in this post, this is one of those things that I've never gotten over. For the past nine years, I refused to be in a room at night that didn't have the windows covered up by curtains or shades.

In fact, this particular moment scared me so much, I avoided watching the review until I decided to write this little blog post. The strange thing about it is that even when I went back and watched the review during the day, it didn't really help me concur this particular fear in the way that watching the videos for the other entries did. Why you may ask? I'm honestly not sure. But if you have an explanation for this, feel free to share it with me in the comments.

Conclusion
So those were some of pieces of media that personally scared me as a kid. I know that four entries might not seem like much but I felt like it gave me enough material to work with and this post is already long enough as it is. So with that said, what do you think? Were there any movies, TV shows, or things from the internet that scared you as a kid? Let me know in the comments below!