Scarred for Life

Ah, the gross-out song. This song still makes me gag a little. No one is sure of its origins, or why someone decided to immortalize a decaying rodent around the campfire, but millions of kids want to thank that person for giving them a foul weapon against their fussy kid sister.

There is a scene in the book “The Dead Zone”, where, as a child, the protagonist accidentally puts his hand into the remains of a putrid, dead gopher. If I remember correctly, the passage even quotes this song.

Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,
Mutilated monkey meat
Dirty little birdie feet.
Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,
And me without my spoon.

This guy is Pete. According to his YouTube profile, Pete is a “camp and experiential education enthusiast”. You will be seeing more of Pete and his shirt in the future.

An unidentified man was found dead at 6.30am, December 1, 1948 on a beach in Adelaide, Australia. No cause of death could be determined. On 14 January 1949, an abandoned brown suitcase with its label removed is discovered at Adelaide Railway Station. A few months later, a piece of paper with the words “Taman Shud” written on it was found in a secret pocket concealed within the man’s trouser pocket. Throw in a mysterious, rare first edition copy of “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”, some enigmatic code, and a few conspiracy theories, and you have one of Australia’s most enduring and creepy mysteries.

Link

OMG! This is so traumatic, even for The Muppet Show. WHY? WHY? Why is Alan Arkin slaughtering bunny rabbits??

While I was a little older (about 10) when I saw this one, on cable, it was still horrifying! Ridley Scott’s work was masterful and it delivered one of the best scares of the 70’s. As was the case for most of my preteen years, I had to sneak out after bedtime and watch this alone and in the dark…unable to scream as that would mean parent trouble. In the flickering ambient glow of my friend, the TV, I learn new folds of terror at Ridley’s hands. From the face hugger’s grab to the very bloody chest explosion and on, the dread just kept building. Then the barest of visual hints of the creature and…WTF! THAT DUDES HEAD EXPLODED!! WHERE THOSE TEETH?! I did bite my tongue and tasted blood…In space, no one can hear you scream.

Scarring victim Patrick writes:

My father took me to see The Mouse and his Child when I was five. I do not have good memories of this film. Put simply, it scared the shit out of me. It was also incredibly sad, at least to my five year old mind. By the end of the film, I was mortified. I couldn’t get it out of my mind either. My dad’s only comment afterwards was “Well, that stunk.” 33 years later I managed to find it, in it’s entirety, on youtube and tried watching it. I lasted about ten minutes. It really was that creepy. Here’s the link, if you dare:

Wow. I have never heard of this film (or book, for that matter), but after watching just the opening credits I am already creeped out. The description on Wikipedia makes this sound like a tour de force of horror:

The child mouse proposes staying at the shop to form a family, which the other toys ridicule. After falling from a counter and becoming broken, they are thrown in the trash. Outside, they become enslaved by Manny the Rat, who runs a casino in the city dump and uses broken wind-up toys as his slave labor force. With the aid of a psychic frog, the mice escape and meet various animal characters on a quest of becoming free and independent “self-winding” toys. They rediscover the elephant and seal, who are somewhat broken down, and manage to form a family and destroy the rat empire.

What. The. Hell.

Sounds like a cross between AI and a bad trip I once had… and by bad trip, I mean the time I drove through rural Missouri… yeah, that’s it.

Photo by crowolf
My now-husband and I have been doing this site for over a year now. It’s a true labor of love, since we don’t host any ads, send any spam, or sell any products. I apologize for the spotty lapses in posts, but we both have real jobs and it’s been a busy year. We have a pretty decent, if mostly silent, reader base, and the stats keep going up steadily. Spread the word!

Recent Changes
*added a link checker to keep old posts from breaking.
*added a new stat tracker
*gave the site a facelift
*added a star rating system to posts

We are also slowly expanding into to other realms of creepy subject matter. As a child, I was addicted to tales of Forteana, ghosts, oddities, and mysteries. Since this clearly warped my world view, we will be incorporating more contemporary and non-childhood related subject matter from time to time.

If there is something you would like to share with us, we are always looking for more and diverse content. You can submit your Scars here. Yes, I fixed the form. I had no idea that one of the plugins I was using for the form captcha had ceased to be supported, so that’s gone.

Stats of Interest
Most popular story: Tie- Talking Tina / Evil Muppets
Most Inexplicable Search Term: autocoitus (WTF?)

This image, culled from the excellent blog, My First Fail, reminded my of the single most scarring thing in my childhood, other than accidentally seeing my grandfather naked. Seriously, the man had legs like a bird and a belly like he was 9 months pregnant… eek.

The Exorcist

I read this book at an early age. It was the first book I had the keep in the laundry basket in the hall at night, lest it somehow come to life and get me. This was made worse by the fact we had Showtime (back when cable was new and you had that goofy box with the big dial on the tv) and previews for the film were being shown constantly. All it took was hearing Mercedes McCambridge bellowing in that ad for me to sink into a near catatonic state of terror. Compounding the issue further, I was severely asthmatic as a child (always have been what you might call an “indoor kid”), and the wheezing rattle of demonically-enhanced Regan McNeil reminded of that horrid drowning feeling a real nasty asthma attack brings with it.

I saw a midnight showing of the re-release in the theatre years ago with some friends. They said when the new “crab baby” scene came on I sank in my seat, my eyes tripled in size, and my mouth shrank to something resembling a cat’s anus. I wasn’t ready for that. I literally had to sit in my car for 15 minutes, rocking back and forth like William Hurt in “Alter States” trying to cast the image out of my head so I was steady enough to drive home alone at 3am. I almost crashed my car when I thought the reflection of a street light on the passenger window was THAT FACE from the movie. ARGH! I just had to look at it to get that link! AHHHHHH! *runs around office flapping hands maniacally and shuddering*

I have forced myself to watch it several times, but I still freak out just seeing a screen cap from the film (see above). I dreaded writing this post, knowing I would have to track down images and clips. I seriously tried to muster the courage to hunt for a clip… but I really can’t do it. Google it yourself. Bear in mind, I am not a shrinking violet. I love horror movies. This just hits me at the core of my being.

Oh the humanity. Sure, polyester bell bottom pantsuits were all the rage, but why put a child in flammable clothing that sounds like a viper is chasing them with each step they take?

Or how about the gratuitous use of denim, where denim was never meant to go?

That’s my dad, in a denim 3-piece suit. Yes, I was a Blue Bird. WoHeLo!

Here is a photo of my lil’ sis and me on my CHEETAH, which was the most AWESOME thing ever!! I loved that bike and literally rode it until the wheels fell off. But, dear gods, check out my SHOES. Seriously, Fashion Faux Pas Fairy, what were you thinking?

This isn’t so much my scar as it is my mother’s. My mom (pictured above, with my grandparents in the back ground. She’s going to kill me for publishing that photo.) was the WORST person to watch any remotely sad movie with. She would sob uncontrollably at the drop of a hat at the oddest things. Don’t even ask about the time we saw Bambi in the theater with her. I only have vague memories of Rankin-Bass’ “Here comes Peter Cottontail“, but I remember my mother sitting at the faux-wood formica dining room table, weeping like Kennedy had been assassinated at the scene where Antoine the Caterpillar is left behind. I have been struggling for years to track down this movie and finally found some really crappy youtube footage. Upon review… my mother is insane. But then I knew that already. Embedding is blocked, so here is a link to the video. Abandonment issues start at about the 8:25 mark.