Trauma Box

Once again Tyler and Shawn open up the Trauma Box to investigate one of the great sources of childhood horror: the Ventriloquist Dummy. Is there anything scarier than an evil talking puppet? With 1985's Making Contact, Roland Emmerich (yes - the director of Independence Day) answers that question in a truly chilling fashion: by presenting us with a *German* evil talking puppet. A nightmarish perversion of Spielbergian childhood wonder-terror, Making Contact will haunt you for years to come.

This week, Tyler and Shawn writhe their way through the Trauma Box with Squirm! Jeff Lieberman's proto-Lynchian 1976 horror flick is a puzzling, downbeat musing on Georgian small-town affairs (think spaghetti-swilling sheriffs, worm farms managed by yokels, arch Southern belles, etc) that winds its way heck of a slithery payoff. Your intrepid Trauma Boxers should help this one go down as smooth as an egg cream.

In our inaugural episode, Tyler and Shawn open up the TraumaBox with The Exterminator, James Glickenhaus’s 1980 opus horrificus. This grim viewing prompts us to explore post-’Nam generational trauma, Reagan-era projections of Big Apple deviancy, and our own relationships to depictions of masculinity in the Video Store of yore.