Kids And Movie Violence (split from Ferry Injunction topic)

[Toy Ranch]

And yet many who would object to a child watching Pinhead would have that same child worship Christ, with explicit and constant imagery of the crucifixion, which is more gruesome than anything in Hellraiser, die, and rise from the dead to walk again. 

I'm SERIOUSLY NOT trying to start any sort of religious debate.  There is a strict admonition against that at the UMA.  Nor am I saying it's a good idea to take your 4 year old to see Hellraiser.  Obviously there are many other aspects to consider, but the child who grows up looking at a crucifix and eating the transmutated flesh and drinking the transmutated blood maybe isn't going to think a lot about Mike Myers or Jason being such a big hairy deal..  Adults can more easily make the distinction.

[Jscareshock]

I think violence is all relative or point of view.

I was looking through old Life magazines from the 1940s and 1950s and saw many photos of dead people--soldiers killed in war, gangsters shot dead in the street.  One photo showed the corpse of a guy in a diner and the waitress was walking over him to serve drinks to customers who had just witnessed the guy getting shot.
  You don't see pictures like that in any magazine today.

A tornado destroys a town and kills dozens of people--it may seem violent, but it's nature.  It's not good or evil, it just is.

As times change so do people.  In the 1930s kids would be responsible for killing the chicken for Sunday dinner (one reason my Dad never ate chicken as long as I knew him) but you'd never see that today.

[zombiehorror]

I'm a father that loves horror, obviously, I have a going on 3 year old and an 18 month old.  The first horror movie Jo really watched was A&C meet Frankenstein but she's had horror on tv in the background since she was born.  Last year her pick of choice was Ginger Snaps, I let her watch it and she would often want to watch this movie......btw she has yet to turn into a werewolf from watching this.  My wife was appalled at the idea, so no more Ginger Snaps.  To this day she'll ask to watch the girl werewolf movie and I have to tell her no.  There is a point upon which repeated viewing things may start to sink in and a child will notice/wonder more about a subject in a movie.  And again, not so much the horror aspect but the daily life aspect.  There is a lot of talk about PMS in Ginger Snaps and my daughter has yet to ask about it but something like that will quickly change as she starts paying more attention to the (or any) movie.

So, I reverted back to the classics and she's watched Creature (watching Revenge right now), various movies from the Frankenstein series and the Wolfman.  Then one day when we were at Wal-Mart she picked up the Ghostbusters boxset so I went ahead and bought it.  We watched it and that night she had ghosts in her room, the next day I asked her if she wanted to watch Ghostbusters and there was no way in hell she was watching that film.  She absolutely refuses to watch it.  On the other hand we watched 13 Ghosts (original) the other day and was not effected by it.

And then just last week she watched Freddy vs Jason (SciFi edit) and loved it.  I'll let her watch any tv edited horror movie, right now it'll be the only way she'd see half of what's in my collection.  She's always been fascinated by the dvd cover of Unhinged (Should I worry?  LOL) but I won't let her watch it.  Just yesterday she picked Land Of The Dead and we watched that with no ill effects, no zombies shambled across her room last night whatsoever.  Nor did she try to rip the flesh off me or the misses.  I also had the idea of trying a more friendly approach to monsters and bought a dvd set of Teen Wolf (Believe me 2 films I never thought would be in my collection.), she watched them the one time but has never shown interest in reviewing them.  She apparently wants her wolfmen mauling people!  On a related note she kind of watched The Curse of the Werewolf the other day but it just didn't seem like her thing.

We have all our dvds in a big coffee table/trunk with all the kid movies on top of all others and for whatever reason she's been really big as of late with having me take out all the kid flicks and she'll peruse through all of my horror stuff.  We then have this, "No you can't watch that." discussion until we finally agree on a title.

Bottom line they are my and my wife's kids if we want to let them watch it we will regardless of other people's opinions.  I pretty much just draw the line at sex, I'd rather there was no cussing either but I've been known to have a potty mouth myself (Way better now than before kids.) when I'm upset so she's probably going to learn it at home before a movie.  Maybe I should start a cuss jar....Man I could buy tons of monsters with all the dough from that.  I don't fret over the violence because I always tell her and reiterate that it is fake, people can get hurt in real life but movies are fake.

I've also been straight forward with my daughter about death.  Why hide it?  I know a lot of parents do.  Her first experience was a beta fish that died, instead of running out and getting a new one we just told her it died.  The same for our cat, I just told her that Ramses wasn't coming home because he died, end of story......None of that, "We gave him to someone with a big farm where he can chase mice all day." crap.

I can overlook a child watching a horror movie more than I can an idiot that puts a leash on their child!!!

[Toy Ranch]

I can overlook a child watching a horror movie more than I can an idiot that puts a leash on their child!!!

Some kids wander off.  Doesn't matter that you tell them not to.  There are times you have to take your eyes off them for a few seconds and that's enough for some of them.  They aren't trying to run away, they just wander off.  If you have a kid that wanders off a couple times, a leash becomes viable until they learn to stay with you. 

Fortunately, we never had to leash our kid, but a friend had a kid that did that.  Damnedest thing...  we'd be out somewhere, trying to watch him, and he'd just be gone...  5 minutes of shock/horror wondering and then find him again.

Once I was at a 3 level shopping mall and grabbed a little kid who got in a planter box and was trying to look over the rail, 3 floors down.  In order to get up there to see, he could have EASILY gone over.  A few seconds later, a totally freaked parent runs up thanking, apologizing, and swearing they only looked away for a second and the kid was gone. 

[preyer]

not quite sure you didn't mean the leash metaphorically....

anyway, i'm sure i could dredge up some psychobabble about how halloween and even horror movies are beneficial to children as it helps them work out their fears. then i could find some more saying it instills fears into them. ...and i could probably circle around the issue/s forever and not really arrive at any one conclusion that fits all children all the time straight across the board.

used to be that if someone got in a fistfight at work, that was an automatic balance of shift and five day suspension (now it's automatic dismissal). but, had you gotten caught having sex at work, you'd be fired immediately. i never quite understood the theory behind that. and i don't really understand censoring sex (which is really quite lame in most horror movies) when by the time the kid realizes what's happening onscreen has assuredly done his own extraciricular study on the subject on the playground and online. likewise, swearing.

then again, i'm not a parent. just from what i remember of 80's horror, the sex scenes just weren't there like a lot of folk falsely remember. i recall some boobs and kids getting ready to get it on before being skewered, but rarely, if ever, they were killed in the act (maybe in one of the opening shots of 'phantasm'). maybe it's *my* memory that's off on this one? lol.

i also remember several years back my wife sending me out to rent all the freddy movies i could for h'ween so we could show the niece and nephews. and, man, talk about boring! i hadn't realized how lame these flicks really were. scary? hah! it was more laughable than anything else. sure, they were cutting edge... twenty+ years ago. now you see far more gore in the average *cut* version of a sci-fi channel flick.

it's just we live in a backwards, oddly puritanical society where sex is the last frontier.

i'll say it because i think it's true ~ we're more afraid of sex than we are of violence. isn't it bizarre how we're more afraid of a kid seeing a nice rack than we are some character get his head bitten off by a pterodactyl? as far as deriving fear out of the bible, i'd venture to guess you'd get just as many (but definitely a lot more) fears about sex as you would about violence. masturbate and go to hell!

movies didn't create violence any more than it created sex. ours is perhaps the most prudish culture i can think of. what do you expect of a people who attempt to shield their spawn from even the slightest injury by sheathing them in a plastic suit of armour? sorry for the alliteration.

i think what i comes down to is different thesholds of maturity, which is exactly why you can fight, kill and die in war at 18 yet can't drink until 21. on the surface, that sounds unsane, so i have to leave the possibility open that my own thinking is turned around on this one.

the movie what screwed with me as a kid was 'the exorcist.' it was even edited for tv. i watched it without anyone knowing. even worse was the collection of short horror stories 'based on real incidents' that i'd read at night in bed. that absolutely terrified me. and, thus, i couldn't put it down.

i'm not an 'anything goes' kind of person when it comes to censoring for kids, but at the same time i'd consider myself, ah, hmm, hypocritical to cut out some boobs and let pass the guy's exploding head.

[Anton Phibes]

The late Vincent Price, a great guy, once became so concerned about horror films, and the effect they might have on kids watching him, that he considered giving them up.  He stated that he sought out child psychologists, priests, rabbis, social behavior experts, etc to ask their opinions on the topic.  The answers he received from these individuals convinced him he wasn't harming anyone....that it might actually be good for them.  The rest is history.

Yet Price had his own lines he would draw in the sand. There was a film that he starred in called "From a Whisper to a Scream" aka "The Offspring". He was approached with a tame segment of the script, and told it would be in the vein of the classic British anthology films. So he agreed to film the bookend segments of the feature. 

Upon the film's release, Price evidently viewed, or had someone view as his proxy, the finished product.  He was so horrified at the subject matter that he wanted his name stricken from all printed materials and posters..... and condemned the film.  What were the lines he drew for himself?  Not nudity, as the man collected art, where nudity was commonplace.  Not violence, as the man starred in films where it as commonplace.  It was bad taste.

In this film, children are torturous cannibals in the Civil War segment. Also, a man (played by Clu Gallagher) has coitus post mortim with his deceased sister... which results in a demon child erupting from the grave 9 months later. This film is really grotesque, and screams bad taste; with the Vincent Price segments really being the only watchable moments.  It was interesting how Price referred to films of this nature.  He (jokingly or seriously, I don't know) referred to them as "dirty".

When he filmed "House of a 1000 Dolls", he stated on days that he was on set, everything was pretty respectable.  But if he showed up unannounced...everybody was naked.  He also called this overseas version of the film "dirty".  When asked about actually taking drugs for the Tingler, he stated "No, if there's one thing I am a prig about, its that you don't need drugs."  These were his rules for his life, his films, and his art, etc.  Stay away from bad taste.  Now, Price's tastes might differ greatly from somebody like..... Rob Zombie. To each his own.

To me, its bad taste (especially in this day and age) to have (usually women) parading naked bodies that do nothing for the plot or to advance the story in my films or films I am responsible for showing my sons.  I say "in this day and age" because, sadly, pornographic materials are everywhere.  The rule used to be young males were the target audience for horror so lets throw them a bone (no pun intended) and put some boobs or other in the film as a bonus.  I think this can be bypassed in today's world, because if you want sexually explicit materials...you don't have to sneak them into horror films. To me, its just...bad taste.  But that's me.  Everyone  must choose for themselves what they think is acceptable and what is not for them and their family.  Just like Price did.  Just like I do. But you can have a graphic rape scene and never show nudity at all in a film.  Check out "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed".  I hate that scene in that movie.  So did Peter Cushing. It was removed for years presumably at his request before being "restored" for home viewing.  Because he considered it just plain bad taste. Cushing adored children, and never made a stink about any of the violence being perpetrated by his character onscreen.  But he hated that rape scene.

To each his own.

[BlackLagoon]

These are all very interesting. To keep it short, my parents viewed everything 1st then made a desicion. Same thing with music, I was really into heavy metal as a kid, then and now. Up until about the 9th grade my mom literally would read the lyrics on the cassette. or CD...it wasnt funny then, when I came home from Sam Goody and my Slayer tape was in the garbage before I could hear it. But now, I know what she was doing, I understand and appreciate it. And I always had everything other kids had just to put it in perspective..toys, sports, video games etc etc.

As far as sex scenes go...I recently saw the new version of Friday The 13th..I gotta say I almost walked out. There was so much sex that felt like it was "taking up my time" I was actually getting aggrevated.

There may have been a time when it was taboo, so my friends and I would peek around corners at the older brother watching the slasher flick, now Im really unintrested. I went through my phase where I had every Texas Chainsaw, Hellraiser etc etc...if its on, I'll watch...sometimes.

After all that fuss as a kid about wanting to see Leatherface and Freddy, when I finally saw it, it felt like "this is it"?...yeah Halloween is awesome..its iconic. Friday the 13th, I like the early ones.(still wouldnt let a kid watch it until I felt comfortable enough though)...but these over the top movies of just horrible plot, blood for the sake of blood and random sex scenes every 5 seconds to the point where I have to say "am I watching a porn movie??" is just stupid. Im sorry if I offend anyone..its just how I feel.

I'll end it like this, in the most simple and opinionated way I can think of...for kids..of ALL ages. Frankenstein, Dracula, Phantom..the whole Universal gang. Have more taste, class, tact and brilliance in one of their black and white finger nails then almost any modern "horror" films can aspire to have. Thats comming from a child of the 80's

I'll stay old school thank you.

[Anton Phibes]

As far as sex scenes go...I recently saw the new version of Friday The 13th..I gotta say I almost walked out. There was so much sex that felt like it was "taking up my time" I was actually getting aggravated....but these over the top movies of just horrible plot, blood for the sake of blood and random sex scenes every 5 seconds to the point where I have to say "am I watching a porn movie??" is just stupid. Im sorry if I offend anyone..its just how I feel.


I'll end it like this, in the most simple and opinionated way I can think of...for kids..of ALL ages. Frankenstein, Dracula, Phantom..the whole Universal gang. Have more taste, class, tact and brilliance in one of their black and white finger nails then almost any modern "horror" films can aspire to have.

These two statements I couldn't agree with more.  I told my son I wasn't going to let him see the new Friday because I knew they would really lay on the sex. I recently saw a bootleg that a friend of mine took the time to edit for me to see if my suspicions were correct.  the film he brougth me is a jumbled mess, and you cannot even tell who's who or what's going on.  Know why?  Because once you take all all the lewd sexual exploits, there is hardly a movie left.

The Universal Monsters are my favorites and Hammer is a close second. I love me some 50's Sci-Fi monsters too.  Nothing made from the Jason-Michael-Freddy era can compare to them.  I hope one day my kid gets back to the Uni's if I don't keep him confined solely to them right now. 

[BlackLagoon]

These two statements I couldn't agree with more.  I told my son I wasn't going to let him see the new Friday because I knew they would really lay on the sex. I recently saw a bootleg that a friend of mine took the time to edit for me to see if my suspicions were correct.  the film he brougth me is a jumbled mess, and you cannot even tell who's who or what's going on.  Know why?  Because once you take all all the lewd sexual exploits, there is hardly a movie left.

The Universal Monsters are my favorites and Hammer is a close second. I love me some 50's Sci-Fi monsters too.  Nothing made from the Jason-Michael-Freddy era can compare to them.  I hope one day my kid gets back to the Uni's if I don't keep him confined solely to them right now. 

Keep the faith!! It sounds like he's on the right track!!!

[preyer]

for the sake of argument...

movies with bad taste almost invariably have the same level of bad taste in the violence and the sex. that is, zombies ripping the heads off people and eating their brains rarely have a poignant, tender love scene that makes you want to weep in joy over the expression of their love. nah, it's a reason to show some boobs, that's about it.

and that's not quite correct. i'm sure most folk realize there's a link between violence and sex, both being primal instincts. primal instincts are, after all, the reason a movie resonates with a person, eh?

remove the bad taste sex and you still most likely have the bad taste violence. certainly the entire content will be in bad taste, too, so instead of editing, just ditch the whole movie. and let's face it, there's really nothing of artistic merit when it comes to jason, and not much more to freddy. the hellraiser franchise, even if they make it anymore, is pathetic. to remove the sex from these movies because it's gratiutous makes little sense to me as the violence is gratuitous, too.

i'm drawing a blank on actual horror movies that use sex and violence effectively, though one fantasy flick that stands out is 'excalibur.' there's not a sex scene that doesn't serve a purpose. indeed, to edit out the rape of arthur by morgana (sometimes morgana is his sister in some versions!) would make mordred's hatred irrational. the sex is slightly more contextual than graphic, but i could see the edit on that. what i'd find curious, though, is editing that and leaving in the part where a random knight's arm is cut off. edit both or don't edit either, in my opinion.

even television is loosening up when it comes to language. funny, that, as tv has become far more accepting of vulgar language than it has vulgar sex scenes. our culture just doesn't deal with sex very well. violence? no problem. be a teenager who wants to act on their natural urges and you get run through the abdomen with a pole. not a big loss to society, as nine times out of ten the girl is a total slut and the guy a total douche.

in the end all you can do is laugh about it and say, 'frack it.'

[Wicked Lester]

I also agree that it depends on the kid. They are all different as we know. My heyday for monster movies was as a kid in the late 60s and 70s. I loved watching the classics on WGN Creature Features in Chicago. My Ps were strict so I had to be agood kid to stay up till 11 or 12pm depending on when it started. Remember this was back in the day when NOTLD was BANNED in 26 countries because it was so horrible.

 Fast forward to 1987ish. My daughter was a toddler. Weekend night,put her to bed and waited a bit. Popped in a VHS of the 1st Freddy flick. We loved it. 11pm and suddenly my kid is standing in the middle of the living room clutching her soft dolly in a death grip shaking. We asked her if she had a bad dream and she said "Freddy,Freddy,Freddies gonna get meeeeee!!

Unbeknown to us she had crawled outta her crib and was peeking for who knows how long.
Fast forward to when she was around 9. I turned her on to the classics and maybe because they were B/W and actually had a good plot she got bored pretty quick. She was a HUUUUUUUUUUUGE fan of G.I Joe cartoons at this time. So when she hit say 5th 6th grade she was watching stuff like Freddy,Jason ,Mikey Myers , Pinhead ,Leatherface ,Alien etc with us. I never asked her , she asked us if it was ok to watch. I told her if you really want to. Remember this is all fake. If it gets too scary just leave. I also had watched all the stuff beforehand so I knew if there was a sex scene coming up at which point I made her go make popcorn or get some soda. Now if it was just a basic boob shot no big deal. She'd seen mom get outta the shower before. It was only the highly suggestive stuff. By the time she was 12-13 she was watching pretty much anything we did. She volunteerily covered her eyes during any graphic sex scenes,not that my hand wouldn't of covered her eyes. NOTLD viewing? She fell asleep cuz it was lame! huh?

 As for the gore stuff, going back to mid 80s I got hooked on that stuff. My friends quit coming by for movie nite because 90% of the time they knew that 1 of the 2 would be NASTY. Dr Butcher , Driller Killer , Blood Sucking Freaks ,Pieces ,uncut I spit on your grave etc.
 Eventually I got my fill and now my view is I am back to being a Monster Man. Vampires , Werewolves , Giant Spiders , Ghosts. Possessed kids ,Killer Turnips from space,dogs with rugs,er Killer Shrews it's all good OR bad in a good way. Leading to my now view that IMO the world does not need movies like Saw or Hostel or gore for gore sake. I do still watch some of the Brain Damage line just because the gore is so fake and acting so not great that it is basically a parody of itself. Hells Highway with Phoebe Dollar is a bloodsoaked funfest.

Anton
 You are doing a great job with your kid. I wish I had a dad like you back then watching Frankie, Vincent, Lon , Bela ,Peter, Chris Lee and the rest. Just when he gets older and wants to go a level higher , let him judge and make that decision. He sounds like an intelligent kid I'm sure he'll know when to say when.  

Mike

[preyer]

you could argue that the story content of today's movies are no worse than the oldies. murder, rape, unsanity... the difference being that now they show these things. sure, long gone are the charming (apparent) innocence of a 'good' 50's B-movie, but if you think about it, what are a carload of teenagers driving around the desert going to do when they stop somewhere? get a soda? nah, they're going to do what teens go, if you know what i mean. enter an atomic age giant mutant bug of some kind to put a stop to kids before they ruined their souls with sex. 

not that cartoons haven't always been an incredibly violent medium, and you'd have to be an adult to get the sexual undercurrent of some bugs bunny cartoons, but i think we accept that without qualm. it's funny, though, because it's really not the cartoons themselves that are there to suggest a behaviour more than it's the commercials that continually flaunt authority. the ads are the real subversive material here that goes unnoticed. a cop or parent or teacher is a moron out of touch with youth, and to be cool you have to show them the error of their button-down conformist world by using fruit roll-ups as a weapon.

agreed, you have to let the child what's appropriate for their age and maturity level. there's probably a helluva lot more they're seeing that you think, and believe you me, once you separate kids from their parents, nothing shocks them these daze... and they're not afraid to let you know it. i own a convenience store, and i'm more their buddy than an authority figure (usually) so i hear and see a lot of crap from them i *know* they'd not say and do were a parent around.

if you really want to weep for this generation, visit myspace and facebook where they tend to let it all hang out. fortunately, most of them are poseurs postering for effect, but it's still obvious that these pages are resumes advertising their 'coolness.' good gravy, the stuff my own niece has on her myspace makes me want to see if i can legally put her in a tibetian monestary.

kids don't need to watch sex in movies as they've got their own sexual culture you don't know about. maybe not at the six year old level when they're still learning the difference between boys and girls, but it's not far off. more than any movie or tv show, a child's sexuality comes from observation in real life, i think. our culture simply does what it can to repress sex as were it not a normal part of growth.

mark my words, someday that freaky japanese robot will be gender-neutral and teaching kids.

sounds like y'all are doing a good job. i'm just playing devil's advocate here. true, a daughter of mine may change into something slutty on her way to school, but that doesn't mean she's leaving the house that way! for example, personally i don't care if it's the hep thing or not, but writing on a girl's arse is something i'd give a big negatory to ~ girls' butts attract enough attention as it is without advertising! i know friggin' *kids* with tattoos for cripes' sake....