Horror films effects on children

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Permalink Reply by Jack Twachtman on September 13, 2007 at 3:56am

Do these movies have an effect on children? Yes, but if you're old enough you probably haven't noticed how difficult it is to get into an R-rated movie these days if you're underage. Your parents can't just buy your ticket and leave you to it anymore. Therefore it is on the parents to determine what is appropriate for their children to see.

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Permalink Reply by Flamekebab on September 13, 2007 at 5:31am

Surely children shouldn't be watching horror movies?

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Permalink Reply by cedorsett on September 15, 2007 at 9:45pm

There are just some people that never learn to distinguish between fantasy and reality. I started watching Horror flicks when I was 10, and they did not make me violent or my friends violent. In fact, am sort of a pacifist after a fashion.

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Permalink Reply by Ryan Painter on September 13, 2007 at 9:08am

i believe that horror films don't effect children. i grew up watching r-rated from the time i was like 5. in my house we had all the movie channels that the cable company provided and my parents didn't monitor what i watched. i think i turned out just fine :). i don't believe i ever had the urge to do something that i saw in a movie that was obviously wrong/impossible. I don't understand this "inability to differentiate between fiction and reality". i think that people attack movies and video games because there is no one else to blame. maybe....just maybe those kids were messed up to begin with.

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Permalink Reply by B Mel on September 14, 2007 at 6:18pm

I think people who don't understand certain aspects of human behavior will look anywhere for an explanation. Growing up - before I was even 10 years old - I was playing games like Duke Nukem, Doom, and Heretic. In Duke Nukem you had to kill alien strippers and do all kinds of crazy fucked up stuff. Same with Doom, running around killing demons and zombies. Here is the difference between new and old generations however.

A lot of us were playing these games with some sort of parental guidance or even a moral compass that we learn through life experience in general. Nowadays you have kids who play these games for 10 hours a day and never talk to their parents at the same time. So if you are devoid of moral understanding AND play video games where you kill people all day... AND don't have any friends and all of your life is this video game. Yes. It will mess you up. But if you are able to see the game for what it is, as a form of entertainment rather than a fucking handbook for how to act, you should be okay.

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Permalink Reply by Thirteen on September 15, 2007 at 11:14pm

who was the parent, the movie or the adult human that let them sit through the movie?

In all due respect to what most people believe, watching somebody do something doesn't mean that you will do it as well. If somebody drank urine from an animal would you do it as well? If you sat a kid to watch the same thing would they later grow up and say, "mmmm cow pee" no of course not. What one person chooses to do out of anger or spite isn't a reflection of something that they had seen. Good parental guiding and id say that nothing that isn't your blood should affect you.

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Permalink Reply by Thirteen on September 16, 2007 at 9:35am

so you agree that if instead of watching Childs Play they saw Jack Ass 2 the movie those kids would have want to drink horse semen?

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Permalink Reply by cedorsett on September 16, 2007 at 10:15am

Our fiction fuels our play. It is possible that in watching a horror film, children would have incorporated horror style games into their play. It is a problem with the children it they did not understand the limits of horseplay and mock violence.

Most children engage some sort horseplay, which teaches them very quickly the limits that can go to before they cause pain and thus end the game. It is important that all children know that all weapons are out of bounds for such play.

This is the natural maturation cycle, and we have to make sure that the children understand the limits of safety.

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Permalink Reply by Thirteen on September 16, 2007 at 10:36am

Usually though there should be a outside force which tells the child, "This is too much, you can kill so and so."

The bad part to this is that there was no outside force to do so. Which again if you replace the movie from a horror flick to something along the lines of Jack Ass would the children have wanted to or have had done the same stuff?

I personally believe that unless the children are that bad, they wouldn't go to those lengths, overall just bad parenting.

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Permalink Reply by Ray on September 16, 2007 at 1:19pm

No, they don't. Kids can be profoundly influenced my movies, but everything comes down to environment . If one of the parents of the two kids in the James Bulger case gave a shit, they wouldn't have killed the two year old.

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer on September 16, 2007 at 2:30pm

When you have a child it's not like placing an order at a restaraunt. It's not like you get a literal half mini me and half mini my spouse. Yes, many parents suck. Some of them are loving but can't see reality in their own world so certaintly not in their child's. It's should not be so easy to blame the child or the parent. As most of you know, the well meaning parents can be the most annoying!

I am guilty. I let my son watch Spirited Away. He loves it but damn he is afraid of shadows now. He still watches the movie and I let him fall asleep with the light on. IS this my warning sign???? What should I do? He also has shaken a stick at me many times and said, " Mommy, I am really really sorry about this, Centrificous totalis!" ( Nice try kid, it doesn't really work....) Am I grooming a Malfoy?

Obvisiously, horror films are made to effect us. If you don't get effected it's a crap film.

Many predators or evil doers are just waiting for a sign. They sit there in their anger and hate and wait for something to push them in the direction of there dark fantasies. Maybe a happy movie or happy person pulls them into something good. Maybe it's too late and the love pushes them out into complete darkness.

It's just not children. How many grown men watched Lolita and found it as the sign that it was ok to romaticise the relationship they have with their step daughter or niece?

When you make a film, you will be talking to the good, the bad and the damged. If it happens to be the straw that broke the camels back for someone. You'll have to find a way to come to terms with that. Now we know that a percentage of our youth can become a real threat to themselves and others. Murderers in fact and it's becoming less and less shocking.

I think it's part of the grieving process to look to blame and it's part of the learning process to go over the facts in brutal truth. I don't care if it's the movies or the parents or a bad gene or chemical exposure. I don't want it to happen anymore. Surely, the answer can't be simply keep them home from the horror movies.

sorry I didn't intend on writing a figgin book here......

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Permalink Reply by B Mel on September 16, 2007 at 4:32pm

I agree Jen, I think everyone has the potential for doing bad things but it's our own personal responsibility to control them. Like you said, evildoers are waiting for a sign. I don't consider myself an evildoer and I'm not waiting for any signs but there have been times when I'm so mad at someone I am shaking and I wish I could just break them in half. Unlike some, I am physically capable of doing this to people but I choose not to because I recognize it is wrong to hurt other people, often times even though they may deserve it. I think it's also important as the parent who is showing their children 'questionable movies' to talk to them about the movie and find out what THEY - the child - may have not understood and educate them on those points.

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