What age for horror flicks?

[Snipe]

I got Alien, Predator and Jaws from the library. I am not sure which one to show my kids, who are two boys the ages of 10 & 8. They are all rated R, which means I am a sinner.

Which flick should I show them? They might have nightmares, but they want to see a horror flick. They are begging me to see this stuff and have been begging for Jaws for over a year. I was thinking of letting them see Alien because I think Jaws might have some skinny dipping. I warned them about foul language, but at this point they already know the words from school anyway.

I have no idea, and this could be a very bad idea, especially for my eight year old. I am going to take him aside and explain to him some of things he should expect to see just so he knows what he is getting into. These films are brutal, at least they were to me when I first saw them.

I was older when Predator came out, so that wasn't so bad, but Jaws gave me nightmares.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Am I a bad daddy? This might not end well.

[xu95]

I love how you don't mind them seeing someone eaten by a shark, but seeing some titties is out of the question.

[Snipe]

I can't even think of showing them the original Halloween, which still creeps me out to this day.

Most creepy film I saw recently was The Orphan (I think that was the name), and I wouldn't let them near that disturbing film. I don't want to let them see crazy demented people, but I may let them see killer sharks and ferocious alien monsters.

[Snipe]

I love how you don't mind them seeing someone eaten by a shark, but seeing some titties is out of the question.

They know what it is about, and they have been begging for the shark killing. It gave me nightmares as a child. I was the youngest of five though and I saw it young. And I don't want to be with my kids watching titties either. They are 8 and 10 for Lord's sake. I should have waited for a few more years. I think this is a bad idea.

[xu95]

My son is seven and can't handle the movies like that. Hell Indiana Jones freaked him out. I would recommend waiting.

[Snipe]

I should have asked for advise earlier, because it is now about movie time. They even have a friend over. I am going to call his mother right now.

[GuyFawkes38]

What a fun age.

That's right around the age most kids see their first naked woman from a movie that seems harmless (like Airplane, for example) but shows some nudity which the parents forgot about.

[Snipe]

Mom gave the ok, and says he has already seen Jaws and Halloween. Boy I hated the film and loved it at the same time. Terrifying for a little kid. I can't wait to see my kids in sheer terror. I am a bad daddy.

[GreatWhiteNorth]

Don't worry Snipe, your kids can take it. Just turn down the volume and give them pretty of snacks.

[Snipe]

What a fun age.

That's right around the age most kids see their first naked woman from a movie that seems harmless (like Airplane, for example) but shows some nudity which the parents forgot about.

I remember watching a movie, I think it was "Hair"(I am not sure). A young woman went skinny dipping, she turned out to be the same woman in the Chevy Chase vacation movies, but she was young then. First woman I ever saw naked, and I still remember it. I was in love with the first woman that whipped off her clothes in front of me and I still admire her to this day for that.

Men are pigs. God bless that young woman.

[GoMuskies]

Isn't life with Snipe as your dad a horror film all of its own?

[GuyFawkes38]

I remember watching a movie, I think it was "Hair"(I am not sure). A young woman went skinny dipping, she turned out to be the same woman in the Chevy Chase vacation movies, but she was young then. First woman I ever saw naked, and I still remember it. I was in love with the first woman that whipped off her clothes in front of me and I still admire her to this day for that.

Men are pigs. God bless that young woman.

Ha. yeah, from the 60's-80's a film could have nudity and still be rated for general audiences. Definitely a loophole which was fixed. So I guess kids might not have this right of passage anymore.

[Snipe]

You have a point Go, they have already attended Glen Beck rallies on the National Mall. At this point, what more harm could come to them?

[X-band '01]

There's nothing wrong with creatures popping out of a guy's stomach. That's not much different than the scene in Temple of Doom (which was PG, if I'm not mistaken) where some dude ripped out a guy's heart. Play Alien (Alicn?) for HRS IV and HRS V.

[waggy]

Anyone seen District 9? That movie is an F'n trip.

[sirthought]

Show them something truly suspenseful like "The Birds" or "The Dead Calm"

[GuyFawkes38]

Sirthought makes a fine point.

No film freaked me out as a kid more than Willy Wonka. Even Mary Poppins was haunting and unsettling.

Comparatively, most action packed horror movies are a ton of fun and perfectly suitable for kids.

[MHettel]

Predator doesnt really fit in to Jaws and Alien.

Another cool one is The Thing. And Escape from NewYork was cool.

Jaws is the scariest, because it's actually possible. Not really, but more so than Alien.

[Snipe]

They didn't really sweat Alien. I guess I will find out tonight if they wake up screaming, but when the Alien burst out of that guys stomach and reared it's ugly head they didn't even seem terrified. Damn kids today.

That was supposed to be quite a moment.

If anything, they were more scared by the draw up and the suspense. They were always wondering when the danger would come. But when it came they were like "Is that it?" Are you kidding me, an alien bursting from the stomach? They don't make kids like they used to.

I guess to many of them are used to blowing people away in realistic video games. I don't own any of those, but I know they do play them at their friends, and they love blowing people away. I weep for the future.

[Snipe]

Sirthought makes a fine point.

No film freaked me out as a kid more than Willy Wonka. Even Mary Poppins was haunting and unsettling.

Comparatively, most action packed horror movies are a ton of fun and perfectly suitable for kids.

Willie Wonka did freak me out too. Crazy stone cold bastard but that fat little girl straight up the tube. I didn't want a thing to do with him.

That move is more about taking acid than appealing to kids.

[JimCoker]

I got my five year old son to attend Jurrasic Park by claiming l was.taking him to the not scary version. We still reference that line

[xudash]

I think you are missing a real opportunity here. If you want them to "experience" a true horror movie, forget all the more current stuff, especially stuff with too much in the way of special effects.

Reach back.

Go for the black and white films. Go for something like the original Wolfman movie, when the crazy prick actually starts growing his wolf hair there right before your eyes on that grainy, crappy picture coming through your now state-of-the-art flat panel.

Go for Boris Karloff (sp) before they asked him to do How the Grinch Stole Christmas. My point is that you don't need a lot of silly special effects and shock scenes for the sake of shock scenes. Some of what I'm suggesting probably was "shock-oriented" for its era, but time has smoothed - not mellowed, but smoothed - these films into some purely frightening scenes.

As for me, I went flying behind the couch somewhere around the age of your sons when the Wolfman went barbershop-calling the first time in the flick. Nasty, grainy, black and white stuff.

[X Factor]

You want to really scare the crap out of your boys? Let them watch the original Psycho with Anthony Perkins.

That was the first horror movie my Dad let me and my brother watch and it had me freaked out big time.

After we watched it, we wanted to play a board game, but the board game was downstairs in the basement. Neither my brother or I wanted to go down their by ourselves to get it so we decided to go get it together. Since he was older I told him to go first. He headed down the stairs and I followed. About the time he got to the bottom of the steps, I turned around, flew back up the stairs, turned off the lights, slammed the door shut, and threw the lock. All I heard was blood curdling screams as my brother scrambled up the steps and started banging on the door!! I finally unlocked the door and took off running. He caught me somewhere in the hallway and started pounding on me until our Dad grabbed him. It was well worth the few punches he landed.

[xudash]

You want to really scare the crap out of your boys? Let them watch the original Psycho with Anthony Perkins.

That was the first horror movie my Dad let me and my brother watch and it had me freaked out big time.

After we watched it, we wanted to play a board game, but the board game was downstairs in the basement. Neither my brother or I wanted to go down their by ourselves to get it so we decided to go get it together. Since he was older I told him to go first. He headed down the stairs and I followed. About the time he got to the bottom of the steps, I turned around, flew back up the stairs, turned off the lights, slammed the door shut, and threw the lock. All I heard was blood curdling screams as my brother scrambled up the steps and started banging on the door!! I finally unlocked the door and took off running. He caught me somewhere in the hallway and started pounding on me until our Dad grabbed him. It was well worth the few punches he landed.

Great story.

Long story short: I was at a weekend party at someone's cabin and that movie came on the Saturday evening of that weekend. For a change of pace, after too many cocktails had already gone down the hatch that day, I decided to not watch it, but simply listen to the audio of it.

That wasn't a good idea. Hitchcock was a genius.

[MCXU]

Snuff films celebrate nudity, power and violence. Not in that order.

Perhaps your kids might enjoy this genre.

[xnatic03]

My daughter is 7. Scary movies don't scare her at all, but she's afraid of silly cartoon chases and stuff like that. She woke up one night on our couch when I was watching Freddy vs. Jason (I think she was maybe 4-5 at the time). She asked what the movie was and wasn't at all scared of it.

[xubrew]

I didn't even realize Jaws was R rated. It's a great movie. As Snipe already referred to, it's great because of the build-up to seeing the shark. I'm not a huge fan of horror/thriller movies, but I do appreciate them to a degree. The best horror films result from the build up moreso than actually seeing the monster. Random bit of Jaws trivia I learned from the DVD. The reason you don't see the shark all that often is because the mechanical shark they were using during filming kept breaking. I think it actually made the movie better.

The movie that creeped me out the most as a kid wasn't even R rated, and really wasn't all that violtent. Poltergeist. That movie scared the crap out of me. I think after that I was ammune. Holloween, the Alien movies, and other various horror movies never bothered me. Poltergeist really did creep me out, though.

I did get a big rush from Psycho, but it was more of a "wow, awesome, didn't see that coming" type of rush at the very end. It didn't creep me out, though. I don't know why Poltergeist did. It's not even all that creepy. It creeped the hell out of me, though.

[American X]

I was thinking of letting them see Alien because I think Jaws might have some skinny dipping.


I love how you don't mind them seeing someone eaten by a shark, but seeing some titties is out of the question.

This coming from the Snipe who derailed a thread into the Weirdest Thread Ever about your kids being comfortable with boobies because they took bathes with their mother.

If you want a horror film, show them 'Inside Job'. It was the fat cat bankers, man. Otherwise, 'Steel Magnolias' is pretty horrific.



That's not much different than the scene in Temple of Doom (which was PG, if I'm not mistaken) where some dude ripped out a guy's heart.

PG-13 was created for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. That dude's name is Mola Ram, archetypal bad mofo.

Coincidentally, this is what Xavier will do to its opponents this season:

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQjjd-jkWmQ2O-9t6lLiDU_tKFHYgJ-yGP2DAe2p2uSWhqGlVcuvw

[nuts4xu]

I don't really watch scary movies. I am more interested in whore flicks than horror flicks.

Giggity.

[xubrew]

As an aside, I don't understand our ratings system.

You have to be seventeen to rent, purchase or attend an R rated movie. Yet, we have a rating hire than that in NC17. So, what's the difference?? If you have to be seventeen to get into R movies, why do we need a hire rating??

Terminator is R. Star Wars is PG. I see no real difference. Perhaps it's the language, but bad language doesn't really stick out with me. If I were a parent maybe it would.

Poltergeist is PG. I find it far more disturbing than many R rated films I've seen.

As was mentioned, Indiana Jones is also PG, I think, yet there is a scene where a guy's heart is extracted and he is then burned alive. There are scenes where children are also whipped and beaten. You don't see anything of the sort in the Terminator movies, or Die Hard, or any other various action flicks that are R rated. I'm not saying I find Indiana Jones imappropriate. I just don't see what the standards are for what does and doesn't get a film rated R.

[MHettel]

You dont have to be 17 to get into an R movie. You can get in if you are with an adult. Like a 15 year old kid could go with a parent. i dont know the specific limits, (like could a 12 year old get in with a 17 year old?)

NC 17 means cannot get in under 17

[Blue Blooded-05]

The worst part about Jaws wasn't the movie...

It was that god awful stone-age Nintendo video game. The only thing Jaws killed in that game was the fun at a sleep over.

Aside from the fact it was a one-player game... The objective was downright baffling. According to my recollection, you sailed around for what seemed like hours killing jellyfish and stingrays and collecting conch shells. When you finally get the chance to shoot at the damn shark they whisked you away to that "bonus round" where you're suddenly dropping cannon balls from a plane into the ocean to kill stingrays (seriously, WTF?!). Apparently a bazillion bullets doesn't officially kill Jaws because when he ran out of power you had to then stab him with the bow of the ship (again, WTF?!)... Miss him and he somehow gets all his power back and the effing game started over!

I don't ever remember beating it but I do remember getting tired of it quickly.

http://www.videogamewisdom.com/pictures/jaws.jpg

[Fred Garvin 2.0]

As an aside, I don't understand our ratings system.

You have to be seventeen to rent, purchase or attend an R rated movie. Yet, we have a rating hire than that in NC17. So, what's the difference?? If you have to be seventeen to get into R movies, why do we need a hire rating??

Terminator is R. Star Wars is PG. I see no real difference. Perhaps it's the language, but bad language doesn't really stick out with me. If I were a parent maybe it would.

Poltergeist is PG. I find it far more disturbing than many R rated films I've seen.

As was mentioned, Indiana Jones is also PG, I think, yet there is a scene where a guy's heart is extracted and he is then burned alive. There are scenes where children are also whipped and beaten. You don't see anything of the sort in the Terminator movies, or Die Hard, or any other various action flicks that are R rated. I'm not saying I find Indiana Jones imappropriate. I just don't see what the standards are for what does and doesn't get a film rated R.

Check out the doc "This film is not yet Rated."

[BandAid]

The movie that freaked the crap out of me when I was little was definitely "The Thing". I remember having to get up and leave the room after they test the blood and the one guys head is walking around on crab legs. For the longest time I refused to watch it. I finally saw it again in college. By that time the special effects were outdated, my imagination had waned, and I was immune to violence on the television, so I actually found it funny. I'm excited to see the remake they have coming out soon.

It's a shame that so many horror movies today are more aptly described as torture movies. Movies like the later Saw films and Hostel aren't really horror at all. Just perverts getting their rocks off.

[Porkopolis]

Check out the doc "This film is not yet Rated."

I second that recommendation. A really eye opening look into the ratings process.

[blobfan]

You dont have to be 17 to get into an R movie. You can get in if you are with an adult. Like a 15 year old kid could go with a parent. i dont know the specific limits, (like could a 12 year old get in with a 17 year old?)

NC 17 means cannot get in under 17

I don't think there's a bottom limit, but there sure as heck should be. I saw 'Paul' earlier this year and a couple of idiots brought in 3 kids under the age of 8. The talked the entire movie because they were bored by the adult theme.

Poltergeist was one of the scariest movies I ever saw. One of the great things about 24-hour television and HD TVs is no more off-hours static. To this day my brother is creeped out by clown dolls.