You hear it sometimes. Horror movies mess up children. They give them violent tendencies and cause psychological and emotional scars that haunt them forever. I have two words to say about that. Bull. Shit.
I married a woman a little over ten years ago. We were divorced last year. The woman had two children when we met and I tried to raise them as my own. One had Asperger's Syndrome and never quite accepted me. The other became the greatest friend of my life. Her name is India and she's now 15. I spend a couple of days with her this past weekend.
But way back when we first got married, India was five years old. She and her mother and sister came to live with me. In the house of horrors.
My house screams Horror. I have hundreds of DVDs, many of them in the horror genre. Hundreds of books, most of which have lurid, frightening covers. And I was watching horror movies nearly every night at the time.
I almost wrote that I never censored the girls, but that's not true. I would never show a child Cannibal Holocaust, or Nekromantik. Certainly not the transgressive short films of Richard Kern, Nick Zedd, and the rest of the NYC Underground bunch. There were nights when the family got together and had movie parties, and there were nights when they were to stay in their room while the adults watched fare that is too mature for young minds. The vast majority of the nights were for family movies.
Our favorite films to watch were 80's comedies, but I played plenty of horror movies. Slashers, monsters, and ghost stories. I showed the kids the Nightmare on Elm Street series. I showed them the Friday the 13th movies, My Bloody Valentine, Night of the Creeps, Stephen King adaptations.
On one memorable occasion, I had bought a TV. This was back when they were huge things with tubes inside them. The TV came in a huge box and India did what any sensible child would do. She made a fort out of it. She had it in the corner of the living room and she cut a window in it so she could look out or duck during the scary parts. She also made a cross out of cardboard and would hold it out to ward off the cinematic demons. That was awesome.
Some might think that was irresponsible of me. Some might even think it bordered on being criminal. They're entitled to their opinions.
I also took them to horror conventions and to book signings. They loved dressing up at the horror cons. India and one of her best friends won big one year when they dressed as the scary twins from The Shining.
I do think that children can be harmed by watching horror movies. It all depends on how they are raised. I taught my children from the start that none of the violence and horrors depicted on the screen were real. It was made up. For fun. For some of us, it's a good time to see inventive makeup effects or a well-staged screen death. Teach a child to use his or her head; to think rationally. To use their brains as well as their imaginations. Do that and chances are they'll be fine with a lot of horror films. I'm not advocating that you should show pre-teens things like Hostel or the latest Saw movie. Or The Human Centipede. Hell, I don't even want to watch that one.
So I spent time with India last weekend and she appears to have had no psychological damage from the horrors I exposed her to. India is funny and creative and she cares about people. She volunteers in her community, helping the homeless. She is concerned about her future and is in the Upward Bound program. India is voluntarily spending her summer at a university to prepare for college. She plays the ukulele. She is a talented artist. Everyone likes her.
Not only did the horror not damage her, I think India actually benefited from it all. It taught India that life is serious, but it can be fun, too. That instead of thinking of the things in horror movies as foul and corrupt, but the hard work of talented people. People that have a spark in their eyes.
I can't guarantee that showing kids R-Rated horror will not have a negative effect upon them. People are complicated and it's a scary time to be growing up. Some will think, The world is awful enough, why make it worse by exposing children to imaginary horrors? Others, like myself and probably a lot of you, think that the vicarious frights in horror can help children cope in an ever more frightening and intimidating world.
I married a woman a little over ten years ago. We were divorced last year. The woman had two children when we met and I tried to raise them as my own. One had Asperger's Syndrome and never quite accepted me. The other became the greatest friend of my life. Her name is India and she's now 15. I spend a couple of days with her this past weekend.
But way back when we first got married, India was five years old. She and her mother and sister came to live with me. In the house of horrors.
My house screams Horror. I have hundreds of DVDs, many of them in the horror genre. Hundreds of books, most of which have lurid, frightening covers. And I was watching horror movies nearly every night at the time.
I almost wrote that I never censored the girls, but that's not true. I would never show a child Cannibal Holocaust, or Nekromantik. Certainly not the transgressive short films of Richard Kern, Nick Zedd, and the rest of the NYC Underground bunch. There were nights when the family got together and had movie parties, and there were nights when they were to stay in their room while the adults watched fare that is too mature for young minds. The vast majority of the nights were for family movies.
Our favorite films to watch were 80's comedies, but I played plenty of horror movies. Slashers, monsters, and ghost stories. I showed the kids the Nightmare on Elm Street series. I showed them the Friday the 13th movies, My Bloody Valentine, Night of the Creeps, Stephen King adaptations.
On one memorable occasion, I had bought a TV. This was back when they were huge things with tubes inside them. The TV came in a huge box and India did what any sensible child would do. She made a fort out of it. She had it in the corner of the living room and she cut a window in it so she could look out or duck during the scary parts. She also made a cross out of cardboard and would hold it out to ward off the cinematic demons. That was awesome.
Some might think that was irresponsible of me. Some might even think it bordered on being criminal. They're entitled to their opinions.
I also took them to horror conventions and to book signings. They loved dressing up at the horror cons. India and one of her best friends won big one year when they dressed as the scary twins from The Shining.
I do think that children can be harmed by watching horror movies. It all depends on how they are raised. I taught my children from the start that none of the violence and horrors depicted on the screen were real. It was made up. For fun. For some of us, it's a good time to see inventive makeup effects or a well-staged screen death. Teach a child to use his or her head; to think rationally. To use their brains as well as their imaginations. Do that and chances are they'll be fine with a lot of horror films. I'm not advocating that you should show pre-teens things like Hostel or the latest Saw movie. Or The Human Centipede. Hell, I don't even want to watch that one.
So I spent time with India last weekend and she appears to have had no psychological damage from the horrors I exposed her to. India is funny and creative and she cares about people. She volunteers in her community, helping the homeless. She is concerned about her future and is in the Upward Bound program. India is voluntarily spending her summer at a university to prepare for college. She plays the ukulele. She is a talented artist. Everyone likes her.
Not only did the horror not damage her, I think India actually benefited from it all. It taught India that life is serious, but it can be fun, too. That instead of thinking of the things in horror movies as foul and corrupt, but the hard work of talented people. People that have a spark in their eyes.
I can't guarantee that showing kids R-Rated horror will not have a negative effect upon them. People are complicated and it's a scary time to be growing up. Some will think, The world is awful enough, why make it worse by exposing children to imaginary horrors? Others, like myself and probably a lot of you, think that the vicarious frights in horror can help children cope in an ever more frightening and intimidating world.
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