The education of the horror kids, part 1

One of the joys of the parenting experience, at least for me, is introducing my two boys (ages 4 and 11) to classic horror films.

The ambition of my oldest son, Milo, often exceeds his actual tolerance for the creepy. Two years ago, while on vacation, he convinced me that he could handle watching all four consecutive hours of the made for TV miniseries It. In my recollection, it wasn't all that scary, although Tim Curry's portrayal of Pennywise the clown certainly bestowed the movie its few high points. However I had seen the original broadcast through the eyes of a somewhat jaded twenty-something, one who bore no truck with Stephen King's "lame brand of horror." Milo, on the other hand, was a very impressionable nine year old who now, understandably, hates clowns. He didn't sleep for two days. Lois, my wife, certainly let me hear about it, banishing me to his very small guest bed to provide parental comfort. It was a punishment I accepted as suitably appropriate, even though my back ached for almost a week after. Now whenever I suggest showing Milo a new horror movie, she has to bring up the It incident. Fortunately, I can counter with the time she decided to show him Robocop because she didn't remember it being "all that violent." But that's a topic for another post. And yeah, we really are responsible parents.

Over the years, I've found that awareness of a particular child's sensitivies, what he or she can psychologically handle, is a crucial key to judging whether a particular horror film is age appropriate. It should go without saying that there's no way in hell I would show either of my children psyche-scarring movies like The Exorcist, The Shining, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre or any Italian horror film from the last thirty-seven years... yet. There are a number of great horror films, however, with minimal bloodletting that can serve as "training wheels" for those soul-jarring experiences.

When I took Milo to see a 3-D screening of The Creature from the Black Lagoon, he loved it. The literature major/film critic in me was so proud when he made the astute observation that the creature wasn't really a bad guy, but was just defending his home from human invaders. He wasn't all that impressed with the "crappy special effects" of the original King Kong, until I explained to him how ground-breaking they were for the time (and really, up until the 1970s). He still prefers Peter Jackson's remake, but has a soft spot for the original. Julian, my four year old, was drawn to horror imagery at a very early age. While barely a toddler, he would stare at the cover of the Arkham House edition of Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (in this portrayal, Dagon looks very much like the Creature from the Black Lagoon), growling "monster" over and over again. I've recently watched The Mummy, the original starring Boris Karloff, with Julian. He was fascinated with it, but couldn't understand why "the mommy" was the bad guy. He currently loves Casper the Friendly Ghost, vampires, spiders and black cats. Both boys are big fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Hellboy.

As he's growing into puberty, Milo is on the verge of desiring stronger stuff. A few weeks ago, he became obsessed with zombies, mainly from reading video game reviews of Biohazard. I briefly pondered showing him Night of the Living Dead, and tried to find a time where we could watch it unaccompanied by Julian - he's way too young for that kind of terror. That idea was laid to rest when Milo had an apocalyptic nightmare about zombies and begged me not to show him anything featuring zombies. Perhaps, I'll start him out with Val Lewton's I Walked with a Zombie after an appropriate time has passed. There's always next Halloween!

For more reading on this topic, stay tuned. In the meantime, check out this article by New York Times reporter Wendell Jamieson for more "chillers that should scare (not terrorize) the kiddies." For a different perspective, Entertainment Weekly correspondent Christine Spines shares her recollections of being psychicly scarred at a premature age by horror films during the halcyon heydays of the 1970s. Raised by her single mom, who couldn't afford babysitters and was a film buff with liberal ideas of what was appropriate viewing for children, Spines was dragged screaming to theaters, starting with The Exorcist at the age of 5 up until she drew the line after screening The Shining in 1980. Nowadays, I can't say I support exposing kids to such terrors prematurely, but oh, how I longed for such a parent when I was growing up.