I’ve been meaning to write this for years…
As Halloween descends once more upon us, our 12-year-old son is horse-trading over what horror movies we’re going to let him see this year. This is as much a family tradition as Halloween itself. When we met, my future wife Rachael was a goth and a total horror chick (still is), which was one of the many reasons I fell for her. Courtship for us involved a lot of horror movies; we threw our engagement (costume) party on Halloween, and we’ve been living in a suburban cornucopia of sex and violence ever since. We take the day off and dress up and decorate every year, encouraging trick-or-treaters. We named our son after Vincent Price, and he grew up in a house full of old movie posters, horror-themed action figures, Alice Cooper albums, prop chainsaws, and gothic novels. I swear we did not encourage his interest in the literary and celluloid macabre, but let’s just say the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. He loves our family Halloween almost as much as he loves Christmas, especially the part when we all kick back with a bunch of snacks after the trick-or-treating dies down and binge watch horror movies until our eyes bleed.
I am writing this blog for families that do much the same. Believe it or not, my wife and I are reasonably responsible adults and have therefore had to come up with Halloween movies every year that suit the theme of the evening without being inappropriate to the age and emotional wellbeing of our child. This is harder than it sounds, especially with a demanding junior film critic. (He blogs about monster movies, we’re very proud.) Over the years, we’ve looked up a lot of online parent’s guides, most of which weren’t very helpful. You may have had the same experience. Mostly, these sites either suggest obvious stuff for very young children like the (excellent) Hotel Transylvania franchise, or recommend 18-rated films I’d have problems sharing with a teenager. We have seen such sites, for example, cheerfully advise you show kids An American Werewolf in London (extremely gory, borderline pornographic), and the Alien, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween films, which are all intense, frightening and extremely violent. With the 80s classics, I’d maybe let a 15-year-old see them, but certainly not a child. These things have age ratings for a reason. What I have not seen is a sensible set of suggestions by someone who knows their horror but is also aware that they are the adult in the room. My hope is that by sharing our insights, experience, and recommendations, you might at least learn about a few hidden gems you can share with your kids without the concern that they will one day be explaining them to a psychiatrist.
YOUNG CHILDREN: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING SCOOBY-DOO!
When our son began to take an interest, around the time he started to talk, the gateway to horror was his fascination with dinosaurs. I’m not sure where this came from, but ‘dinosaur’ was one of the first words he spoke. (I think it started with little plastic dinosaurs we gave him as bath toys.) Anyway, one long afternoon I spotted Scooby-Doo! and the Loch Ness Monster on the TV and figured ‘close enough’. Maybe he’d watch this and let me chill for an hour. You know how it is. He was transfixed, not just by the monster but the whole ‘meddlin’ kids’ premise; as was I, suddenly remembering how Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! arriving on TV in 1969 when I was five triggered my lifelong interest in all things gothic. For young kids, Scooby is a great place to start on Halloween. It has all the traditional horror archetypes, but nothing is supernatural in the end, everything is explained. It’s smart and funny, with nothing adult or inappropriate. Only in Mystery Inc. do the gang’s personal relationships become more sophisticated, like the later Harry Potter stories. (Save this one for tweens.) The franchise is vast, so you have multiple different incarnations to explore, from the original TV show (which is charming, atmospheric, and innocuous), the updated What’s New, Scooby-Doo? and Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! to the two live action films (also harmless), the more sophisticated teen drama of Mystery Inc. (Scooby meets Gravity Falls), and 40-odd feature-length animated movies. These films are a fantastic resource: well-made, engaging, gothic but not too scary. You can find a list here. Any will do, and themes vary. Moon Monster Madness is an alien story, as is, unsurprisingly, Alien Invaders; Mask of the Blue Falcon is comic book superhero themed; Cyber Chase is videogame based; Pirates Ahoy! speaks for itself; and Legend of the Phantosaur is a great monster movie and my personal favourite. There are even a couple of WWE ones – WrestleMania Mystery and Curse of the Speed Demon. For the more traditionally gothic archetypes, I’d particularly recommend Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, The Witch’s Ghost, Legend of the Vampire, Where’s My Mummy?, Camp Scare, Music of the Vampire, Frankencreepy, and Scoob! Don’t forget the Cartoon Network Courage the Cowardly Dog series either, if you can find it. These have the same sort of humour and gothic sensibility without being in anyway inappropriate for young children. And like all the best heroes, there’s a team-up: Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog.
With young children, I’d be inclined to stick to animation. There are some good ones, but like Scooby they are never too heavy. The Hotel Transylvania films give us friendly monsters in the vein of The Munsters, and if they go down well try Monster Family (AKA Happy Family) 1 and 2, and if you can track it down the wonderful 1967 Rankin/Bass Mad Monster Party, a stop-motion musical starring Boris Karloff and Phyllis Diller that anticipates Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride, and his remake of Frankenweenie, all of which you should have standing by too. (Look out for the original live action Frankenweenie as well, and Burton’s Vincent – they’re often included on the Nightmare Before Christmas DVD.) Burton’s stuff is a little bit darker, so not for very small children, but by the time they’re seven or eight these are probably OK. (The same goes for Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.) Igor, Monster House, and ParaNorman are good too, as are The Book of Life and Coco. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is also essential. For very young children, there are a couple of older animated shows worth tracking down. Our kid, for example, loved The Trap Door (1980s claymation voiced by the late Willie Rushton) and Will o’ the Wisp (forest fantasy of similar vintage narrated by Kenneth Williams), both of which were released on DVD so try eBay. Look out for the old Cosgrove Hall Count Duckula too, which was basically a goth Dangermouse, and the 70s BBC kid’s show Rentaghost, which was lovely. Finally, I mentioned The Munsters above. It’s easy enough to get the whole series on DVD and there’s also the crazy colour 1966 film Munster Go Home! which is a laugh – about the same level as Hotel Transylvania. The original 1964 Addams Family show is also cheap and easy to get on DVD and a lot of fun, but don’t go near Wednesday or the 90s movies yet. The 2019 Addams Family animated film and its sequel are great Halloween fodder for younger kids though.
INFANT SCHOOL AGE: RETROMANIA
OK, we’re getting more sophisticated now and the parental antennae is going to start quivering. You need to find movies that satisfy the demands of Halloween while still being child-friendly: no swearing, no children under threat, free of anything too violent, not too menacing, no drugs, and with absolutely no nudity or adult content. My principal advice here is to learn to love old movies. You probably do already, and you’ll be doing your children an enormous cultural favour if you get them into classic cinema. Film history is necessarily mind-broadening, with stories that are much less generic, CGI-driven, and laden with product placement than they are today. Younger kids are less critical as well. If they like it, they don’t care how old it is. My son loves Strange New Worlds for example, but he still thinks the original 1960s Star Trek is the best.
For the younger kids, a good starting point is 1950s B-movies. You’ll remember in Halloween when Laurie Strode is babysitting Tommy Doyle and Lindsey Wallace they have a Halloween horror marathon on TV in the background showing films like Forbidden Planet, This Island Earth, and The Thing from Another World. Post-war American kids grew up on this tradition, which we are now following. And we can show our kids the same movies. As my boy was still a dinosaur nut, we started out with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the original 1956 Godzilla, King of the Monsters! I have an old friend who loves these things and has a big collection, but they turn up pretty regularly on Film 4, the Horror and Sci-Fi Channels, TCM, and Talking Pictures so keep your eye out and record anything that looks interesting. There’s a lot of crossovers with sci-fi and fantasy here, as well as monster and kaiju movies, but I think you’ll find these’ll work. The sci-fi films, for instance, invariably use the ‘overcoming the monster’ story archetype so aren’t much different to the horror films but are somehow less disturbing for being science fiction. They tend to have U and PG certificates too. There are too many of these films to list, but classic 50s sci-fi shockers include: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Them!, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Tarantula, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Earth vs. The Spider, The War of the Worlds, Invasion of the Saucer Men, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, 20 Million Miles to Earth, It Came from Beneath the Sea, It Came from Outer Space, and The Blob. I’m sure you know the sort of thing. Many of these films are now out of copyright and can be scored in cheap DVD boxsets, though be aware of quality. A fancy restored version is always the better bet. Again, try eBay and Amazon marketplace. Raid the car boot sales in the summer and stockpile. You could even try a couple of those wacky Edward D. Wood Jr. movies like Plan 9 From Outer Space and Bride of the Monster.
Leading on from the above, we got a lot of milage out of Ray Harryhausen stop-motion fantasy and monster movies. In addition to those listed above, there are his fantasy films The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The 3 Worlds of Gulliver, Jason and the Argonauts, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, and Clash of the Titans (though there’s very brief nudity in this last one – it’s the togas!). Then there’s his H.G. Wells adaptation First Men in the Moon, and two awesome dinosaur movies: One Million Years B.C., and The Valley of Gwangi, a ‘lost world’ western. See also the British film Jack the Giant Killer (1962) which isn’t Harryhausen but might as well be, and Gorgo (1961), the British Godzilla (later ripped off by Jaws 3-D). And don’t forget the original King Kong either, by Harryhausen’s mentor Willis O’Brien.
Going back to Japanese kaiju movies, these are all safe for children. They’re mostly just actors in monster suits fighting each other and stomping on intricate models of Tokyo landmarks. The 1960s films are particularly colourful and action packed, most notably: Son of Godzilla, Ghidorah: The Three-Headed Monster, Destroy All Monsters, Ebirah: Horror of the Deep, King Kong vs. Godzilla, Mothra, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, and All Monsters Attack. Only the original Godzilla is remotely heavy, being an allegory of the atomic bombing of Japan so it feels more like a war film. Kids interested in contemporary ‘MonsterVerse’ movies like Skull Island but who aren’t really old enough to watch them might enjoy these as a kind of apprenticeship. The 21st century Japanese Godzilla movies are also child friendly except for Godzilla: Final Wars which has some pretty gory special effects when the aliens shed their human bodies. The Gamera films are a laugh too, and always centred on child protagonists. Godzilla films are much the same as the Rocky movies: a new challenger emerges – Rodan, Megalon, Hedorah, whatever – who kicks the crap out of Godzilla in the second act before he triumphs in the return bout in the climax.
NB. In this period, we did sneak in Ghostbusters (all of them), Casper, Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, Dark Shadows and Edward Scissorhands, The Burbs, Young Frankenstein, Gremlins, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Little Shop of Horrors, and Carry on Screaming because they’re too funny to be taken seriously, violence is minimal and slapstick, and any adult humour went right over Vincent’s head anyway. As Kenneth Williams always said, ‘Whenever I see innuendo in a script, I whip it out immediately!’ The Witches (1990) – the original Roald Dahl movie starring Angelica Houston – went down well around then too, but not Hocus Pocus. I’m aware a lot of folk view this Disney movie with great affection, but we all hated it.
As I recall, our son moved from 50s sci-fi and monster movies into the Universal horror films of the 30s and 40s, which was something of a threshold through which to enter true gothic cinema. I acquired a boxset of the major titles (a Father’s Day present if I remember rightly) and we worked through them one year: Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolfman, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, The Creature from the Black Lagoon… The only one we got hung up on was Bride of Frankenstein because that had a 15 certificate, and my wife was not shifting on that. As a card-carrying academic expert on the gothic, I have no idea why Bride is considered heavier than the other films. (We let Vincent watch it the following year anyway.) These are old movies, but they carry the essence of gothic film and literature and influenced everything that followed in the genre. Though shocking in their day, they are completely tame by modern standards. If these are a hit, there are also sequels to track down such as Dracula’s Daughter, The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Mummy’s Tomb, and even Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. These also preface Stephen Summers’ Mummy franchise and Van Helsing, which should be OK for your kids once they’re about 12. Obviously, there are also other gothic films from this period out of different studios that are also safe for kids nowadays (much like the 1950s monster movies), for example the Jacques Tourneur/Val Lewton RKO classics I Walked with a Zombie and Cat People; MGM’s The Picture of Dorian Gray; and Paramount’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Island of Lost Souls. If your kid likes the latter movie, the 1977 Island of Doctor Moreau – same story, H.G. Wells – is safe, as is the 1996 remake with Marlon Brando, although everyone except me hates that one. The 1960 Time Machine might go down well too. I’d also recommend the 1945 Ealing portmanteau horror film Dead of Night – the cut class British accents are wonderful. As ever, shop around and see what you can find.
JUNIOR SCHOOL: FROM DRACULA TO GOOSEBUMPS
When Vincent was about 10, we started thinking about early Hammer films and other stuff from that era to follow the Universal monsters. Kolchak: The Nightstalker worked well as a transition. This was an early 70s US TV show that had a massive influence on The X-Files in which a failed, slightly seedy but brilliant investigative reporter tells us about paranormal cases he investigated that no newspaper would ever print. I have a DVD of the complete series plus the two pilot movies. It’s a certificate 12, but as IMDB notes, there’s no sex and nudity, no profanity, and the violence is ‘mild’. It’s about as scary as Dr Who was in the 70s. Similarly, I broke out the BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas around the same time, the Lawrence Gordon Clark adaptions of M.R. James stories from the early 70s that scarred me for life but are now quite tame, much like those Universal monsters. I particularly recommend his version of Dickens’ ‘The Signalman’. (Do not, however, go to the modern versions by Mark Gatiss as these are far too disturbing for children.) These are good entry-level literary ghost stories but watch a couple first just in case. They could still cause a few nightmares. Avoid The Ash Tree though; there’s a nasty torture scene. We also got into the original Twilight Zone TV series and The Outer Limits. Again, the age of these saves them from being too scary, but the stories remain short-sharp shockers with a dark twist at the end. A big leap for us was the 1979 Salem’s Lot miniseries which scared a lot of kids when it came out. I can’t remember why Rachael and I decided this was OK for a 10-year-old, probably because we’d both seen it on TV as children ourselves. Vincent loved this, but I did wince when it became obvious two secondary characters were having an extramarital affair.
Going back to Hammer, you have to be careful. Stick to the early films, before they became salacious. Generally speaking, if a kid can handle Karloff and Lugosi, they’ll be ready for Lee and Cushing a year or so later. My son loved the Hammer Quatermass films – again, very Dr Who – and all the Hammer Frankenstein films up to and including Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) are safe for older kids as gothic costume dramas. The violence is largely offscreen and the romance is tasteful. The first Dracula is equally OK, but as vampires are all about sex the sequels are problematic. (We’ve not let Vincent see these yet.) Similarly, Curse of the Werewolf is a 12 and should be saved for then, though you can trust films like The Mummy, The Reptile, The Devil Rides Out – if you don’t object to occult stories –and Plague of the Zombies. Don’t go near the late-60s and early-70s Hammer films like Countess Dracula, Twins of Evil, Lust for a Vampire, and Circus of Horrors. These are all 15s and 18s, adult and violent. And if 60s Hammer is fine with your child, then they can also see the American International ‘Poe Cycle’ films starring Vincent Price like The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven (a comedy anyway), Tomb of Ligeia, and The Masque of the Red Death. (Avoid the later Price movies from the 70s though, such as Theatre of Blood, Madhouse, The Abominable Dr. Phibes etc as these are far too bloody. I wouldn’t risk these until the mid-teens.) Then there are the other Price classics, The Fly and The House on Haunted Hill. These are fine and a lot of fun. And as we’d now got this far, we figured the 90s Addams Family movies were alright as well and, when it dropped, Wednesday. Nothing too heavy in these, and while Gomez and Morticia are very into each other, it’s not anymore explicit than in the original TV show.
Another important transitional step was Goosebumps – the books, the films, and the original TV series, though the latter is quite hard to find. The films are great, even the sequel, and reminded me of some older teen horror adventure films that also went down well, most notably Goonies and The Monster Squad. You may well remember these from your childhood. The Monster Squad was a bit fiddly to find but Goonies DVDs are ten a penny. In the evermore demanding quest for new Halloween movies I also forked out a tenner for Something Wicked This Way Comes, which I remembered being pretty good though not great for arachnophobes, which we could only order from the US, and The Twilight Zone movie. Vincent liked The Twilight Zone but like most of us thought the story choices were a bit weak given the source material except for ‘Nightmare at 20,000 Feet’, but he didn’t like Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked at all, which he found rather slow. I’d still recommend it though: a mysterious circus comes to a small US town trying to heal after the Great War bringing a merry-go-round that seems to grant wishes but at a dark cost. We also risked The Omega Man (1971), based on Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend, in which Charlton Heston appears to be the last man on earth after a plague that has left a few zombie-like survivors who’ve formed a weird religious cult. There’s some very fake blood and a few scares, but on the whole, though action-packed this is no more violent than The A-Team by modern standards. Check it out and see what you think.
HIGH SCHOOL: ‘THIS IS MY BOOMSTICK!’
By the pandemic, we were no longer entertaining trick-or-treaters, so the Halloween film sessions became epic, starting mid-morning and running to sometime around midnight. I can’t remember the exact order of things, but in the last couple of years we’ve pushed the boundaries a bit more, with the proviso that there’s still no adult content (beyond a bit of teen angst) and that violence remains moderate. If it’s too much, we turn it off and try something else. (We did this with the prank Halloween ‘documentary’ Ghostwatch for example.) We have started to risk a few modern 15s though, after vetting them in advance – we vetoed Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow because of the violence for example – as well as some older films that were perhaps a bit more challenging than the old Vincent Price/Peter Cushing numbers, such as The Haunting.
Here are some of the movies we’ve let the boy see in the last year or so as he hit high school, which is as far as I’d personally push it with the more recent stuff, by which I mean those 80s horror films that supposedly child-friendly websites are recommending:
Psychomania (1973) – A gang of British motorcycle hooligans led by the son of an enigmatic medium discover you can come back from the dead as an immortal if you die really believing you’ll return. This is a daft movie, but to come back the bikers must kill themselves. The scene is treated comically, but any reference to suicide is questionable. (As I’m an old BSA-riding rocker, my son is familiar with the culture depicted in this movie so found it funny.)
Shock Waves (1977) – Cult low budget movie about underwater Nazi zombies. Atmospheric but terrible script; even Peter Cushing can’t save it. My son thinks this is amazing though, and it was his first old school zombie movie. Although quite bloodless, there are some scary death scenes, and the zombie make-up is eerie. Certainly not for younger children.
The Haunting (1963) – Robert Wise’s famous ghost story. Heavy on the atmosphere, spooky, but not too scary. Intense more than anything. Previously avoided because of depiction of protagonist’s mental illness.
Tales from the Crypt (1972) – An anthology horror film by Hammer’s rival Amicus Productions, based on the EC horror comic of the same name. Vincent was dying to see this, after he saw the earlier (and tamer) Amicus anthology films Dr Terror’s House of Horrors, Torture Garden, and The House That Dripped Blood the previous year. (He wore us down on these!) The first story’s a little grown up, as a wife murders her husband on Christmas Eve. Otherwise, it’s still a good film but the ‘horror’ has dated. I would not, however, advise the 90s Tales from the Crypt TV series until your kid’s 14 or 15. It’s pretty adult and violent.
The Fog (1980) – Early John Carpenter, post Halloween. This is a very tidy ghost story, ominous and atmospheric, but no major violence. NB. Watch out for the hidden body jump scare on the boat; that’s quite scary, but no worse than Ben Gardener’s heads in Jaws. Also, two central characters are shown in bed together after, it is implied, sex.
Poltergeist (1982) – Directed by Tobe Hooper, the brains behind The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and produced by Steven Spielberg. Hooper also directed Salem’s Lot and Vincent loves Spielberg (particularly Jaws and Jurassic Park) so we decided to risk it, agreeing we’d just turn it off if it became too scary. All good aside from the scene in which a paranormal investigator hallucinates tearing his face off in front of a bathroom mirror (bloody Hooper!), which I knew was coming and fast-forwarded through. We have not let him see Poltergeist II yet though, because of the scene in which the possessed father attacks his wife.
The Others (2001) – An intelligent and subtle ghost story, vaguely reminiscent of The Innocents (The Turn of the Screw) which we’re going to watch this Halloween. (We thought The Innocents was a bit too adult before, although an old movie. It implies ghostly lovers are reconnecting through two children.)
Invaders from Mars (1986) – Tobe Hooper’s affectionate remake of the 1953 B-movie of the same name, in which a schoolboy comes to suspect that his parents and teachers might have been taken over by Martian invaders. (A classic Goosebumps plot!) Lots of thrills but perfectly child-friendly. Do not, however, go anywhere near Hooper’s homage to Hammer’s Quatermass films, Lifeforce (made the year before), as that one’s adult and violent.
House (1986) and House 2 (1987) – Light-hearted supernatural adventure stories, the first film being the better of the two. Some nice jump scares but nothing too heavy, all deliberately comedic. These appealed to Vincent as part of a notable 1980s horror franchise that he could actually see, and because the first film was directed by Steve Miner who also made Friday the 13th Parts 2 and 3.
The Lost Boys (1987) – Previously vetoed by Mum because it is implied that Michael and Star sleep together. Turned out to be a pretty innocuous scene. Vincent’s dying to see Fright Night too but that’s not happening yet.
Army of Darkness (1992) – The theatrical cut is fine. This is more Jason and the Argonauts than Evil Dead, though there’s some innuendo in the ‘director’s cut’ so avoid that. When I was too ill to attend a Bruce Campbell book signing in London a few years back, Rachael and Vincent went instead and got The King to sign my original Evil Dead VHS. This is now a family heirloom.
World War Z (2013) – Brad Pitt’s diet zombie movie: action-packed, big budget, visually stunning, no onscreen gore. It’s completely vanilla, and safe for tweens and young adults as their first modern zombie film.
THIS HALLOWEEN: ‘YOU ARE WHAT THEY EAT!’
This year, our son is 12 and Mum has initiated a new rule that he can now watch Cert 12 movies regardless of what the IMDB parent’s guide says. He has already presented us with his speculative Halloween film list. Most of these we have, but we did have to buy Troll and Ghoulies. The Critters franchise is set to dominate. I reproduce his list here with some additional remarks:
Critters 1, 2, 3, and 4 (1986 – 1992) – No problem with these. 80s comedy horror. Critters are a bit bitey, and the first movie depicts teenage lovers having quite a chaste roll in the hay, otherwise fine for 12. NB. The alien bounty hunters transforming into humans in the first film might bother younger children. Not sure about the 2019 reboot Critters Attack! though. It is a 15 cert, but IMDB lists violence/gore as ‘mild’, with no sex or nudity, profanity, or drug use (not even smoking or drinking). I don’t remember it being too bad, but I might check it again in advance. It’d be fun to let Vincent watch the whole set.
Poltergeist II and III (1986 – 1988) – Yeah. Not as intense as the first film, not very good to be honest, but these do follow the same characters so if you’ve already approved the original Poltergeist these should be fine for 12 and above.
Big Trouble in Little China (1986) – No worries. Basically a gothic kung fu knockabout with Kurt Russell on top form. Funny; comic book violence, no real gore or intense scares. NB. There is a plot device involving trafficking young women though, which you might find too near the knuckle. I’m going to risk it.
It (1990) – TV miniseries not recent movies, which are far too heavy. Like Salem’s Lot, this was scary in its day but has now dated. No adult material, not very gory. The worst part is when Georgie gets dragged into the sewer in the opening scene.
The Blair Witch Project (1999) – In the ‘possible’ camp. I’m going to watch it again. Not at all violent, but emotionally intense. I might let it through as my kid’s very interested in guerilla filmmaking and this is a classic example. I’ll see what Rachael thinks.
Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988) – Not a chance! Far too violent. 15 and over I’d say.
Night of the Comet (1984) – Yeah. Steals premise of Day of the Triffids and maybe The Omega Man. A small group of teens survive an apocalypse which has left a few homicidal mutant survivors. Early starring role for Robert Beltran of Star Trek: Voyager. Nothing heavy, kind of The Breakfast Club meets The Purge.
Ghoulies I and II (1985–1987) – Critters/Gremlins knock-off. Vincent is well into seeing these for similar reasons to House a year or two back. If I saw them in the 80s, they did not leave an impression. We are trusting the IMDB parent’s guides on these, which sound pretty innocuous, though we vetoed The Gate (1987), which has a similar premise but apparently contains a lot of homophobic and sexist dialogue. No thanks.
Troll (1986) – As above. I really don’t remember this but sounds OK on IMDB. As with Ghoulies, cheap on eBay. I’ll let you know…
Munchies (1987) – Similar to Ghoulies, apparently. Looks dreadful. Fortunately, not easily available so we’ll let that pass. I’m not paying twenty quid to order a second-hand copy from Germany!
The Frighteners (1996) – Hard pass. Too scary. Give it a couple of years.
Curse of the Werewolf (1961) – We’d held off on this one, but it’s a 12 and rules is rules. Personally, I don’t think this was any worse than Hammer’s The Curse of Frankenstein.
I’m also thinking about The Innocents (1961) now, and the 1945 Picture of Dorian Gray. These are good introductions to the novels by Henry James and Oscar Wilde. No one else in the family cares, but I’d like to check out Rob Zombie’s Munsters re-make too, which is only a PG so no worries. Moving forward, I think we’re about ready for The Craft, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and the Twilight movies as well. Maybe save these for next year, when we need some new titles to keep up the family tradition. As to the classic 80s slashers and zombies, we’ll save those until the boy turns 15 at least, I think. I’m aware that some parents are OK showing younger kids these things and that’s their business, but I still think that even though old, and almost quaint by modern standards, these films are still far too gory, not to mention full of hormone-fuelled, drug-taking teenagers. As for contemporary horror films, forget it! If it’s under our roof, our kid’s not watching these till he’s 18. They are just too bloody violent. That said, he’s probably already encountered worse in video games and on YouTube. This is not the world I grew up in when Jaws gave me nightmares for weeks.
I’m aware I’ve barely scratched the surface of the horror genre here – and I’m sure I’ve forgotten a bunch of stuff too – but I hope when it comes to Halloween films for your kids I’ve come up with a few useful suggestions. To conclude then, be guided by your own instincts about what your kids can and can’t handle. You know them better than anyone else. Make use of the IMDB parent’s guides too, only do take with a pinch of salt. If an Evangelical sticks their oar in they can make the most harmless movie sound like a pornographic version of Faces of Death. They also make mistakes. The Army of Darkness listing, for example, includes ‘use of the N-word’ though in fact all the hero says is ‘Niktoo,’ a magic word lifted from The Day the Earth Stood Still. A better guide is Common Sense Media – ‘Trusted ratings created with families in mind’ – in which parents and children review material. My wife really rates this as a reliable source. Also, trust the BBFC age ratings on movies, though be aware that older films are often downgraded so do check. Our baseline limits have always been:
- Violence and gore
- Level of menace
- Threats to children
- Adult material
- Drugs and alcohol
- Profanity
To recap, my advice with very young children is to start with the cartoons. Scooby-Doo is brilliant, as are animated movies like Hotel Transylvania, Monster Family, Coco and so forth. These are made for kids and quite safe. The next level up are animations for slightly older children that, while not violent, might be a little more menacing, for example the Tim Burton stop-motion movies, and films like Monster House, Coraline, and ParaNorman. Once your kids have made it a couple of years into infant school these are OK too. Building on the cartoons, my advice is to try old black-and-white sci-fi and monster movies from the 1950s next, films like Them! and It Came From Outer Space, Godzilla films, and anything by Ray Harryhausen. By the time your kids are seven or eight, you should be able to transition from these movies to genuine horror films from the 30s and 40s, most notably around the Universal monsters like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolfman and the rest of that crowd.
By junior school, you should be able to introduce early Hammer films (before the brand became too racy), and Roger Cormon/AIP films like the Vincent Price ‘Poe Cycle’. Like the great BBC 2 Saturday night horror double bills of the 1970s I grew up on, these can be balanced by more modern movies and TV shows such as Goosebumps, Goonies, and The Monster Squad. By high school age, you can become more creative, looking at more modern films and perhaps risking a few of the 15 certificates based on your own assessment of content. In our experience, older movies and TV shows – 70s and 80s – are still a good bet, the effects being nowhere near as extreme as they are in the genre nowadays. Let’s face it, The Walking Dead and American Horror Story would’ve been banned outright by the 1984 Broadcasting Act but now they’re on mainstream television. Finally, we’re not there yet, but I figure by the time our son’s 15 it’ll be time to wheel out some of the classics he’s been dying to see for years like Psycho, Alien, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Child’s Play, Scream, Halloween, Creepshow, Dawn of the Dead, Re-Animator and so on. I look forward very much to sharing these with him, but not yet.
I hope this guide has been of some service. Please like and share if it has – Cheers! Otherwise, I shall leave you all with my best wishes for a very happy Halloween.
Stephen Carver 