Should parents allow their kids to get scared by (childfriendly) scary movies?? -

[8777BB5]

My girlfriend's nephew's birthday is on Halloween and this year he wants to have a Halloween Movie night to celebrate his fifth birthday. While we were brainstorming ideas I suggested two classics that I liked growing up: The Dr. Seuss Horror film Halloween is Grinch Night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygSEkwRCQPM) and the Don Knotts Horror-Comedy The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. As my girlfriend's brother and his wife are helicopter parents supreme they insisted on prewatching both movies while their son was at my girlfriend's parents over the weekend. This resulted in them calling me up the next day to cuss me out for recommending "two nasty nightmare movies" that were"as scary as the Exorcist." They also told me that they were no longer going to take any movie recommendations from me because "I didn't know what was appropriate for children."

This got me thinking that a lot of parents these days don't want their children to be scared by anything and most modern children's media doesn't have scary content. I remember when i was kid even shows like fucking Dragon Tales had scary monsters that made you want to hide behind the couch. These days most monsters have been defanged and declawed to the point they might as well not be monsters. Even the scares have been eliminated either being products of the protagonist's own imagination or logical explanation.

When parents compare something as harmless as the Ghost and Mr. Chicken (Which I've heard people refer to as The Andy Griffith Show Movie) to the Exorcist, it seems we've gone way to far in protecting our kids from the horrors of the world. (As a postlude the kid's movie night is going to consist of the two Hotel Transylvania Movies)

 

[AnOminous]

I hope they enjoy raising lolcows for children. They sound like lolcows themselves.

 

[The Fool]

kill the parents and sacrifice their virgin child to the dark lord to appease his ever-growing hunger

 

[Dirt McGirt]

I think a lot of horror is actually meant to be something you watch when you're younger. It's a lot easier for them to get sucked in since kids are more gullible and more easily scared. Even if something scares the shit out of you as a kid, it can build character. But from the sounds of these parents, if the kid is even mildly scared by something they'll coddle the fuck out of him and it'll fester and probably end up as some weird fetish when he's older.

 

[Deadpool]

If "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" is as bad as "The Exorcist" then "The Andy Griffith show" must be as bad as "Dirty Harry". Seriously this kid is gonna grow up to be a giant pussy.


Edit: You should try and convince the parents that the band Slipknot is family friendly because it's mentioned in the first "Hotel Transylvania".

 

[AnOminous]

I think a lot of horror is actually meant to be something you watch when you're younger. It's a lot easier for them to get sucked in since kids are more gullible and more easily scared. Even if something scares the shit out of you as a kid, it can build character. But from the sounds of these parents, if the kid is even mildly scared by something they'll coddle the fuck out of him and it'll fester and probably end up as some weird fetish when he's older.

I hope he ends up a gore-watching Fangoria-reading horror autist just to get revenge on them.

 

[The Fool]

I hope he ends up a gore-watching Fangoria-reading horror autist just to get revenge on them.

My parents didn't let me watch Harry Potter and now I'm a full-blown satanist

 

[Dirt McGirt]

I hope he ends up a gore-watching Fangoria-reading horror autist just to get revenge on them.

If his parents are as helicopter-y as they come off, I'd place my bet closer to an even edgier 2 bit Shadman ripoff.

 

[Hatoful Dandy]

With the proper supervision, yes. I watched the Harry Potter movies with my nieces when they were young and they survived some of the darker bits in the later movies.

They turned out alright

 

[Lunete]

I'm guessing they never saw Goosebumps, Are you Afraid of the Dark, or Courage the Cowardly Dog?

 

[Kari Kamiya]

That child is doomed if he's not allowed to watch Don Bluth's earliest films or even a fucking Disney movie (the older films of which have more frightening images than Halloween is Grinch Night).

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

This is how cartoon spergs are born.

 

[m0rnutz]

Your girlfriend's family sounds like they think Pokemon is black magic and they don't allow any TVs or radios in the house.

 

[gumboman]

my dad would make me watch scary movies with him n then explain to me how they scary effects.

 

[Slap47]

(Child friendly)

I think kids should be made to watch fucked up and challenging shit so that they grow up into interesting people that can talk about serious topics and banter.

 

[Ido]

It's not like kids are safe watching anything anymore, spiderman and Elsa tier shit still exists, as well as those weird pedo youtube videos that break the algorithm. Letting them be babysat by that is asking for trouble. There are also those weird minion pregnancies, or "pop *insert character here*'s pimples" games.

A few scary movies never hurt, just explain to the little shit that the things in it dont exist and refrain from torture porn.

If you really wanna go light, then idk, scary godmother or the old (new if they still make them) Nickelodeon halloween specials. Hell, even that new goosebumps with Jack black. There's monster house, nightmare before christmas, corpse bride, paranorman, Frankenweenie... though I haven't seen the last two.

 

[Tookie]

Their kids are going to grow up to be pussies who whine about trigger warnings and cry when people say mean things on Twitter. Classic fairy tales were gorefests for a reason, kids need to understand the world is a fucked-up place that doesn't give a shit about their feelings.

 

[(not) y2k compliant]

Kids need to be scared of things. Its normal and healthy to develop fears and it helps enforce what can and can not hurt you along with the opportunity of overcoming a fear. The real difference is is if that fear in to a phobia or not and parental help on overcoming that.
But I suppose I was raised in the old school method of "let the kid burn himself on the camp fire, he wont do it twice" method... I'm sure this is all an attempt for a better method then that.

 

[Optimus Prime]

That kid is either going to listen to his parents and become a pussy...or figure out how to watch horror movies in secret and become a rebel.

Also, I guess a good intro to horror, then would be ParaNorman?

Spoiler: Spoilers for ParaNorman

I mean, the town freaks out about the zombies, but it's eventually revealed that this time, the zombies don't actually want to eat people - they're eternally cursed puritans who killed a psychic girl for being a witch and need Norman's help to lift the curse.

 

[Deadpool]

My dad watched the predator and aliens movies with me as a kid. I loved that shit. People not letting their kids watch stuff like this turns them into gigantic pussies.

My friends kid for example, (who's 10) wasn't able to watch "Mrs. Periguines school for X-Men ripoffs" or whatever it was called because the badguys eating the eyes freaked him out and kept him up all night. Apparently he had nightmares for a couple weeks after, and it's a fucking kids movie.

Meanwhile my other friends kid plays Friday the 13th (and kills a good number of people despite being 5) and his favorite movie is the new version of "It" I swear the kids not afraid of anything.

One of those kids is gonna grow up to be a pussy, and the other will grow up to be a man.