Are kids desensitized to Horror Movies

[Adam West]

I was just thinking about this today.

I think I was 13 or 14 and my parents let me stay up one night and watch Carrie on tv (so it was the edited version). I was so scared at the ending scene that I couldn't sleep. I kept waking up thinking a hand was going reach out of the couch and grab me.

My 13 year old watched the tv version and seemed totally unaffected by it. My other son at 6 could watch Jaws and no scare.

I am just wondering if all of the violent video games and things that they see via youtube or even on the movie screen is so different from what we watched and are a bit desensitized to movies that scared the living daylights out of me.

[toys2cool]

I think so,it's the same with my nephews.I mean my brothers and I use to watch all the scary movies in the 80's and although we were never scared...some did give us nightmares...But my little nephews walk in my home and first thing they do is run to the Horror Dvd's and they crack up like if nothing

[kryptosmaster]

Freaking Carrie! Damn movie gave me nightmares for years. My sister still teases me about it. Jaws scared the crap outta me too. I still think twice today about going into a dark pool. I even remember being spooked by the commercial for the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie. I didn't like to be alone in the house when that came on at night. Kids are definitely desensitized. The movies that were scary to us as kids are not very scary today (for the most part). I remember reading that people were terrified of the Karloff Frankenstein movie. Even my Grandma said the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers scared her and she was probably around 30 when that came out.
My 6 year old loves movies like Gremlins, Eight-Legged Freaks while my 13 year-old still covers his face during some movies so it's not all kids but generally I believe the answer is yes.

Rich

[RG]

I was never allowed to see Horror Movies as a kid ... but I got to see all sorts of violent action movies and War pictures. I couldn't see Friday the 13th But it was nothing for my parents to take me to see Platoon (I was 9 years old) so then when I did see horror movies ... they were funny ... not one bit scarry.

I see my 11 year old niece who loves the Saw movies so sadly yeah kids today are way too desensitized

[Hector]

Heck, I know of kids who watch those morbid death videos online, executions, shootings, and all that awful stuff...they don't even blink...horror movies are child's play to them.

I find that both sad and scary.

[Hector]

My dad allowed me to watch horror flicks...heck...we watched them together...lol.

Yes...I used to get scared...but I loved the rush...lol.

[txteach]

I watched the exorcist at 13 and it scared the hell out me. I think you are right about most kids today.

[Hector]

The Exorcist kept me sleeping under the sheets for the next few years after watching it on its first run.

[cjefferys]

Heck, I know of kids who watch those morbid death videos online, executions, shootings, and all that awful stuff...they don't even blink...horror movies are child's play to them.

I find that both sad and scary.

That is very sad and scary. I couldn't even imagine wanting to watch that stuff, and some young people watch them for fun? Real life violence (extreme stuff) makes me sick to the stomach, and I think that should be a normal reaction.

On the other hand, I've always loved horror films, even though they used to scare the crap out of me. But it was fun being scared, plus I knew it was just make believe. I kind of worry about some of the kids growing up today though.

[kryptosmaster]

The Exorcist kept me sleeping under the sheets for the next few years after watching it on its first run.

I refuse to watch that movie. Never seen it, don't plan on ever seeing it.
Same goes for the Omen.

Rich

[Hector]

I refuse to watch that movie. Never seen it, don't plan on ever seeing it.
Same goes for the Omen.

Rich

Well...it was terrifying to me as younger audience viewer.

Now it's rather tame for me (still solid but just not with the same intensity as I remembered as a kid)...especially after seeing all the behind the scenes stuff.

The Omen is not scary at all...but all that rapture anti-Christ stuff is very interesting.

[Hector]

Actually the movie that gave me the most chills ever was a made-for-TV movie...Trilogy of Terror. The third and last installment is still very chilling...Karen Black being terrorized by a little demonic Zuni hunting doll. I find the last installment of Trilogy of Terror scarier than the Exorcist.

That one and Stephen King's IT are by far the scariest made-for-TV horror movies ever made.

[MIB41]

I think alot depends on what kids are exposed to but ultimately I believe they will have a higher tolerance than what we kids of the 60's and 70's had. You have to remember everything that was considered taboo in those days are considered common place today (even by television standards). There are things on TV today that you couldn't have gotten into a theater to see in the 70's without an adult. As a parent I can say that any child can still maintain balance even with that higher threshold. Times may change, but values don't.

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

I dunno. When I was a kid me and my friends watched all sorts of stuff, and other than one kid we weren't bothered by any of it. I think part of it nowadays is that so much attention is put on how things are done that kids watch movies acutely aware that they ARE movies. You never see anything clean; you always go in with a head full of who directed, what their last film was, how much this cost, who did the programming, thirteen different reviews, one of which probably included the ending, and four of which have already listed out the plot holes.... It's not an event, it's a film school essay. Even for younger kids.

It's hard to be scared of something that was dismantled before you got to see it.

Don C.

[mego73]

I was just thinking about this today.

I think I was 13 or 14 and my parents let me stay up one night and watch Carrie on tv (so it was the edited version). I was so scared at the ending scene that I couldn't sleep. I kept waking up thinking a hand was going reach out of the couch and grab me.

My 13 year old watched the tv version and seemed totally unaffected by it. My other son at 6 could watch Jaws and no scare.

I am just wondering if all of the violent video games and things that they see via youtube or even on the movie screen is so different from what we watched and are a bit desensitized to movies that scared the living daylights out of me.

I think it's less to do with desensitization than it has to do with movies copying that same trick out of Carrie again and again. So, your 13 year old has seen variations of that scene that when you were young you saw for the first time.

In other words, your kid expected to see a shock moment when you did not when you first saw it.

Once upon a time, a shock ending was a new and different thing. Now, all horror movies have shock endings. Carrie was one of the first.

Remember, the stuff that made an impression on us in the horror movies of our youth have been worked into so many other movies since that they can't do the same job on your kids.

For me, the movie that ever the the most to me (and still does) is The Exorcist.