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Speaking of Evil Clowns…
The whole discussion of Stephen King in comments made me think of It and triggered me.
This was linked from at least several places when it first came out about a year ago. But it’s seriously cool enough that even if you saw it then, you won’t mind seeing it again. And if you missed it then, this will be a real treat:
The film was done for promoting Phillips TV and as you will be reminded, won a prize at Cannes. But it’s absolutely riveting for film considering that there’s no dialogue or motion, other than the camera moving through the scene. There’s a really intriguing story being told.
Plus, it’s full of Evil Clowns.
Categories: Uncategorized
Evil clowns
JennOfArk
lytanorman
3 weird sisters 
This is wonderful! I need to send this link to Will. “It” is the only horror movie I ever let him watch that really bothered him. Of course, he wasn’t so traumatized that it prevented him from later dressing as an evil clown for Halloween and scaring the crap out of kids in Beth’s neighborhood. I think he made a little girl cry. (It was a proud moment, what can I say?)
Those ARE the proudest moments, aren’t they? I taught my nephew how to spazz out and gibber like the zombies in 28 Days, and he got in trouble at school for walking down the hall doing it when the class was lined up and walking to the cafeteria.
But right on with all your observations about how some kids can handle things at a younger age than other kids can. My niece watched a show with me about transgendered people having sex changes when she was something like 8 or 9 years old. I knew she was mature enough in terms of her logical and reasoning skills to be fine with it. Probably most kids that age would be if there was an adult there just calmly explaining that it’s just another way that some people are different, and how hard it must be to feel that uncomfortable with your identity. And even some of the science about how a person could have mind that doesn’t match up with their physical gender. For some kids that age, maybe the subject would be too “adult” for them. But for her, it was fine.
our son became enamored of “Nightmare before Christmas” at an early age, 4 or something. We thought the movie was, overall, less disturbing than something more normally thought of as kid’s fare, like Bambi, where the parents are murdered. But at one party where there were a number of other kids of similar age, he, being a good host, offered to put in a video for all to enjoy; several parents were horrified.
We were amused. Societal indoctrination that horror themes are bad for kids, and less than wholesome in general, are widespread and unchallenged. But Stephen King, In danse Macabre, maintains that it is a very important way to process and dilute fears of all kinds.
And to small children, a large, incomprehensible world must seem horrible and scary in so many ways. We kind of think that kids can generally handle and understand pretty much anything you throw at them, if you only treat them as people, rather than TV children from the Brady Bunch.
Of course, that makes us bad parents.
Couldn’t agree more. I think Stephen King says that most people are of the opinion that showing young kids a horror film is soemthing akin to rolling a live grenade into a nursery school…Fortunately my son and I have never had this problem. Although we have gotten a lot of raised eyebrows from other parents.
Yeah, well, my oldest cried for two days after watching The Sound of Music. He was terribly upset that Liesl’s boytoy turned out to be a bad ol’ Nazi.
That said, they’re big enough now where I am enjoying watching zombie movies with them.
These conversations reminded me of an A.O Scott piece I read some time back. I remember him saying how much he enjoyed taking his kid to see Sweeney Todd. Here’s a related piece.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/movies/11scot.html