Why are kids allowed to watch horror movies?

I caught a screening at the local AMC Theatres the other day. The showtime was 5:20 PM, and the movie was The Grudge.
It wasn't anything special. Even the original didn't particularly impress me, but that’s beside the point. It has plenty of violence and blood for those who enjoy that sort of thing.
What struck me, however, was the audience. About 90% of the people in the theater were middle schoolers. Based on my own kid at home, I’d guess they were mostly in the 6th to 8th grade range.
I'm a horror fan. I don't mind sitting through Hannibal Holocaust, Ferox, or similar titles, but I don't think kids under 15 belong in these movies. I started watching stuff like Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, zombie flicks, and even Italian horror when I was 16 or 17—not at 10 years old, which is what I saw in the theater. It feels strange that society would ban a soft erotic film but allow a bloody slasher...
You can watch the carnage, but apparently not the sex.
In fact, I was likely the oldest person there. There were maybe 30 of us total, including one mother with a son who looked about 8 or 10. She could have taken him to see Over The Hedge or something similar at the AMC Theatres instead.

I believe these kinds of films can desensitize children to violence. Maybe I'm just being a cranky old man, but I don't like it. I don't know where the exact line should be drawn, but in my view, kids shouldn't be watching this stuff until they are at least 15.

Man... smart move, but they really only care about what suits them.

Gerald Rivera60 said:Hannibal Holocaust

😍

Kids are walking cash registers
that's why they let them in 😬

It’s pretty obvious,
... if they hadn't cleared the theater, it would have just been me and some other couple in their late teens. My mom probably wouldn't have even gone without her boy by her side..
Still, I think it was wrong.

Even back when I was just a kid in elementary school, I was a huge fan of horror movies. For me, watching them was never about being traumatized or feeling like it would incite any kind of violent behavior...
Honestly, horror was just my go-to whenever I needed a quick adrenaline rush or was simply bored out of my mind.
The only movie that actually managed to scare me as a kid was Candyman, even though I’ve seen hundreds of others, including the Friday the 13th series and Freddy Krueger flicks. These days, most modern horror feels pretty lazy—just the same old tired tropes like zombies, The Witch, ghosts, and all that junk...
In my opinion, there's really no point in trying to ban kids from watching horror movies. Even if you could, they'd find a way around it anyway. In this day and age, if you have high-speed internet and know your way around a torrent site—which most kids today definitely do—it's incredibly easy to track down any horror flick and share it with a friend. They'll just stream it together at home...
When it comes to public venues like an AMC Theatres, obviously the owners just want to maximize their profits, whether it's at the theater or a local convenience store. You'll see those signs at the corner store saying "We do not sell tobacco products to anyone under 18," yet I still see kids buying cigarettes all the time. At the end of the day, the shop owner wants that money, plain and simple...

When Round 2 😳 hit theaters, I made the mistake of catching the 6:00 PM showing. Clint was absolutely swarming with kids who felt the need to comment on every single scene. I was easily the oldest person in the entire theater. Should I really have to say how much I wanted to strangle them? Even though the movie itself didn't exactly blow me away, their incessant chatter completely killed whatever atmosphere was left. Ever since that disaster, I only attend the 8:30 PM screenings.

Horror movies aren't meant for children, whether it’s a PG-13 The Grudge or an R-rated Wrong Turn (the latter was particularly disturbing—seriously, what kind of parent takes a five or six-year-old to see a film like that?).

Let people watch whatever they want. At the end of the day, it's on the parents to decide whether or not their kids should be exposed to this stuff! My old man let me watch Night of the Witch and a bunch of other Carpenter Horror movies when I was only eight... if you ask me, kids shouldn't even be looking at this kind of content before they're thirteen or fourteen!!!!!🙂 🙂

...if they actually want to watch something, they'll find a way to guilt their way into it...the reality is we’re living under a child's dictatorship here 😁😁...look at it this way: if a studio sells a movie to a kid, they've basically already sold a ticket to the parent...horror? they'd probably find a way to sell tickets to the devil himself...long live capitalism :-/

Heh, heh, heh... you're really talking nonsense here...🙂 🙂

Gerald Rivera60 said:Hannibal Holocaust

Isn't the title actually Cannibal Holocaust? 😬

I meant Cannibal, just a slip of the tongue.

Jose Miller17 said:...if they really want to see something, they'll find a way to make it happen... the reality is we live under a child's dictatorship... 😁😁 look at it this way: if a studio sells a movie to a kid, they've already sold a ticket to the parent... a horror movie? They’d sell the devil himself if they could... long live capitalism :-/

I agree with the logic, but I don't agree that it's right.

There's also another point... I'm genuinely curious which mother would take her 10-year-old son to see some hardcore adult film? I doubt they'd even be allowed in the theater, regardless of the profit. But they'd happily go to a super violent, bloody flick.
😕

I think we should start by questioning what kind of parent lets a ten or eleven-year-old go to the movies all by themselves without any supervision. Instead of debating why theaters sell horror tickets to kids, we should focus on parental responsibility. If they want to see blood and gore, they can catch it on the nightly news.

Violence seems to be more acceptable than sex, why that is... I haven't the slightest clue...

Look, I’d personally advocate for requiring a parent to accompany a minor—which would essentially mean an extra ticket—just so parents actually know what their kids are watching. It gives them the chance to make an informed call on whether to let a kid head to the theater or not. Plus, in an era where family communication seems to be hitting a standstill, it provides a great opportunity for parents and children to bond together 😁...

I first dove into the world of horror when I was twelve.
My introduction to the genre was
Freddy, Jason, and Friday the 13th.

Gerald Rivera60 said:Yeah, it's Cannibal—just a slip of the tongue.

At this rate, it’ll be a slip of the keyboard next. 😬

Trying to forbid kids from seeing certain things just fuels their curiosity. Honestly, it’s probably better if they learn how to handle
fear within the controlled environment of a Horror movie, rather than being
completely overwhelmed and paralyzed when they encounter their first actual, harmless mishap in real life.

Good grief, even I grew up watching horror movies: The Pack, The Thing, Alien, and some sci-fi horrors that even Lawrence Booth2 hasn't heard of. And so what? Sure, I had nightmares, but it was worth it. 😁
Modern horror is just lazy: you take a group of teenagers, throw in some cannibals, crank up the gore and violence, and call it a movie. You end up with something like Hostel. I wonder how many kids actually sat in theaters watching that garbage...
There’s nothing wrong with kids watching horror, but they really need supervision. Someone needs to explain that the monsters and the carnage they see on TV aren't real—it's all just human imagination and none of it actually happens.
It's rare for a child to actually commit a crime because of a horror movie. People always point to that infamous case where two kids watched Child's Play and killed a small child in such a sadistic way, but the method of the killing had nothing to do with the film itself. It was about parents who failed to supervise them or were abusive. But of course, people blame the movies instead.
Then there was that older case where a kid watched Child's Play and attacked a little neighbor with a kitchen knife.

I guess I started watching horror movies when I was about ten, though my grandfather used to let me watch adult films even earlier than that. Honestly, I don't think there's really an issue with that kind of content if parents just sit down and have a real conversation with their kids about what they're seeing, maybe explaining that it’s all just pure fiction and that certain behaviors aren't okay in real life—which I suppose applies to horror movies too 🙂. Man, at the end of the day, good parenting is everything, I guess...
And it seems to me that kids are actually pushed toward violence more by those old Schwarzenegger flicks and other action stars where they basically beat someone up for the whole movie and then just finish them off
.