Tom Jolliffe on the lost art of scaring children witless…
There comes a time in every person’s life when the phrase “in my day” starts to gradually creep its way into your vernacular. The older you get the more common its usage becomes. Well, having crossed the threshold of 30 a couple of years ago, I’ve found myself saying it on a few occasions, and just recently I remembered that “in my day” kids films were often pretty dark and disturbing. Giving young ‘uns nightmares seems to be a thing of the past.
So have modern kids films become more sanitized? A lot of films aimed toward the younger markets are decidedly tame. Pixar at its best has the good sense of introducing themes about life and death and growing up. The beginning of Up for example, which had grown adults in cinemas crying like babies, didn’t shy away from the subject matter of mortality and treated its younger audience with respect by showing it. It was a brave, mature move by Pixar which they’ve done in several other films.
Is it just a case that kids see too many messed up images in real life these days thanks to the press and internet? Gone are the days when you’re closed off to the outside world somewhat. As a kid you’d rarely look at your dad’s newspaper. You might scampishly have a quick peek at Page 3 of The Sun given the chance, but that’s about it. The internet now opens the user up to every possible image imaginable relating to life, sex and death. It’s easy to find something you have a want to look at, and it’s just as easy to stumble across something you don’t want to, whether you’re 9 or 90.
Have kids films simply become tamer to give them a break from this? Or is it that for the very young, animation has taken over, thus quelling the great amount of creature make up we’d see in live action films of the 80’s for example (Legend one good example…more on that later). Can you be as frightened by something animated, over something that is physically there in front of the camera? The make up/prosthetic might not be real but the physical entity is.
For those comfortably into adulthood now, think back to the films that creeped you senseless as a kid. It wasn’t always just by the threat and intent in some of them, but by just pretty Avant-garde imagery, or just plain weirdness. Some characters by virtue of their make-up, actions, or the performer (or all) gave kids many nightmares. Think of the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for example.
Now for me I grew up in the 80’s, perhaps the unquestionable bastion of downright demented kids films. Many films doused with undertone, or injected with creatures created, surely with the intent, to dish out nightmares. How else do you describe the intent behind creating the Skeksi in The Dark Crystal? The look of them, the voices, they terrified me as a child. Staying with Jim Henson, I think of Labyrinth. Now this doesn’t have as much outright frightening imagery, but there’s plenty of grotesqueness in it (not least Dave Bowies bulge). However the film can be read as a tale of a girl with serious mother issues, infatuated with her mother’s lover, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. As an adult you can look at Labyrinth as a messed up tale, positively drenched in psychoanalysis. If you study film you could write a thesis on Labyrinth (I would have, had film been my major, and not a secondary subject). All undertone aside though, the Fireys were pretty frightening too. The look of them, the way they moved, they were extremely creepy.
Back to Legend now, and it features, still, some of the finest creature effects ever committed to film. Now Ridley Scott’s gorgeous fantasy was a misfire in many ways. In particular it never knew what audience it wanted to target. The visuals, the tone and the threat were all quite adult, but the story and much of the dialogue were very childish. What you thus had was a kids film far too terrifying for young audiences. Tim Curry as the Demon is a walking nightmare. A terrifying image, performed with all the intensity and relish of the best adult Horror icons. Every creature in that movie looked grotesque but real too. The make up was so good that the characters almost jumped out of the screen. Meg of the Swamp was also absolutely terrifying. Certainly, they don’t make kids films like Legend any more.
Occasionally kids films had a playful element to them. Time Bandits by Terry Gilliam, a film that aimed much above the little one’s heads, and wasn’t afraid to throw in something as absurd and slightly messed up as (spoiler alert…) blowing the protagonists parents up right at the end of the film. There was a fair amount of dark imagery in it still, played largely comically to nullify too many nightmares.
Many 80’s kids films had moments that stand out. Even singular moments from different films, or one or two characters that just seemed to terrify you for one reason or another, or a creepy creature effect stood out. I remember the giant spider in Krull scaring me witless (and the old man when cloned by a slayer). The Gmork (the wolf) in Neverending Story, or the scene when a horse is being swallowed by a swamp of despair. Indiana Jones has several stand-out moments throughout the series from exploding heads, to melting skulls to hearts being torn out. That said nothing in the first three was as scary as how bad the fourth film was, but that’s a discussion for another day.
It’s hard to pinpoint just which film is the most messed up, but Return To Oz takes some beating. It’s got it all. There’s weirdness, creepiness, scariness. Think of the Wheelers, or the room of severed heads. Even Jack Pumpkinhead, a good guy, was quite frightening at first before you warmed to him. The opening of the film, which sees Dorothy almost getting electric shock therapy is pretty messed up. This is a film that follows one of the ultimate kids films, The Wizard of Oz. Of course much of that looks tame now (except for the flying monkeys…they haunt my dreams), and it’s as saccharine sweet as they come, but the follow up, a film firmly intended for very young audiences, is just so dementedly creepy. It of course owes much of this to the source material (based on an amalgamation of 2 of the original Oz books) but then the artistic license taken by the director and the creature department deliver a lot of scary imagery.
Is this just because I’ve grown up with these films and they’ve burrowed their way into my subconscious? Will kids in 10-20 years reminisce about the kids films of this generation being frightening? I don’t think they will, in part because kids are thicker skinned these days and become far more aware of certain things at a younger age than they did “in my day.” Perhaps the more pertinent question to ask is, are they missing out? Does a bit of downright weirdness and out of the box thinking hurt? Does seeing a creature, crafted and there in camera, as opposed to animated by computer, hurt? Are they being ignored in favour of the tween market?
The Harry Potter films began as pretty tame kid’s films but ended up becoming quite dark teen films. Granted this may have been in concordance with growing with its primary audience. Every 10 year old who first sat gawking at the young Potter, would still be there at 20 years old when the cast had also matured with them. That said, would kids these days find the films of previous generations, even stuff as messed up as Legend, tame?
I look back at a lot of these films, or individual characters/creatures which frightened me as a nipper. I look back in fondness though. Some may have had me hiding behind a cushion at times but they still fascinated me none-the-less. Perhaps for the younger audiences, we’re now in a period of history where political correctness rules. You can’t do this, can’t do that, and you shouldn’t have anything on screen too scary for young children. Are studios playing it safe? Let us know your thoughts. What films terrified you as a kid?
Tom Jolliffe