Coraline and ParaNorman are the two obvious examples.

And while they weren't movies, there was the Goosebumps tvshow, and plenty of other Halloween specials for kids.

I was thinking of Coraline, which I've seen probably 50 times because I was obsessed with it when it first came out. I've never seen Paranorman.

Frankenweenie?

I've been rewatching the show on Netflix. Sometimes it gets dark to the extent I wonder how it and the books were for kids. But that's the kind of thing that made my generation, and I'm pretty content with that.

Curious what episode those were. The worst thing I remember was Slappy's implied pedophilia, which was only hinted at.

But, yeah, this goes back to my question: Why is it ok to make scary stuff for kids, and scary stuff for adults-only, but the middle ground is forbidden?

And why are the Universal Monsters not perfect candidates for PG-13 films?

Things that were more psychological rather than visually disturbing. Like in 'Cuckoo Clock of Doom', the kid practically kills his sister. Not directly, but he didn't do anything to fix it. 'Be Careful What you Wish For' the lead character ends up giving her wishes to a girl at school who bullies her, KNOWING that she's going to get screwed over in the end. Another case of indirectly leading to ending a person. 'Calling All Creeps', the lead kid in the end does basically the same thing as my last example, but rather than screwing over one bully, he lets the whole school have it.

Now granted these episodes (Calling All Creeps especially), were some of my favorites. It pushed limits and made you wonder if you'd do the same thing in their situation, even though you know it's wrong. When I was reading 'CAC' I remember loving the ending because I was bullied in school too. I thought those bastards got just what they deserved. But do you really want kids to have those kinds of thoughts?

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And to answer your question, it's to entertain a certain audience. Sex crazed teens driven by Twilight lust only give a shit about one thing. Or at least so the writers think, so that's what they deliver. Sympathetic monsters made overly sexy, with too much angst, bad story, and toned down blood.

Courage the Cowardly Dog also comes to mind. There are lots of episodes with very mature themes or scary scenes. "The Mask" deals with things like disillusionment, domestic abuse, and prostitution while "Curse of King Ramses" contains an really unsettling part early in the episode that would be chilling in any good horror movie. "The Demon in the Mattress" is also a direct parody of The Exorcist, except without any humor....

Ahaha, that's ironic. I actually thought of mentioning Courage but for some reason I couldn't think of an example. HOW COULD I FORGET

This episode is the reason why I could never finish The Mummy (1999) and have a miiiiiild phobia of the fuggers.

I remember reading about how those things were prepared as a kid. Really messed up shit that they actually mentioned in the mummy episode of Goosebumps. Putting a hook up the nose to pull the brain out. Burying them with their own organs in jars and dead cats. And my parents think I'M weird for collecting bones.

Yeah, you're right, but the censors here in America don't really care what we show kids as long as there's no blood or boobs.

True, but this actually leads me into something I've been thinking about a lot lately: Could the problem with the tween/teen demographic be a self-fulfilling prophecy? We seem to really deride anything that's targeted at them, with all the good filmmakers either doing stuff for children or stuff for adults, and so all the products for them are focus-group friendly corporate trash...and then we blame them for liking the only products that are even targeted at them.

Well who's to say teens need to watch things focused to their age group? As I mentioned in an earlier post, I grew up on Jurassic Park and Ghostbusters. I'm fairly certain those weren't directed to any age group I was ever in before this point in my life. So yeah... By buying tickets and merch to these new emo-monster trash, they're only asking for more. So the audience is just as much the problem when you think about it.