Recommendations for Younger Viewers?
 

Hi everyone! New member here. Thought I'd throw out a post to see if I can get some help. I have 3 kids (ages 12, 9, 5), and we've decided to watch horror movies each weekend this month. My youngest spook easy, but my oldest can take some of the scarier stuff. I'm looking for some good suggestions.

We kicked it off with Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein for the little ones followed by Poltergeist. My oldest also watched The Grudge. I'm trying to keep it PG13 and under, but my oldest is probably capable of handling some harder-edged stuff.

I'd really appreciate your suggestions!

Halloween and The Ring are the only ones that I can think of off the top of my head. The older one can probably do Insidious as well, but I can hardly handle it ::big grin::

Halloween may be a little strong for a 5 year old. But you can give it a shot. I was thinking more along the lines of Garfield's Halloween Adventure and The Halloween Tree, if you can find them.

Most of the Universal Monsters films they can handle, I would think...

Thanks! I was thinking about The Ring and I definitely want my oldest to see Insidious - although for selfish reasons. I want to see Insidious Part 2, but feel like I need to re-watch the first one (which I loved).

The younger kids are a bit tougher - I'm trying to think back to the stuff I watched at their age, but I'd like to go a bit beyond the old Universal films and give them something a bit more modern. They handled Poltergeist pretty well (meaning they were only in mom & dad's bed for about an hour afterward).

I saw Halloween at 10 and it gave me nightmares for 20 years. I don't think any of my kids are ready for that one!

Really? Only one part really creeped me out.

Michael Meyers scares the hell out of me. Especially in the first one, but I found him pretty freaky in some of the sequels too. Oddly enough, the only time that I didn't find him scary was in the Rob Zombie movies.

The naked girl? ::big grin::::wink::

I think any of the Hammer films would be ok for the kids

How about The Vampire Lovers? ::smile::

Monster Squad
Gremlins
Tremors
The Ghost and Mr. CHicken::wink::
Paranorman

The Lady in White
Silver Bullet

I think it's important for the 5 year old that the movie's starring kids. So of course.. The Shining. :danger: (I need a devil smiley. I WANT A DEVIL SMILEY!!!)

No -_-

Oh yeah, um, maybe not ::embarrassment::

I heard A Serbian Film is a great family film. What the dad does with his son is so beautiful!

I love you. Also I agree. ::love::

When I was wee, horror staples were the original Psycho and Carnival of Souls. The Birds as well. Of course there are the Universal movies but Hitchcock always stood out to me as horror movies of my childhood.

Hocus Pocus is something my friends loved when they were around 10 or so but I always loved The Witches (which you can couple with the book too!).

In recent years, there's The Hole (find the one without Thora Birch).

Yes! I second the Garfield Halloween special!!


Agree on Gremlins and Paranorman! Frankenweenie was great too. <3

And, dunno about Tremors... That one TERRIFIED me when I was about 8. True story. ::embarrassment::

Welcome to HDC, Ted! If you don't mind we asking, why did you all decide to watch horror movies together with your 5 yr old? Even if you were considering it, guess it would be difficult to exclude your 5 yr old, as they'd likely protest.

Halloween & Tremors are rated R - tremors has about 20 F-bombs, and Halloween has at least 2 nude/sexual scenes, not to mention a graphic murderer. Probably not for a 5 yr old, as you said.

The peeling of flesh off the face with fingers in Poltergeist was pretty horrifying.

If you're 5 yr old is gonna be in the audience, recommend The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1949) (AKA The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad), Coraline, Monsters, Inc., Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), The Nightmare Before Christmas, Frankenweenie, The NeverEnding Story, King Kong 33, MIghty Joe Young, Godzilla Vs The Thing, Monster House, Beast from 20000 Fathoms, 5 Million Years to Earth, Godzilla Vs Monster Zero, The Dark Crystal (1982), Destroy All Monsters, The Thing 1951, The Monster Squad, Under Wraps.

Oh my god, Coraline is one of my all time favorite movies!

YES!! And you should check out the anthology "Disney's Halloween Treat!"

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney's_Halloween_Treat

Ditto & ditto on Coraline as well... Plus you can couple it with the book!

I've read the novel 5 times, and I've seen the movie 57 times.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions everyone! And you called it completey - my 5 year old wants to watch whatever her older brothers are watching. So the plan is start with something that's suitable for younger ages and then move on to something a tad scarier after she conks out (inevitable).

I completely forgot about Something Wicked This Way Comes - I remember getting to watch in Jr. High School and I remember really enjoying it as a kid. I think that one might be on the menu for this weekend!

I think movies with a humorous undertone and cheap special effects are good to get into horror.
The humor makes the overal experience less scary and cheap special effects make it easier to watch.
Horror comedies are one of the things that got me into horror.

-Addams Family
No explanation needed.

-Army Of Darkness
What young boy doesn't like a hero with a shotgun and a chainsaw?

-Fido
In a world where zombies are domesticated, a lonely kid befriends a zombie and treats him like a pet.

-Jack Snow: The Killer Snowman
More silly than scary. There's a bit of a rape scene but I don't think kids will even know what's going on. It's on Youtube if you want to check it out first.

If you're not too sure about a movie, you can always check out the movie's page on IMDB and read "Parents Guide: View content advisory".
There's info on each one of the different categories:
Sex and Nudity, Violence and Gore, Profanity, Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking, and Frightening/Intense Scenes.

Under the age of 10 my favorites were:

The Black & White Universal Monsters:
Frankenstein
Dracula
The Wolf Man
Creature From The Black Lagoon
The Mummy

Followed by anything with King Kong or Godzilla

Others that stand out:
The Blob (1958)
Garfield's Halloween Adventure
It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown
The Monster Squad
Trick Or Treat (1986) [My brother had me hooked on Ozzy Osbourne by the age of 6]

I saw some Slashers & Stuff occasionally because my brother was 10 years older than me. I had seen the occasional Halloween, Friday The 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, etc. but my favorites at that age were really anything with "Monsters".

These are really good horror & horror-esque, films not directly inappropriate for 5 yr olds, and entertaining to any age: Day of the Triffids, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Mysterious Island, Incredible Shrinking Man, Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), The Fly 58.

I just finished reading 20k Leagues Under the Sea. I really enjoyed it. I haven't seen the movie yet.

My parents used to do this with my sisters and I when we were kids. As such, I grew up on horror movies. Halloween was always my favorite. Its one of the first films I saw as a child.

The older black and white classics are great. Theyre not too violent and theres no sex/nudity. Frankenstein is still to this day one of my favorites, as is 13 Ghosts (that opening theme with the screaming ghouls!). Incidentally, the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz has a role in 13 Ghosts.

Has anyone mentioned Beetlejuice yet? Because, well, Beetlejuice.

Speaking of Wizard of Oz, there is also Return to Oz which is definitely spooky.

I was thinking of Return to Oz.

Can't touch the book. But the film is pretty good.

Halloween is one of the first films you ever saw? (Even counting for films shown on TV/Cable?) Not Snow White, Wizard of Oz, Veggie Tales the Movie or The Muppet Movie? What do you think were the other first films?

You're the first to mention Beetlejuice, that's a good one.

When I was a kid I used to love Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Watcher in the Woods. Both kid-appropriate (no cussing, nudity or intense violence), but IMO both pretty scary. Of course, also Poltergeist, but you already watched that.

Read this article on Nerdist and thought you guys would enjoy it:

NIGHTY-NIGHT, KIDS! TEN CHILDREN’S MOVIES THAT SCARED US SILLY

http://www.nerdist.com/2014/10/night...ared-us-silly/

Raggedy Ann & Andy a musical adventure looks trippy cool. Watched a little of the 5/9, poor guy Greedy needed a sweetheart and the Raggedys just dump him. Usually the hero's help folk along their way. ::big grin::
I got to checkout Watcher in the Woods. I think I've confused it with similar titles.

Under The Bed

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1934458/


Haunter

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2345567/

Love it! Great article. I forgot Raggedy Anne and Andy was actually freaky.

For the younger ones I usually like to show then Monster Squad, Monster House, the Thriller music video, Mad Monster House (which bores half and the other half love), as for a little older I like to show Beetlejuice, Gremlins, The Lost Boys, Arachnophobia, and plenty more that are escaping me. Oh, the seasons greeting animated short that inspired Trick R' Treat is great and The Halloween Tree is fun too.

Oh my god, fuck Monster House. That gave me nightmares for months.

Update - so the kids watched [B]Something Wicked This Way Comes[B] and the old Disney Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which they loved. Completely forgot about the tarantula scene in Something Wicked...freaked us all out.

My oldest and I watched Insidious later in the evening. He was mad that I fell asleep in my chair and he was left watching it by himself. He liked it.

Not sure what's next - our library has some of the Universal classics, so I may pick up one or two of those. And move on to Insidious part 2 of course...

If he liked Insidious, then he has to watch The Ring.

Absolutely - it's on my list too. I think he'd like that one. I think he also started to watch The Grudge, but didn't finish it. I've never seen Ju-on, but I've heard it to be superior and I think I can stream it on either Netflix or Amazon.