Why is it so important that the Universal Monsters be rated R?
 

This is something that absolutely baffles me, and I was hoping I could get some explanation. Don't get me wrong, Dracula Untold was a bad movie. But, it seems like alot of people want to blame it's failure, and the presumed failure of the upcoming Universal Monsters franchise, on the PG-13.

Honestly, I think DU failed mainly because the performances were wooden, and they stupidly tried to make Dracula heroic. Would a lot of gore and some boobs have really changed that?

In general I think the outrage of PG-13 horror films is wildly overblown, but I think it's particularly baffling in the case of the Universal Monsters. Their original films were made under the Hayes Code, and would probably get a PG today.

Furthermore, it's clear that no one minds when the monsters are used to appeal to kids. No one minded Hotel Transylvania using the monsters in a children's film.

So, if there's no objection to either PG or R, then why does the rating between them cause a problem?

Honestly, if I ever have kids, I'd love to have a modern Universal Monsters series to introduce them to (along with the originals, of course) that they could handle at the age of 11 or 12.

I'd like to clarify that I'm not bashing the use of these Monsters in R-rated films either. I actually liked Benecio Del Toro's Wolfman. But it certainly isn't the film to draw a new generation of children to these classic Monsters.

Ohhhh I dunno. I'm rather fond of Del Toro's Wolfman *not at all obvious by sig* ::big grin::


But forgive my slowness, I'm rather lost on what you have a problem with. Although I have much to say in the rating of horror/monster movies. Like why is it necessary to have sex in a movie that focuses on death and the abominations of life. To me it just takes away focus and wastes time better used on more gore. Something I loved about 2010 Wolfman, the closest it had to a sex scene was a side boob and it was still rated R. That to me is how a rating is done.

As far as what kids could handle, have you ever considered what many of us were raised on? Apparently the people who rate today's flicks do not. I grew up on Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Beetlejuice, Batman, Underworld (towards my early-mid teens), etc. A lot of that stuff is fairly inappropriate for kids with a rating that allowed us to watch it, but I like to think I turned out just fine.

Personally I think kids do just fine with a little gore. I knew a kid who was like 10 when I was 15 and she could better handle horror movies I at the time never would've considered watching. It depends on the child and how they're raised. If they're shown images that are all sunshine, puppies, and rainbows and taught that the world is a bright beautiful CareBears world, then yeah, they're going to be squeamish, sensitive, pansies. Treating kids with kid gloves won't protect them. The sooner we can introduce them to the real world the better.

The films I mentioned before probably had a PG-13 rating at worst, and most are considered classics to this day. Making a good PG-13 movie successful isn't impossible. But finding writers that can accomplish that is another story. They ham up everything, over sex characters, do jack shit for story, and CGI everything to death, hoping that we're too distracted by the shiny pictures to notice all it's obvious flaws. Today's movie makers (not ALL mind you), consider their audience to be simple cave folk.


In short; a movie's rating is nothing, without good writing.

Let me put it in more general horror terms:

Coraline and ParaNorman were rated PG: Fine, kids like to be scared too.

Saw was rated R: Was a torture porn movie for adults.

Anything that falls between those two ratings: Is selling out for teenagers. (...because apparently teenagers are the only demographic horror movie directors aren't allowed to target...)

I apologize for the double-post, but I'm a little confused on why this was moved. I thought that, since the new Universal Monster movies are "Upcoming," that would be the appropriate section. Could someone clarify?

I personally believe that if a horror movie doesn't require gore, sex, or profanity in order to be effective, scary, and tell the story how it is intended, then I think it should be PG-13. If a movie does have sexual or violent themes that would be undermined if it were PG-13, then, yes, it should be rated R. A lot of monster movies are typically violent, so I feel they should typically be rated R. However, something like Poltergeist or Insidious should be PG-13 because there's no use for gore or sex to tell the story.

**accidental double post**

I think teens like horrorcrux would question the integrity of a horror movie rated PG. It would probably bomb at the box office. The rating is a cue. But IMO especially in an internet-age, the MPAA is an outdated and rarely enforced entity anyway. I was never turned away from a PG-13 or R-rated movie and it's even harder to imagine that is a common practice now.

Is PG horror even a thing?

The original Poltergeist, believe it or not. Steven Spielberg bribed the MPAA to bring it down from an R rating.

I mean modern horror. I knew Poltergeist was PG, but it would be PG-13 if it were released today. That kinda doesn't count since PG-13 didn't exist at the time.

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.