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Dantes, I think that we agree.
My parents didn't censor my viewing habits... they let me see TX Chainsaw when I was 12, by myself, in a theater, and any movie wanted to rent I could get. I am now a fairly normal fairly productive member of society, still with a large horror film collection.
I have an 11 year old son now and I let him watch horror... I also let him play GTA Vice City. I'm aware of what he's watching, and there are some things he's not allowed to watch (for example, he can watch Dead Alive because it's slapstick, but not Cannibal Holocaust, or Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, not for several years anyway). We started to watch Evil Dead I on Friday and I could tell he got a little unnerved by the pencil in the ankle scene (he said "this won't get any worse than this, right?" and I said "as a matter of fact, this is nothing") so I turned it off and told him maybe next year.
And of course he will watch the movies I told him not to watch anyway,but since I've told him that they might be disturbing, will hopefully not think that they are an example of a good way to live. You are right that it is the parent's job to help them understand the difference between fictional films and the real world.
I referred to the Inquisition and 9/11 not as horror films, but events that were caused by something that someone read and acted upon (the Bible and the Koran). More atrocities have been committed in the name of either of those books than any slasher movie.
Ritualistic, there's a lot of research done by child psychologists that basically proves that watching extreme violence and gore can mess up developing children. People have spent their whole lives researching that subject and it's basically indisputible.
I think the question is: should horror films/books/games be censored because children get messed up watching them? I say no, let the parents do it.
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