Are We Becoming A World Of Pus...wellll...Cowards?

Let's be frank: how many of you reading this (out of the 12 of you, yes) are around my age - in their 40s?

Okay, good. Now, of those people, how many of you remember the good old days?

In movies?

You know, back when they weren't afraid to put some of the good stuff in a PG movie?

Alright; you're the ones I want to talk to.

In one of the movie boards I frequent (just choose one, they're all there on my side menu) there's a discussion about scary parts in movies that were NOT rated R. Now, don't go confusing blood and gore and all that with scares, much like Sean Cunningham did. You can have a soul-shattering scare in a film without a drop of blood being shed. In fact, it's scarier when a scene's like that. It's all about what you THINK you've seen, now what you DID see.

Anyway, back to the topic. There were horror movies the likes of Tourist Trap and Magic that, IIRC, were rated PG when they came out and had some pretty horrifying scenes in them.

And that's only two examples, kids. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention all these other PG-rated goodies that fueled many a nightmare:

Jaws (1975)
Grizzly (1976)
Prophecy (1979)
Night of the Living Dead (1968 - and yes, it's unrated, so it qualifies)

That's just the tip of the iceberg, but you get the idea.

But something happened since we were kids, my friends: it seems someone got the bright idea to keep kids from getting scared and to limit the scary things they see to when they get older (say, 20 or so) and then they can go and see a movie without mommy and daddy and have no one to cry to when the people on-screen are doing Lord-Knows-What.

In other words, we are being taught to watch bland films from G to PG, without any of the good stuff we grew up with.

I don't know exactly when it was but I think it was around the same time they stopped showing women's breasts in PG comedies.

But you know what? It didn't work - kids still snuck into R-rated gorefests with some ingenuity or a friend's help, then of course there's the whole thing with video rental and watching stuff online. So they really accomplished nothing; they just prolonged the inevitable by a few nanoseconds.

My feeling on the matter is this: little Billy is not going to be a murderer or sex fiend if he sees a woman's breasts or a scary puppet face in an old PG movie for a few minutes. He will get a shock that will better prepare him for later in life, though. Let's face it: we're all exposed to breasts sooner or later. Might as well get used to it.

And as far as scares go, as the classic (PG-rated, might I add) The Nightmare Before Christmas reminds us, "life's no fun without a good scare". And the more we're used to an occasional scare, the less we're likely to scream like a girl and cower in the corner in a fetal position than someone who's been protected by mommy all their lives. Anyway, it might even lead to a better understanding of and appreciation for just how such scenes are made in movies.

Hey, Eli Roth didn't get that way from watching "Care Bears" all the time, y'know. (or maybe he's a bad example? Oh well....)

I guess the whole point of this post is that just because Hollywood is caving in to whoever they're caving in to and dumbing down "scary" movies so that none of that intrinsic scariness seeps into the PG lot, it doesn't mean that we as a people don't have the right to go to our local video store, rent a few old school movies (like those mentioned above) and just par-tay with some like-minded friends. Fight the power.

Have I been rambling? Yeah? Well, just remember whose blog this is, bucko.

Oh, and you ain't getting out of here without a video. So watch this trailer for The Magic Land Of Mother Goose - a kiddie film directed by none other than the Godfather of Gore - Herschell Gordon Lewis.

And be warned: there's a couple of freaky characters herein - especially after :46.



So there you have it. Pleasant dreams, sucka.

Dope out.

-TGWD

EDITOR'S NOTE - I was notified, after writing this entry, that Magic was , in fact, an "R"-rated film. Which makes sense, I guess, since there are scenes with blood and violence and Ann-Margaret's...talents. But then again, Magic was so horrifically scarring that I was not about to go back and check out its pertinent info, seeing as I might run across a picture of that...that...dummy again.

Well, anyway, there you go.

-TGWD