Killing Kids In Movies (Possible Spoilers of Movies Discussed)

What's your take on it? Is it a cheap shot? Should it be done more or less frequently?

Clearly, there is a taboo against it. Movies that show people getting torn up go out of their way to hide showing the kid murdered(ie The Mist). Sometimes kids survive situations they'd never realistically survive, likely cause the decision to kill them would be unpopular. Famous examples of kids being killed in movies handle the death very discreetly by not showing a body/moment of death(Pay it Forward) or show a body fairly quickly and discreetly(My Girl). Horror movies and war movies might be an exception, but even with the latter, child deaths are often reserved for characters the audience hasn't really gotten personally attached to.

Television shows can sometimes be different, typically cop shows. They'll often have a child victim and often show the death/body to some extent. But even they handle it much more discreetly than they would adult victims. An example is Criminal Minds, who can get quite graphic with it's kills but most often gives only fleeting shots of a child victim.

Now I understand that this could be in part to the kids not being able to handle the material, although I am not convinced that this is the case in all situations.

The idea that people don't want to see children die/dead is often forwarded as an explanation. Nobody sane does. But I'd hope we wouldn't want to see anybody, child or not, dead either. This is fiction, and often showing a scene helps to give the full extent of the horror of a situation. Sometimes making people uncomfortable is the intention, afterall, with something so heinous, shouldn't you be uncomfortable?

So anyway, what do you think? Is killing kids in movies(or fiction in general) a cheap shot? Give thoughts on it and I'll chime in with more later.

Not necessarily. Take the two When a Stranger Calls movies, in the original, the kids are killed, we never see them dead, we never see anything, but we know this man killed them and he did it with his bare hands and it was so bad, the people at the funeral parlor spent 6 days just making them recognizable for an ID. And the original movie has gone down in history as being one of the scariest ones made, of course that's even without knowing the kids are dead, but in that movie, the threat to the babysitter who now has children, is very real, it's very imminent.

In the remake however, the kids survive and we can already tell this from the TV spots for it so immediately half the potential scare factor has gone out the window.

Then, take the remake of The Blob from 1988, the boy Eddie is killed, and they show what the acid has done to him in that split second before the Blob pulls him under again, and it's frightening as hell, and by killing Eddie, they show that this thing really is a heartless creature, it's not like other movie villains and murderers with a sense of right and wrong, it just eats whatever it comes across.

Of course these are all horror movies, as for other ones...I don't know, I think it depends on how the situation is played out if it's a cheap shot or not.

Horror movies tend to do it more often cause people are so desensitized that blood and gore are welcome. But even some horror movies like The Mist do it all offscreen. Again, more kid deaths tend to be mostly offscreen when compared to other adult deaths in the movie, which can be very graphic. Drama movies tend to avoid those deaths altogether unless it's based on a true story. Once they are older teens, this of course goes right out the window and they can be dismembered onscreen if the director wants. But I think America has a taboo against even less violent deaths of kids in movies, and the pattern I notice upholds this.

Now, if this is true, is it a good thing, or is it keeping people from feeling the full intensity of a story? As you noted, a scare factor is gone in the remake of that movie. Of course the kids survive now.

As a parent, I think it disturbing to see a child killed, injured or sick in a movie or on television. I don't like to think of the scenarios of which something awful could happen. So, I think that the death of children in movies is something that they tread lightly on because it has the potential to turn off so many viewers.

^^^^I agree, people should be turned off. But then again, when adults die, people seem to be okay with it. Adults often have living parents and children. It should be horrible to think of anybody we love dying, and I am sure all of the good guys who die in movies have loved ones. So why are those not as much a turnoff?

If we want to stay away from bad things happening to people in movies, it'd likely be best to stick to certain dramas altogether. But if a movie is going to show bad things happening, I don't feel kids should be given some miracle survival ticket just to please movie-goers. IMO, any character becomes more precious if their survival isn't a given. I think if people are going in knowing a movie is going to feature bad things happening to any kind of people, they should be able to handle that(within reason). So if death turns people off, which should it only do it when it targets specific groups?

You pose a great question. I guess the difference for a majority of us is that we have lost adults in our lives...friends, grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles. But few of us have lost a child, and it is our worst fear. Also, our children are not supposed to ever precede us in death. Being reminded that it can and does happen is nothing I am going to pay money for.

I don't see a lot of movies, but if I did, that would be a spoiler that I would tell parents. Like, "Hey, if you are going to see such and such movie, just know that a child is killed."

RedBedroom wrote:You pose a great question. I guess the difference for a majority of us is that we have lost adults in our lives...friends, grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles. But few of us have lost a child, and it is our worst fear. Also, our children are not supposed to ever precede us in death. Being reminded that it can and does happen is nothing I am going to pay money for.

I don't see a lot of movies, but if I did, that would be a spoiler that I would tell parents. Like, "Hey, if you are going to see such and such movie, just know that a child is killed."

That's an interesting point. But again, children can die before us in adulthood too. I don't see why a mother grieving a twenty-five year old son killed is different somehow. I see the point, but I think we do need to be there for realism in movies too. Sometimes movies need to shake our comfort zones a bit. Your right that our children aren't supposed to precede us in death, but maybe reminding people that they CAN possibly may help them love their children more.(And the death may pose a lesson if it was something preventable) Perhaps not taking our children's lives for granted could be a good lesson to take out of a movie. They still need us, and that's why we have to protect them. Life doesn't offer the protection that movies do, so I think it's good for movies to remind us every day to not live as if our security cannot be taken away. That doesn't mean living in constant fear, but just being vigilant of threats. Sometimes I think some parents take their kids for granted.(Going by the dangerous things their kids do while they look the other way)

I could understand that, but I could imagine people would be pissed if a spoiler was given away.

I am a horrible person to debate this with because I am such a worrier, and I worry constantly about my son. I am the mom who looks up how to get broken glass out of his eyes just in case.

It is a miracle that he is not some wall flower basket case the way I am constantly on his tail about the worst case scenario with just about everything. When ER was on television, I would fast forward through any little boy scenes. I did not even want to know what they were about. I really don't like seeing kids in harm's way on screen.

RedBedroom wrote:I am a horrible person to debate this with because I am such a worrier, and I worry constantly about my son. I am the mom who looks up how to get broken glass out of his eyes just in case.

It is a miracle that he is not some wall flower basket case the way I am constantly on his tail about the worst case scenario with just about everything. When ER was on television, I would fast forward through any little boy scenes. I did not even want to know what they were about. I really don't like seeing kids in harm's way on screen.

That's understandable. Mothers are like that. I just think you want your children safe always, not only when they turn 18. If anything you worry more after 18 when you can't really protect them anymore.

lol I watch live so that wouldn't be an option. In some defense, I am sure some little boys were just there to worry about their parents.