I wondering if I should be overly concerned about a fairly young child (I won’t give the age yet for fear of having someone contact child services- lets say she is old enough to know what scared is 
) who really enjoys some films I would assume are fairly scary- I’m not a genre afficiando though. Everyone I’ve asked personally says I’m insane, but thought I’d get the opinion of a more wordly bunch- at what age did you begin watching horror films- ( I don’t know the horror factor on most films, but I’m talking about things like Evil Dead 2, Dawn of the Dead remake, Childs Play, etc.). She throws a fit if I try and try change the channel, and if I act scared, will hold my hand and tell me its ok, the scary part will be over in a minute. Her only concern seems to be if a child is about to get hurt, as in Childs Play.
I don’t know if you would count Jaws, but I saw it when I was 7. I saw Halloween when I was 10, Dawn of the Dead and Alien (scariest movie experience of my life) when I was 11.
12 or 13 was when I first saw “Friday the 13th” probably.
Quite young. I can remember wanting to see Bloodsucking Freaks when I was 8. At that age, I was already an avid Twilight Zone and Tales From The Dark Side viewer.
I should note, though, that in my case the desire to see horror movies originated from a desire to see naked women, known in the horror movie industry as “the cheapest special effect.”
I saw Twilight Zone and the old TV series ** One Step Beyond** and Alfred Hitchcock Presents when I was 4, or 5 at most. I caught some surprising scary stuff on TV, back before people were monitoring things closely – like The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus (**Yeux sans visage, Les **), with its detailed face-removing surgwery, and Carnival of Souls. Heck, my parents took me to see The Birds back in 1963 (although Psycho and Macabre were still off-limits)
By 8 or 9, I was hopelessly addicted to horror movies. The Exorcist scared the beejaybers out of me, and I haven’t looked back since, although the current trend of torture horror isn’t to my taste.
Probably 7 or 8, maybe younger. I loved watching all the “Nightmare on Elm Street” movies and the “Return of the Living Dead” series. I watched “The Gate” many times when I was around 8. When I was 9 my favorite movie was “Psycho.” I watched that one so many times that I could quote every line by heart. I even had a subscription to Fangoria.
Checking the dates, I was probably 9 or 10, for the first I can remember - which would have either been the original The Hills Have Eyes II (which I wouldn’t recommend for a kid) or House (which is responsible for me loving horror movies).
I was never much into slasher flicks (I still haven’t seen a single one of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies straight through, and it’s only since I’ve been an adult I’ve seen most of the Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th movies), because the gore got to me, but growing up in the 80s, there were enough goofy horror movies (and, more importantly, movie franchises) about for me to have developed a healthy taste for them by my teens.
I began watching horror movies when I was about 10 or 11. These were old movies from the 1930s through 1950s, seen on television. Hammer’s Horror of Dracula (1958), with its bloody stakings, was the most violent it got. When I was 14, my dad did take me and my older brother to see an R-rated horror movie, The Exorcist. Following that, I saw a lot of PG-rated horror movies as a teenager (this was before PG-13), and was 17 before I saw another R-rated horror movie. We did not have cable TV or a VCR when I was growing up in the 70s, and the horror films shown on TV were either old or had their violent parts snipped.
I was never a fan of violent horror movies, and generally shun them. I do love a good fright, though, and one of the scariest I ever saw was the G-rated Legend of Boggy Creek.
No way would I let any child under 13 see either version of Dawn of the Dead, or Child’s Play (I haven’t seen Evil Dead 2). There is no compensating value in any of those that outweighs the violence. On the other hand, I would let a mature teenager see Night of the Living Dead, The Exorcist, or Halloween because I think those are examples of great filmmaking, and The Exorcist also tells a good story about a crisis of faith, a parent’s love, and sacrifice.
I was watching Universal Monster movies when I was younger than I can even remember. I know that I loved The Wolf Man and Frankenstein.
I started watching Hammer movies when I was slightly older. Around 7-8.
I moved onto “modern” horror (Friday the 13th, Hellraiser, etc.) when I was in my early teens.
I was in my mid-teens when DVD really exploded, which really opened up the movies available to me. Before DVDs really took off, a lot of horror movies were absolutely impossible to find.
Born in 1962, probably started watching around age 5 or 6- the old time Universal Monster flicks, then Hammer, Corman-Price-Poe flicks, etc.- whatever was showing on the local “Creature Features/Nightmare Theatre/Fright Night” TV shows, plus whatever made it to the local theatres.
And while I do love me some modern graphic horror, kids today are starting too early on that stuff.
I started watching Grade B horror movies and old Universal monster movies around age 8 or 9. Started watching slasher (Halloween/Friday the 13th) around 13 when we got HBO.
Well when I was boy, we didn’t have no DVD or even VCR or cable. Only bad recption of the UHF channels to watch the ‘horror’ films like the b&w classics mentioned previously.
But yeah I watched them whenever I could.
Has she seen any where the little kid is the killer? Does she take notes, while watching The Bad Seed?
Then I’d be worried.
Good scary movies I would let a child over 7 watch:
Them!, The Thing From Another World, The Fly (1958), Children of the Damned (1960), The Birds, Godzilla (1954), The Beast With Five Fingers, The War of the Worlds (1953), Invaders From Mars (1953), The Legend of Boggy Creek, Monster House, House of Usher, Poltergeist, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Jurassic Park, Carnival of Souls, Signs, Duel, Cat People (1942), The Incredible Shrinking Man.
Let’s see… Jaws came out in 1975 so I was 2 when I saw that. Alien was 1979 so I was 5 when I saw that, as well as Amityville Horror which came out the same year, the latter of which my Aunt took me to see and then drove me to the actual Amityville house (she also took me to the beach after Jaws)! Poltergeist 1982 was 8 years old (also saw the heavily adult themed “Summer Lovers” and “Fanny and Alexander” that year. I think it really has more to do with the temperament of the person than their age. How much do they get involved in the film, which characters do they identify with, how impressionable are they, etc.
This is more the age range I was looking for- thanks for confirming that at least one other person was watching these at a very early age.
I saw Poltergeist when I was 6 and before that I had seen parts of Alien. By the time I was 7 I had also seen The Thing with Kurt Russel.
If I had a kid that age I probably wouldn’t want him or her to watch any of those movies. I mean look how I turned out.
Marc
Walloon, you are a creature after mine own heart. 
i own nearly all of those movies today and grew up on them in the years i lived outside of new york (wpix and wor were my lifelines to these movies). i probably started watching them at 8 or 9, and the only two that ever scared me as a wee one were X the Unknown and The Blob. something about things creeping around that can getcha! :eek: i probably watch all my movies a couple times a year or when i’m home sick.
uh, for what my opinion is worth, i’d pass on Signs for the kiddies. the son is forced to kill his own dog. rather upsetting to me - as an adult. not a nice scene in an otherwise good movie and would probably upset a child.
Two family classics, The Yearling (1946) and the Disney movie Old Yeller (1957), had similar must-kill-the-pet scenes. We survived.
yeah, and both scarred me for life. i bailed from the room with Eight Below last year because i don’t want to watch those sorts of movies. why sit through stuff like that when you don’t have to? life’s hard enough as it is.
speaking of which have i mentioned on these boards just how much i HATE that effing movie… :mad:
(i probably have already ranted about it, so just ignore me).