Scary Movies... for kids?

[The Bus]

So I have been thinking of entertaining my brother and sister (9 and 11) for a night of good scary movies. My issue has been thinking of what movies might be appropriate.

I definitely want to stay away from the extremes, especially for anything that is very "real-life" - that is, something like Se7en, or Last House on the Left, or Saw. Not only because they are too young for this stuff, but it's also a bit too realistic. (Same goes for any religious horror movies... Constantine, etc.)

I also don't want anything that's too "for kids" --- Scooby Doo and the like. I think they are ready for PG-13 movies (we've seen Pirates of the Caribbean and the first two Lord of the Ring movies).

I would have no problem having stuff that's a bit more out there and/or silly as long as it is well-made. I'd like to have two movies so I want to stay away from super-long ones.

So here are some movies from my collection I am thinking about:

Blair Witch Project
The Fog (1980) (I don't remember why it's R)
The Others
The Ring
Shaun of the Dead
Signs
Sixth Sense (don't own it)
Sleepy Hollow (a bit boring if you ask me)
Tremors

Anyone care to throw other suggestions into the ring? I'd like for them to see good "scary" movies before they see stupid teen flicks in a couple of years. -ohbfrank-

[Crocker Jarmen]

The Fog (1980)[/b] (I don't remember why it's R)[b]


If I remember, wasn't this extremely gory in parts?

I was going to suggest one of the Universial Monster movies if you think your brother and sister could watch an older movie. How about Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein ? You also get Dracula and the Wolfman in it! Good mix too of scenes that are creepy and comical.

[RyoHazuki]

Blair Witch has over 200 f-bombs.

[Giles]

I wouldn't necessarily recommend Shaun of the Dead to nine to 11 year olds - the comical but graphic violence is a tad much and the language is definately R-rated.

howabout

Something Wicked This Way Comes
The Watcher in the Woods
It's Alive (give 'em nightmares)
creep them out with Frogs
The Company of Wolves
The Blob (remake)
Night of the Living Dead (original)
Trilogy of Terror
Nosferatu (original - my mother subjected me to this at age 8 - I'll never let her forget it ;) )

[devilshalo]

Other than Tremors and Shaun of the Dead, that's a boring list for a 9 year old.

[Mondo Kane]

The Lost Boys
Poltergeist
The People under the stairs (Well, my 9-year old cousin loved it)
Lady in White
The Gate
Twilight Zone:The Movie (Last 2 segments)

[Giles]

Twilight Zone:The Movie (Last 2 segments)

refresh my memory the last segment was the gremlin one, what was the other one you're referring to.

[Nesbit]

I think the 2nd to last was the one with the kid who could do anything he wanted.

[matome]

If I remember, wasn't this (The Fog) extremely gory in parts?



Been a while since I've seen it, but there was definitely some gore there. I remember a fisherman getting impaled on a sword and some corpse getting up in the morgue with his eyes gouged out.

[Michael Corvin]

I can't count how many times I looked under my bed night after night after seeing Gremlins (at the theater) for the first time at around 8 or 9 years old. It was pretty freaky at the time.

Probably more on par for the age than the films you listed.

[U6C84]

Goosebumps!

[lukewarmwater]

I saw this and alien 2 when I was about 13 and I thought it was fun and scary as hell. Didn't leave any scars or nothing.

http://www.impawards.com/1979/posters/alien.jpg

Signs would be my second nomination.

Would jumanji be too kiddie?

[Star Wars Guy]

Another vote for Something Wicked This Way Comes. Here's a few others that I would consider family friendly for the ages you mentioned:

The Mummy
The Mummy Returns
The Ghost & Mr. Chicken (Don Knotts classic)
Ghostbusters
Ghostbreakers (Bob Hope classic)

[Shannon Nutt]

Blair Witch has over 200 f-bombs.

I was just going to say that...I didn't realize HOW many F-bombs until I watched it with my parents one year!


I would say:

Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton version)
Psycho (original Hitchcock version)

How 'bout some Buffy epsiodes - like "Hush"...that's pretty spooky!

[devilshalo]

Arachnophobia
Monster Squad
Young Frankenstein

[rmick]

Track down The Peanut Butter Solution. That movie scarred me for life as a child.

[kitkat]

Night of the Hunter

[Jake77444]

Gremlins

[nodeerforamonth]

Go with the classics. Dracula. Frankenstein. Creature From The Black Lagoon.

Signs is good for a newer one. The Others may be too intense. These are 9 and 11 year olds!

Shaun of The Dead, Blair Witch, etc... are rated R. By no means are they movies for a nine year old! Look at the ratings!

[Brain Stew]

Beetlejuice

Seriously, it creeped me out as a kid.

[JMLEWIS1]

I would have to go with Poltergeist (the clown part completely freaked me out as a kid, but I don't think it would be too much), Ghostbusters, Jaws, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (older one, if they go for older movies) or Beetlejuice

[Shonn]

What Lies Beneath and Below(can't remember if this is R or not) could be good. For lighter fare check out Ernest Scared Stupid and Hocus Pocus.

[Joe Molotov]

Lady in White is a pretty good one for the younger crowd.

[ivelostr2]

Blair Witch has over 200 f-bombs.

actually according to...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blair_witch


it only has 133 uses of the word fuck...

[ivelostr2]

Another vote for Something Wicked This Way Comes.

that one freaked me out when i was a kid, i wish the old Friday the 13th the series was on dvd, that would be great for 9 year old kids, and it was pretty spooky....

[ivelostr2]

How about some of the movies from the midnight movies line...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=pd_sc/104-8266359-6602349?index=blended&field-keywords=midnite%20movie

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=dvd&field-keywords=Vincent%252520price&search-type=ss&bq=1&store-name=dvd/ref=xs_ap_l_xgl74/104-8266359-6602349

...vincent price movies are short (usually less than 90 minutes) and spooky without traumatizing the kid. these can usually be had for 9.99 at Best buy, and cheaper at used places, thats where i have been picking them up...
The ring would've scared the bejesus out of me at 9!!!

[Joe Molotov]

...vincent price movies are short (usually less than 90 minutes) and spooky without traumatizing the kid.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes freaked me out as a kid.

[noonan4224]

I'd add the original Halloween to that list. I'd say it would be very scary for someone of that age. There's no gore at all and hardly any blood.

[Ms. M]

The Universal and early Hammer films are good for youngsters who can appreciate older movies. I used to watch them on TV as a kid and I loved them. Too bad there aren't any of those Saturday afternoon horror movies with the wacky hosts to get kids into the classics early on.

Some of the Hammers are a little slow, but they may enjoy The Mummy, Plague of the Zombies, The Devil Rides Out and The Horror of Dracula.

[Star Wars Guy]

...vincent price movies



True, Vincent Price is the master. I remember seeing The Raven and The Tower of London as a kid and they scared me pretty good.

[Fincher Fan]

Poltergeist and the Child's Play (preferably 1 and 2) movies. Keep lots of dolls in the room where they'll sleep.

[The Bus]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I took this from my own (limited) horror collection and I have a knack for not remembering when or why stuff is R-rated.

I think mixing an older movie with a newer movie (Signs) would be really cool. My only issue is that Signs isn't really a Halloween type-of-film.

Keep the suggestions coming!

[CreatureX]

Poltergeist and the Child's Play (preferably 1 and 2) movies. Keep lots of dolls in the room where they'll sleep.
rotfl

These are the scary movies I'm showing my nieces and nephews during our halloween movie marathon. They are all between 7-10 yrs old btw.

The Birds
Arachnophobia
The Sixth Sense
Poltergeist
The Watcher in the Woods

[brainee]

I'd add the original Halloween to that list. I'd say it would be very scary for someone of that age. There's no gore at all and hardly any blood.

There is drug use, teen-age sex, and nudity so beware of those things. I remember my Mom forbidding me from seeing this movie for several years -- the violence was OK, but drugs/sex was a big no-no.

For 9 and 11 yo it's hard to say exactly what's best without a clue what they already like/dislike. I was really into horror as a kid and was rather precocious -- when I was their age I was seeing stuff like "Alien", "Phantasm", and "Dawn of the Dead" in theaters. Maybe "Alien" could be good? Yeah, it's R but only for sporadic swearing and the chestburster scene (which is admittedly nasty, but should give the wee-uns a jolt early on). "Phantasm" could actually be a great horror movie for adolescents (given its way-out story and young protagonist), though there's a flash of nudity and the ball-drilling scene (that almost got it an X, let alone R).

I second some Price movies. Some of the faster-paced ones would be best (so that would rule out some of the Poe classics like "Masque of Red Death"). Phibes is great fun. "Tales of Terror" and "The Raven" would play great to a younger audience. Or earlier Price like "House on Haunted Hill" or "The Tingler". How about some good anthology stories -- the shorter stories would be good for younger audiences with shorter attention spans. Like the "Tales from the Crypt" (the 1972 movie), "Vault of Horror", "Asylum", "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors", "Night Gallery" (the pilot movie), "Black Sabbath". "Poltergeist" is a great pick for kids. The 1978 "Body Snatchers" is PG but has seriously freaked out many viewers. "Legend of Hell House" is a fun haunted house movie that kids may dig (the original "The Haunting" may be a tad slow, and for gods sake don't show the remake). If you want to traumatize them about babies, show "It's Alive" (actually PG). These are mostly movies that I watched at that age, but there are obviously tons more. And I haven't gotten into more modern (post 1980) movies.

[BassDude]

Some great ideas here... I agree Blair is out for the language and Shaun for the gore. Also, if they haven't seen any zombie movies, they'd miss a lot of the jokes anyway.

My sons are 10 and 12, and I've been thinking of breaking them into horror as well, so I'm taking these suggestions for myself. :)

Poltergeist has that one scene in front of the bathroom mirror. Although rated PG, I remember being freaked out by it when I saw it in the theater. May not hold up well nowadays.

I was thinking Signs, House of Wax, Some Hitch (Birds?) and maybe an A&C comedy like "Meet Frankenstein."

Wish I had some of the original Universal Horror in my collection. (Oh..we saw Van Helsing already...which..well... yeah...we saw that.)

[gnradd21]

Some backstory if you care, about my longtime love of scary movies: My parents were very lenient with me as a little girl, maybe because I was an only child and they were trying to please me or something. My mom was much more worried about me going off with my friends for hours on end, playing everywhere from the woods to abandoned houses, without checking in. She was thrilled if I was in front of the tv with a movie or video game where she could keep an eye on me. At the video store she would steer me towards the kiddie/family/animated sections, and I did rent plenty of them, but usually I'd end up in the horror/suspense section. Most of the time I rented more of what I call the "fun scary" stuff, like the NOES and F13 films where even if the movie was rated R it was usually just for gratuitous nudity or light cussing. Even if a murder scene was somewhat graphic, I never had a problem differentiating between fantasy and reality. Luckily I walked past movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, although I do remember stopping to look at the cover of I Spit on Your Grave. :eek: But from about ages 5-13 it's like I subconsciously knew to stay away from certain films. My mom stayed at home, and at that age whatever I rented I usually watched during the day. So if I had rented something that was too violent or gory, like Last House on the Left, I know she would've made me turn it off. My parents weren't THAT lenient :lol:

But really, look at some of the stuff the news shows. I remember seeing war footage, graphic stuff like people being beaten during the L.A. riots on the news, Holocaust documentaries in school, etc. as a kid. I watched a lot of true crime shows with my parents. We loved Unsolved Mysteries. No horror movie could've hit harder than any of that stuff. But I was a very mature kid. I wasn't scarred for life by anything I saw, and I didn't turn out a homicidal maniac. :D

I agree with whoever recommended Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. That was probably the first "scary" movie I ever saw, and it was just the right mix of scares and silly humor. Perfect for the young ones. But really every child is different. I could enjoy the NOES movies at 7, 8, 9 years old, be scared, but not wake up in hysterics. It may give another child intense nightmares that linger for weeks. The horror/comedy stuff is great to gauge a kid's maturity level. Aside from most of the previously mentioned older b&w monster or haunted house flicks, let them see stuff like Gremlins (or the other furballs from hell, Critters), Leprechaun, House, Ghoulies, and Beetlejuice. There are also some great animated ghost/monster tales I remember that are very mild, everything from Daffy Duck's Quackbusters to some of the Disney shorts. Some are on the DVD Mickey's House of Villians...the ones I saw were on the videos Donald's Scary Tales and Halloween Haunts.

Poltergeist 2 may not be as strong an overall film as the first, but parts of it scared me big time as a kid. The scenes where Carol Anne gets lost at the mall, and when Kane visits their house, should still scare the bejebus out of any kid. Stephen King's IT will do the trick as well. If Pennywise doesn't freak a kid out, nothing will. Anthology films like Creepshow 1&2 were also good scary fun for me. Ok that should do. :lol:

[Lokimok]

I like to keep it pretty light with kids so I like the Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Beetlejuice ideas. My only reservation about Gremlins is that really young kids (or their parents) might not appreciate the "that's how I found out there's no Santa Claus" line.

Army Of Darkness might be perfect. Kids love skeletons & will probably dig Ash's goofiness

Sleepy Hollow is tame enough, but a pretty lousy movie. Disney cartoon might be better. Too bad the Goldblum version isn't available.

Though Alien is a much better movie, Aliens might be a better kid choice because of more action.

Eight-Legged Freaks

Psycho

Out of the classic Universals, I think Frankenstein or Creature From The Black Lagoon would be the best bets.

Maybe select episodes from Twilight Zone or Outer Limits (or Amazing Stories).

-edited to add: Batman Begins just came out today. How 'bout that? Maybe Predator?

[neocheddar02]

Watcher in the Woods is a classic and...dare I say, the Nightmare before Christmas? I remember loving this during old Halloween parties.

I also agreer with Lokimok, Army of Darkness is a great horror-esque movie

[Buttmunker]

Hey, I was 9 when I saw The Amityville Horror - that'll be sure to scare the bejesus out of them. Your mother and father will love you - those kids will have nightmares for months. Heh-heh-heh (evil laugh)

[ivelostr2]

Hey, I was 9 when I saw The Amityville Horror - that'll be sure to scare the bejesus out of them. Your mother and father will love you - those kids will have nightmares for months. Heh-heh-heh (evil laugh)

HEy if we are going for scaring the bejesus out of em...

when i was like 10, my brother made me watch Carpenter's prince of darkness, not to much blood, I don' think the f-word was said much, but I love this movie. It might be too much for a 10 year old though, cause it did freak me out...

[dom56]

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000063URC.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg