Thursday, November 09, 2006
What scared you as a child
When people think of horror they think of adult situations, blood, gore and violence without thinking about its most ardent followers…children! Some of the most famous stories and monsters originate from kids stories, including the witch in “Hansel and Grettel”, the goblin in “Rumpelstiltskin”, the Troll in “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” and the wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood”. The Daily Mail and other ill-informed rags always holler the argument “What if a child saw this movie?”, and for the most part they’re quite right, would you allow your child to watch “A Nightmare on Elm Street” or “Hellraiser”? Of course not, but without a second thought you’d read one of the aforementioned stories of kids in peril, at risk from a monster that wants to eat, kill or maim them within the stories. The simple reason for this is kids love to be scared and know the difference between fantasy and reality all too well. Just ask yourself what you were scared of when you little? When was the first time you were really scared? Did you shiver at night from listening to these stories? Me neither!
I’ll share something with you about the first three times I was really scared…
1. I remember watching the TV, it was one of those early afternoon detective programmes and I must have been younger than 5 because I was living in Newark, Notts, we moved shortly before my 5th birthday. A woman pulled back the blinds and a burglar with suckers on his hands and knees was staring back at her, upside down. This terrified me and the fear of opening the curtains to see someone staring back is still with me today.
2. Again I was in Newark and my parents were out, we had a babysitter in. I was in bed and could see a shadow behind the wardrobe that appeared monstrous to me and I began to cry. The babysitter came in and asked what was the matter, I said there was a monster behind the wardrobe; she moved something out of site. When I woke up and looked behind the wardrobe, the only thing there was my moneybox, shaped like an eagle. I still get frightened by films and noises that keep things hidden and out of sight, the suggestion that something’s wrong.
3.I had moved to Harrogate but every summer spent a week with my best friend from Newark, Darren, and one particular year there was a big news story. A man nicknamed ‘The Fox’ was breaking into people’s houses and killing them, I was scared out of my mind he was going to attack my parents when I was away.
These three things, for me represent REAL fears, not monsters or blood, not violence or gore but real fears that stop you from sleeping. The fear that something from out there is going to come in here and make bad things happen. You take a look at some of the biggest movies and stories that children watch and enjoy and they all have an element of horror. “Harry Potter”, “Goosebumps”, “The Demon Headmaster” and “Lord of the Rings”, blockbusters from my day such as “Indiana Jones”,
“The Goonies” and “Star Wars” all had monstrous villains and frightening scenes that allowed us to forget about those genuine fears that keep us awake at night, a safe outlet to channel our anxieties and worries.
As adults we try hard to protect youngsters from horrific images, but read scare stories to send them to sleep, the same stories packaged in a different way. Hannibal Lector and The Big Bad Wolf both eat people but one’s for adults and one’s for kids. Children know there’s no such thing as The Big Bad Wolf, but as I found out as a child watching the news, Hannibal Lector does. These stories help prepare the next generation for the horrors of the real world and prove that kids know the difference between what’s real and what’s fantasy. There’s a certain irony that a paper like The Daily Mail can lambaste horror movies for corrupting kids on one page and show gruesome images of war and graphic photos of murder victims on the other, something truly horrific and very real. Until they realise that people kill people and not horror movies, these films will always be looked at with contempt…but then everyone loves a villain!
“Beware the moon and stay on the path…”
