Violence Against Children: The Last Taboo?

The scene in "The Abandoned" where dad tries to feed one baby to the pigs, and tries to drown the other, struck me as possibly the most disturbing scene in all 8 of the After Dark Films Horror fest movies. And it got me to thinking. This is something we don't see often , despite (or perhaps because of) its definite tendency to disturb.

Again, not that I'm some kind of sicko who wants to see this, but in examining the cultural phenomenon of the horror film, I have to wonder why we don't see more of this in an art form that is designed to disturb the viewer. Could it be that the filmmakers are afraid of an "X" or "NC-17" rating hampering the success of a film? Is it the rigid morality that seems to have pervaded the genre at least since the 50's, as Stephen King wrote about in his non-fiction study of the genre, the "Danse Macabre"? You know, the ones that really get it in horror films somehow "deserve" it (which is why we see so many teens having sex or using drugs buying the farm)? Is it the filmmakers' personal morality, wherein they themselves find this sort of imagery going too far even for them? Are we self policing ourselves because we think the rest of the general public thinks we're weird enough as it is, and we don't need THIS kind of thing making us look like total sociopaths?

I have tried to think of examples that stand out in my mind, and all I have come up w/ so far, besides the one mentioned above, is the scene in "Candyman" where the kid tells the story of the retarded kid that gets castrated (which GENUINELY disturbed mefor a long time), and the scene in "Pet Sematary" where the father is forced to kill the resurrected Gage. Not very gory or violent, but watching him put the syringe in his neck while they're both crying really gets to you. In the same vein is the scene at the end of "The Omen" where gregory Peck is about to kill Damien, who is pleading w/ him not to hurt him. Greg never gets to consummate the act because the police shoot him, but you get the idae. Again, truly effective scenes.

What do you all think, and can anyone think of any examples I missed?

I agree w/ the first half of this quote wholeheartedly. How annoying was the kid from the Domino's Pizza ads in the truly crappy TV miniseries of "The Shining"?

And yeah, King seems to kill kids a lot (but as the above example points up, they're heroes in his books a lot, too); I just saw "Cujo" for the 1st time since it came out the other day, and I was so rooting for the kid to die, true to the end of the book. I was pretty disgusted to see that he lived. I guess "It" has the most child death in it, but you don't really get to see any of it, as they can't have that much gore in a TV adaptation. Personally, I think the creature would have been a lot more terrifying if we got to see Georgie Denbrough's arm get ripped right out of its lil' yellow rain slicker. Then we'd emphatically know why the kids were so afraid of this thing that otherwise just put scary stuff in our fortune cookies.

I actually thought of a couple more. There's the scene in the remake of "The Blob" where the heroine's little brother's friend buys it in the sewers, and an episode of the new "Twilight Zone" series where there's a asupernarural being called a shadow man that lived under a kid's bed, going out at night to stalk and savagely beat the hell out of other children, but never harming the kid under whose bed it lives. True to form, the end has a twist when the kid w/ the shadow man under his bed cons a friend into staying out past the newly imposed curfew, cockily self assured that he won't get beaten because it's his shadow man doing the beating. One creeps up on them, the friend runs away, and the kid sits there grinning, until the shadow man grabs him by the throat and tells the kid he's the shadow man from under someone else's bed. We never see the beating, but it ends w/ us knowing it's coming. Pretty creepy.

[Chuckle!] I was just thinking about these movies and what a hoot they were the other day. How funny was that when they show the thing crawling thru the bushes in the 1st one?

But I'm not sure they count; can you really consider these (badly-rendered- by-outdated-special-effects)mutants children?

I've never seen "The Brood", but I do recall there's a breast feeding scene in "The Blue Lagoon", that piece of 70's garbage starring Brooke Shields. If THAT'S not a horrorshow of a movie, I don't know what is.

I can't believe I forgot this little gem:

'Toxic Avenger"; "How many points is a kid on a bicyclllllle?"

Or Peter shooting those 2 zombie kids in DOTD, or Jim bludgeoning the infected youngster in "28 Days Later", along the same lines.

The intent behind this thread was to explore the possible reasons for a filmmaking phenomenon (or more accurately, a lack thereof), in a sociological context. Yes, this sort of subject matter is undeniably horrifying, but when making a horror film, isn't that the point? I was curious as to peoples' opinions as to why this phenomenon exists, and at the same time sought to determine if I was mistaken in my hypothesis that this doesn't happen often. hence, asking for examples.

All that having been said, if an example of this gruesome and disturbing imagery is brought to your attention and prompts you to watch one of these films because you WANT to be disturbed by the imagery, I have no problem with that. After all, isn't a thrill of fear or horror/revulsion the whole point behind the genre in the first place? Isn't our mutual desire for such thrills the reason we're all here at this site? If the topic of this thread was "What's the best decapitation you've ever seen on film?", that imagery is pretty gruesome and savage. Is an appreciation of that type of imagery "healthy"? And would you have had the same problem with it?

Or would you have posted a reply listing your faves?

See? This guy gets it.

Agreed. But what could be more terrifying, horrifying and despair inducing than the wanton destruction of that innocence that children represent? Because of the power inherent in that type of imagery, I don't see why it's not used more often. Maybe nihilism doesn't sell at the box office? John Q. Public always needs that ray of hope & sanity?

I was talking about this thread w/ my wife last night, who most definitely is NOT a horror aficionado, and her take on it is that writers and directors probably avoid this subject matter because none of them want to be labeled as "that guy", the one that does all the terrible things to children. In our circle, that might be a badge of honor of sorts, but outside it, that kind of branding can indeed spell commercial ruin.

Along the same lines, she wonders if the potential threat of a boycott or some other kind of protest action on the part of an interest group prevents it. Let's face it; filmmakers are in it to make money. While this sort of violence may appeal to us horror freaks, and win kudos from us, we'd probably go see any given movie even w/o it. They've already got our money. it's John & Jane Moviegoer, the ones who may occasionally dip thier toes in the horror pool but certainly don't want to swim there w/ us, that they're after.

Valid points, I think. Whadda you think?