- Ben Child
- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 December 2009 19.09 GMT
Appropriate playmates? … Where the Wild Things Are
Is Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze’s retelling of the Maurice Sendak tale about a little boy who finds allied spirit with a horde of lumbering beasts, too scary for children? It almost certainly depends steady the child. What’session certain is that kids enjoy being ripped from their existences and challenged on a sensory level appropriate as much as adults do. And they may find the strangest of things terrifying – as a suckling I was incapable of viewing Sam the dejected eagle from the Muppets for more than a few seconds exclusively of experiencing epic nightmares that froze me to my very core.
Here are some other films which may just have parents reaching for the remote, though any shivers they beget will surely manifest themselves in the cast of a sort of delicious fear, capable of holding images fast in the memory long after wide-eyed sprogs have morphed into twinkle-eyed grown-ups.
- Where the Wild Things Are
- Production year: 2009
- Country: USA
- Cert (UK): PG
- Runtime: 101 mins
- Directors: Spike Jonze
- Cast: Catherine Keener, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Max Records, Paul Dano
In her trusty shape, with gaunt features and those razor sharp, needle-like talons, The Other Mother from this year’s Coraline is a creature from your worst nightmares. But earlier in Henry Selick’s thin skin, prior to her transformation, she’s perhaps even more chilling: what could be more terrifying to a child than a figure who appears to be a kinder, more attentive version of one’s own father, yet in reality longs to shut up you for eternity by sewing buttons in place of your peepers?
Selick was besides amenable for directing the Tim Burton-penned The
Nightmare Before Christmas. The scene in which the sinister Oogie Boogie holds Father Christmas captive and sings maniacally not far from his horrifying plans for poor old Santa seems custom-designed to give little ones the chills. Not only does he get his kicks from menacing an untouchable icon of childhood, Boogie is eventually revealed to be made entirely out of creepy crawly bugs. Ugh.
Long before Johnny Depp’s imprudent and equally creepy (in a whole
different kind of way) Michael Jackson impersonation toward Burton’session version
of Roald Dahl’s classic tale, Gene Wilder was petrifying small children
through the bizarre boat ride pageant in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Powered by the automaton-like Oompa Loompas, it’s a dismal bad trip with the stary-eyed Wonka at its centre, mouthing off-key couplets for the reason that the vessel moves ever forwards.
Nicolas Roeg’s The Witches may have been based on Dahl’s rather politically untrue conceit that bald women from eastern Europe are the epitome of all evil, but there’s no denying that the makeup artists who transformed Anjelica Huston into the Grand High Witch greater quantity than deserved their pay cheques.
The macabre death scene of the Skeksi emperor must go down viewed like one of the most hideous moments from The Dark Crystal. With their vulture-like features, loathsome voices and repugnant little eyes, Jim Henson’s
creations were visions of living death far more terrifying than anything
ever seen in a George A Romero flick.
The scene in which Michael Jackson transforms into a giant robot in order to defeat Joe Pesci’s calamitous drug trader Mr Big in Moonwalker has to go down to the degree that one of the most numerous alarming in Hollywood history. Yes, that’s right: he destroys his enemies through his voice – calm Celine Dion couldn’t horsemanship that.
With its vision of death around every corner, 1978′s Watership Down was gorier than a Wes Craven movie and way more sinister than anything ever dreamt up by Hideo Nataka. General Woundwort, with slavering jaws, blood-red eye and fearful voice, is right up there with Frank from Donnie Darko on the list of the scariest bunnies on celluloid.
Of course, your list will differ from mine. Which are your personal top scary children’s movies? And is it better to keep kids away from material
what one. may frighten them, or give them the suitable to make up their own minds?
