Inappropriate movies at sleepovers

I wouldn’t be surprised if the mum isn’t even aware of the actual films they are planning to watch and it’s just the kid showing off to his mates that his parents are so ‘cool’
and laid back.

I’m a bit surprised so many PP are horrified at the idea of 12 year olds watching 18 rated horror movies (like most of us did at their age and live to tell the tale!)

I would be much more concerned about all the shit they watch on Tik Tok and readily available porn messing them up psychologically rather than a horror movie that’s not real. But each to their own…..

Completely agree with this. Many 12 year olds are able to handle a psychological thriller/ horror that's rated 15. Woman in Black is brilliant for atmosphere and jump scares even though it's just a 12! The Visit is very good for slightly older teens. There are many, many others that we've enjoyed with our ds (having watched them first). I personally draw the line at torture porn and sexual violence, however much ds protests. One day I'd love to watch Se7en with him. I love a film with an intelligent fucked up central villain. It's my favourite film, but the ending has stayed with me since 17yo. No way is he ready for the kind of character development that leaves you feeling bereft.

I agree, and I think there is a vast difference between horrors with jump scares and the torture porn that’s available

Yes it's listed as one of our red flags in child safeguarding.

It doesn’t matter what people were saying back them - there is a massive difference between the “horror “ films of 1930’s and the torture porn of today .
I can’t believe there are parents who would allow 12 year olds to watch this stuff. It’s child abuse . A serious safe guarding issue .

No, not really. You were saying that we thought at the time that films from the 30s were shocking, and they aren't now. That's because we've become desensitised as everything competes to be more and more brutal.

That's a really peculiar thing to infer from what I posted.

A lot of the video nasties from the 80s ARE pretty horrible though. Lots of rape and torture. I watched Cannibal Holocaust the other day out of interest because it's free on amazon prime, and it's still very disturbing.

What you are saying is that we should all be desensitised?

People were saying exactly the same about horror films in the 1920s and 1930s, though.. And again about Hammer in the 1950s, and again about 'video nasties' in the 1980s and violent films in the 1990s. None of this is new.

It's like the notion that Friday the 13th, etc. had some prudish/conservative moral code due to the prevalence of Jason Voorhees and the like going after teens who had sex - in reality it was just the most efficient way to get nudity and violence in the same scene!

To me what's happening here is just brain dead parenting and lack of thought both for the kids who may react negatively to it and the parents who it may put in a difficult situation.

Yes exactly. My parents would never have put on Texas Chainsaw Masacre at any of our sleepovers or birthday parties and subject a mass audience of underage kids to its horrors! And as a child, I wouldn't have expected my friends to have automatically wanted to watch it. I knew it was a bit 'niche' even then. For a grown adult, a parent, not to realise this is bizarre.

That's the thing though isn't it.

Imagine you are a parent organising a group activity for a bunch of kids.

Do you :

a) Organise something edgy, that may be objected to by some of the parents and affect some of the kids in a negative way.

b) try to come up with something that is both exciting for the kids and likely to not be objected to by any of the parents, and not therefore exclude any of the kids from the activity.

To me what's happening here is just brain dead parenting and lack of thought both for the kids who may react negatively to it and the parents who it may put in a difficult situation.

At the very least if you were considering such an activity, it might be better to contact every parent in the group to check they were OK with it and their kid was likely not to find it a problem.

I also watched Evil Dead, Texas Chainsaw Masacre, The Exorcist, Hills Have Eyes, Children of the Corn plus many, many more horror films when I was younger.

I started off by watching Carrie and Christine at around 9, then others at around 11 or 12. I absolutely loved them and completely understood that they were fiction but I just loved that feeling of being scared for an hour or so, safe in the knowledge that it was just a film.

Nightmare on Elm Street and the TV series of Salem's Lot probably scared me the most at the time.

I was, and still am, a massive fan of all types of horror films, and whilst I was exposed to them at a young age, I feel that I wasn't adversely affected by them or traumatised. That's not to say they are appropriate viewing for the majority of children, however. Ratings are there for a reason, to protect the majority, but there will be some children who are natural horror buffs, like I was. I was also quite independent for my age, resilient and was brought up in a very academic, arty family where my siblings and I had a lot of freedom. We all turned out fine. However, I used to teach and hearing that a child had watched the films I watched at their age, would be a safeguarding issue now and rightly so.

True, some images have 'stayed with me' over the years but only in the same way that I recall certain scenes from ET or Back to the Future, for example.

Of course, young children should not watch 18 rated films but not every child who does will be affected. It's best to not allow just to be the safe side.

OMG op same!!!!! Nightmare on elm street absolutely traumatized me nd i think i was around 12 at the time also.

Honestly no idea what line i would take with this, feel like the classics would be ok for some unknown reason like candy man, nightmare on elm street etc etc but the newer horrors feel more real almost.

I like the original 'twist'. But totally agree that anyone that thinks Saw has any kind of moral justification is getting something very wrong.

Hilarious that a poster thinks Saw has a moral compass - and yes I've seen all of them but had to 'not watch' certain bits that were just too much. It's certainly torture porn as sadistic torture is the central theme.

John's 'morals' in Saw - person did something bad, person now has choice of cutting off/crushing/mutilating part of their body or being killed in some hideous way. There are no 'morals', John just has a fucking huge god complex. The idea that the camera pans away from gruesome images is laughable.

I love the psychology and the cleverness of it but if you think this represents morals then there is something very, very wrong with you. Doubly so if you think this torture porn is suitable for 12 year olds.

My suggestion for more suitable horror for this age would be Alien/Aliens.

I can understand 12 year olds wanting to push boundaries but there aren't really any boundaries being pushed if this is done with parental approval.

I get that kids are watching these films (it's so easy now with phones/internet) and being traumatised/finding them funny/whatever, but I would not want my DS going to a sleepover where the parents were allowing 18s films.

The teenage years are long enough and tough enough (for parents!) and it's good to have points further along the way where things can be allowed, rather than starting out at 12 with such freedom.

I would be more worried about leaving my kid overnight with a parent that clearly has no respect for other parents boundaries. Is it OK for them also to have a beer while watching age inappropriate movies ?

I think anyone organising a party like this should be aware that not all parents are going to view showing age inappropriate movies in the same way.

And if it were me I would steer a better path between keeping all the kids entertained while making sure that the kids of parents who did not feel it was approriate had the best chance of being included.

So something a bit more lightweight in horror terms for 12 year olds.Maybe a 15 rated.

Yeah, I love horror. But I wouldn't invite friends round to watch, say, In A Violent Nature with me as I'm not emotionally immature enough to think that EVERYONE should love watching brutal, gory films. My kids absolutely hate horror films! I have no need to watch with them.

Because different people like different things 🤦‍♀️.

Just reading all the posts here, I am horrified at what is in these films. I choose not to watch horror, I don't want to see what I can't un-see, and it's bad enough to read here some very short examples of their content. How do these films even get made?! I just do not understand. I find it all very upsetting.

I am sure torture porn has a specific meaning, but it's often used to describe horror films which emphasise prolonged torture as a form of entertainment. Like Saw, Hostel and others which concentrate on the protagonists agony and fear.

Commonsense Media give it an R rating, and say that Saw X was part of the franchise that inspired the phrase 'torture porn'.

None of this matters, because at 12 it is not a decision one parent should be making without consulting another parent. No child will suffer as a result of not watching Saw at 12. A child might suffer by being exposed to concepts and images that they don't have the headspace for. You can argue that they might look babyish by not watching - much worse to be upset by what you see but have to grit your teeth and pretend that you think seeing people tortured is funny.

I would imagine as a pp said, the parents have no clue about this and that the boys are chatting rubbish.

Have you watched the film? It is about retribution, the ingenious engineered devices are set to "punish" horrible people of they confess, or take another action.

It is full of suspense and has massive twists. If it's not for you fine. But I find it disengenious when people are making assumptions when they haven't viewed the material.

These boys probably aren't the right group for him, if they think he's babyish. He should consider changing his friendship group.

But both mind never found films scarey, nor do I, I like them <<makes list of all the scary ones listed here, to watch soon >> sorry!

They've been around since the 1920s, actually. But there's a difference between suspense/thrills/spooky/mystery, and violent movies that revolve around nothing but gratuitious sadism, torture, misogyny, gore and agony.