To ask if you'd let your children watch horror movies?

[LiteraryDevil1]

DDs tell me they have been watching horror movies at their dad's. Stbexh's gf watches 18 rated horror films with her ds who is 7. "He doesn't find them scary as he knows they aren't real." They watched Poltergeist at ages 8 and 10 with his gf. I'm unimpressed and don't think it's appropriate at all.

A friend's father owned a video shop back in the 80s and we used to have all nighters watching horror films, including pirate copies of ( at the time) banned films such as Driller Killer, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Last House On The Left.
We were about 12 or 13 at the time. I don't remember any of us being particularly traumatised. I think the most horrific thing I can recall watching was Scum. Not technically a horror, but pretty brutal.
My parents never knew, probably thought we were watching Disney or something

I still avoid any 18 rated films that are sadistic, too gory or similar. Films like that have the capacity to disturb me for a long time. It doesn't bother me one bit that I'm not 'hardened' to vicious horror.

I'm paraphrasing over a few comments here and not toward any single poster, but the idea of young children watching violence, sadism, gore etc. and 'not being particularly traumatised' by it makes me feel a bit, I don't know, sad I suppose.

No, I wouldn’t dream of it. My DC are absolute scaredy-cats though. We were in Whitby last week and they were all adamant they wanted to go to the ‘Dracula experience’, I told them they would likely be scared and that it was a bad idea but they insisted. Two out of three started screaming literally one minute in so we had to walk back out . The youngest is the most fearsome but I still wouldn’t let her. Films like that have ratings for a good reason.

Oh christ no, I can't watch horror movies without practically soiling myself so there's no way the DC will watch them if I have a say. Psychological thrillers and creepy stuff I love but gore and violence for the sake of it have no place in my house.

Obviously the DC will watch what they watch when they're older and I have no control over their viewing but at a young age I can't see any good coming from watching anything too awful. My cousin (who, looking back, was a bit of a twat) used to come and stay often when we were kids and she'd always bring a vile horror film and make me watch it with her. It never hardened me off; it made me more certain that some people just don't have the constitution for horror films and I'm one of them.

The 80s were a different world though.
We did all sorts of dangerous stuff, like playing outside with our friends. Unsupervised. No play dates then.
Cycling or walking to school.
We were trusted to use sharp knives, or light bonfires or boil a kettle.
I grew up in unenlightened times.

I grew up in the 70s and know of no one who let their kids watch horror films. And I grew up in a pretty tough part of the world. They were only watchable at the cinema and you couldn't sneak into x rated films (now 18).

The 80s were a different world though. We did all sorts of dangerous stuff, like playing outside with our friends. Unsupervised. No play dates then. Cycling or walking to school. We were trusted to use sharp knives, or light bonfires or boil a kettle

Yep, me too. All of those things during the 80's. But I never heard of any of my friends ever watching 18 cert horror films - it was simply never an option. We didn't want to either!

I don't think it was the era, it wasn't commonplace even back in the relative dark ages of the 1980's, in my experience.

I think 8 and 10 is a little young for horror films, depending on the film. If they are some of the old classics, that might be okay. (Maybe not Dracula simply because of the sexual connotations.) Some of the newer ones, not so much.

My DSD is 13 and doesn't watch horror films. Now, she is sensitive, so that may have an impact on it, but I don't think I want her watching horror just yet.

Weedsnseeds1

The 80s were a different world though.
We did all sorts of dangerous stuff, like playing outside with our friends. Unsupervised. No play dates then.
Cycling or walking to school.
We were trusted to use sharp knives, or light bonfires or boil a kettle.
I grew up in unenlightened times.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic! My kids do all of these things now. Am I unenlightened?

struggling I wish more people allowed their children to do these sort of things!
A lot of people I know seem to keep them in a micromanaged bubble. Not all, obviously, but the examples I gave would spark unreasonable terror in some parents of my acquaintance!
I wouldn't have said my parents were particularly lax, for the period, but nobody seemed to bat an eyelid at, e.g. using a footpath over fields with an unguarded level crossing to walk to friends' houses, climbing into the bull pen on a friend's farm ( yes that was really stupid, but nobody stopped us!), jumping out of the barn onto concrete and chain harrows, fishing in the rhines for tadpoles...

God no, not at those ages!
We probably won't be sticking to 'recommended ages' but not an 18 at 10!

I’ve been watching horror films since I was 10. Still love them