To urge parents not to take their underage children to see the FNAF movie?

[Ahsoka2001]

Today it was announced that the new "Five Nights at Freddy's Movie" has been classified 15 by the BBFC for "strong threat, violence" - https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/five-nights-at-freddys-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0xmdeznzy4

I know there's a large fanbase for the FNAF franchise aged 10-14. I'm sorry that they won't be able to see the highly-anticipated movie version on the big screen. But at the same time - as someone who works in a cinema - reading this news has me dreading the release of this film.

A 15 certificate means that NOBODY who has not reached their 15th birthday is allowed into the auditorium. This is enforced by UK law and applies even if the parent accompanies their child. No one underage being in the screen is a condition of the cinema operating. It's just like alcohol - sell alcohol to anyone underage, the venue loses its license and won't be able to remain in operation.

So, if I turn away your under-15 from the FNAF film, I am just following the law. Underage patrons being let into the screen could mean not only legal action against the cinema, but legal action against me - I could also potentially lose my job.

Many people think, "It's not like it's alcohol, it's just a film." No. It's treated almost just as badly as alcohol and other age restricted products. Please be kind to cinema workers who have no choice but to turn away underage customers. It's a shame I have to say this but please don't become aggressive or verbally abusive (it's happened to my colleagues before). I'm sure this isn't the vast majority of people but it's one of the prime sources of customer aggression in the exhibition sector.

Oh - and if your child genuinely is 15 or over, please make sure they bring valid photo ID :) If you don't want them taking valuable documents like passports out then a clear photo of these should suffice. The last thing we want to do is turn away people who ARE within the law but if we do have to...we have no choice and it's absolutely nothing personal.

Watership Down is a U - should definitely be a PG or even a 12A!

My son is 11 and doesn't play the FNAF game because we don't have a console in the house but he does watch them on YouTube.

I think they are incredibly ugly but I didn't know the story behind it so thank you for this thread.
He has several FNAF figures that his uncle bought for him and he actually got them from SMYTHS.
Luckily he doesn't play with them all the time (he'll flip from Lego or his cars) but there was a time when he would always draw pictures of the characters and explain who they are. He has never mentioned anything about dead children so I'm guessing he really isn't taking in what he's watching.
But I will definitely be stopping him from watching it now I know the background of it. So disturbing

The Dark Crystal scared the crap out of me as a kid and I wouldn't watch it now because of the memories of those nightmares!

Needless to say, it's one my kids won't be watching. Sadly i have lost the fight with dp on The Never Ending Story which also really frightened me as a child.

It's been reclassified to PG

Watership Down given new PG rating with language and violence warnings - BBC News

I have never seen it myself at all but interestingly when I was in the US I was shopping for underwear for my then 8 year old and we got him pants with FNAF on. I thought it was a kids programme about bears!! The pants were from small children and up! That is very weird!

erghhh reminds me when I watched gremlins when I was about 6 on video. Nightmares for weeks!!

It was the bit where the rabbits were gassed that gave me nightmares, though the article doesn’t mention that.

Just give them YouTube from about 2, they can access all the sex and violence you want them to watch. I'm sure you can totally desensitize them to violence because it's really good for kids to think it's acceptable and entertaining 🙄

Actually, the underlying attitude is very common with adults who were abused as children but who aren’t able to accept the way they were treated is abuse.

If they accept ‘action X’ isn’t perfectly acceptable parenting, they have to also accept an issue with their parents that they aren’t yet ready to face.

Absolutely zero sympathy for parents of kids under 12 who play the game and want to see it. It isn't aimed at them!!

Harder for the parents of 13 and 14 year olds that play the game but can't watch the movies, but no doubt it'll be on TV soon enough and they'll all be watching it anyway.

And we wonder why kids are so desensitized to stuff.

DS isnt allowed these things. No Among Us when he was 5 unlike his peers. None of that Huggy Wuggy crap now at 8. At Stranger Things.
But I actually wonder if "parenting appropriately" in this scenario is just opening him up to bullying and ridicule in high school

Pulp Fiction only remains 18 today for the rape scene and drug misuse. It's the only Tarantino film not rated 18 for the violence so in that sense I guess it could be seen as a "tamer" 18.

I recognise that it's not illegal to let underage children watch films/play games with higher ratings than their ages in the home. The argument in my OP was solely about the law regarding underage admittance to cinemas alone.

Perhaps! And this next part isn’t aimed at you in particular @JuliusWho.

Regardless, no one can deny that media influences people, be those people 10 or 100.

At the risk of sounding like an old fart, I’ve seen/heard/witnessed some of the worst things that a human can perpetrate against another human, and come down squarely on the side of let’s allow our children to actually be children and try, wherever possible, to let those children retain their innocence!

Do children need to be subject to violent imagery? To hear (or worse, see) paedophilia played out, even in a pretending way? Surely, every parent on this site, and other parenting forums, instills in their child that secrets are bad, that certain body parts are private, that they have the right to say NO! and be respected for that no! So how then does a parent explain the violent scenes on the big screens? And why it’s okay that those children said no and it was ignored? Can an 8/9/10 year old really distinguish the difference?

And psychological studies have shown that children who are exposed to violent imagery and/or violence in childhood are more likely to be abusive in some way, than those who aren’t. Which is why, when a person with children posts about their abusive home life, the commentariat, are for the most part, shouting LTB!

Sorry, exactly what legal action could be taken against you personally if you let an under-15 year old into a 15-rated movie? I don't think there is any legislation that actually makes this an offence but I'm happy to be corrected. Regarding the cinema themselves, I understand that they would be in breach of their licence for allowing an underage customer into an age-rated film, but again this is purely a civil matter between the licensee and the local authority - it's not remotely comparable to selling alcohol to children which is a criminal offence.

Thank goodness we don’t have this rating system here, seems insane. We have an M which is not recommended for kids under 15 but is not restricted as it’s just flagging parents need to consider it on the basis of their individual kids, but any age less than 15 can go in unaccompanied. Then there is MA15 where you have to be 15 or older to watch OR be under 15 and accompanied by a parent/guardian/teacher. Then we have R18 where you need to be 18 or over.

It works well as it provides enough scope for parents to decide what is okay for their individual kids as you have some that watch stuff with no issues at all and others that are scared to death by practically nothing.

We do t get FNAF here until later this month, I’m guessing it may be M or MA15. Hard to imagine they would slap an R18 on it!

OP I feel for the way the public treat you when the child (legally) cannot be admitted, it’s a nightmare, I was in the game for 20yrs so know exactly what you are going to get. Remember one year when whatever film was on & the cashier refused entry to the mother with child, of course it all kicked off , demanding this & that, until a voice behind her stopped her in her tracks, as it was one of our local police officers. That made our evening

So your one rating says isn't suitable for under 15s but we'll let them in unaccompanied anyway, and the other is parents can take any aged child in regardless. And you think that's a good thing?

So the parent that wants to take her 14 yo to see FNAF and also drags along the 6 and 8 year old siblings, having not watched the movie just knowing their kid plays the game, you think is a positive step?

My dd is 14 but has mild SN and is very immature for her age. She doesn't watch TV at all and doesn't usually like the cinema but she is bursting to see this. I was thrilled that she wanted to see a movie, she is going to be so disappointed, i wish they had made it a bit more child friendly, 12s maybe.

Yeah I get that, I was replying to a pp who mentioned Squid Game and lax parental attitudes. I know it's not illegal at home. Just irresponsible.

Why would parents allow children to play these games?

Why would anyone play these games?

What kind of society finds games with subject matter like this acceptable?

They would lose their job!!! 🙄 it's not worth it just because you think it's " character building"to let young kids watch horror films or whatever. If you wanna give your kids nightmares buy some films from HMv and watch at home

Presumably every single one of these children has a parent or carer responsible for them, why are they allowing it to be bought? There wouldn't be any point in companies targeting games at younger children if more parents took the minimal time it takes to apply appropriate parental settings to consoles/Steam accounts etc and check purchases

You do know your child isn't going to be a clone of you, right?

Every child is different. My DD 15 has been watching Walking Dead with me for a few years. She's fine with the zombies but finds the human brutality scenes hard, we often skip these. We didn't watch the Glen death scene and she's agreed she doesn't want or need to.

Weirdly she watched Coraline a few years ago. It's a great film but the idea of the Other Mother taking Coralines is eyes really frightened her and she had a few nightmares after. and even now she's tried watching it again but always turns it off.

Our minds work differently and process things differently.

A film with themes of child abduction, paedophilia and murder will be very difficult for some kids to process.

And those classics you reference can be easier for a young mind as it's things which probably aren't real. Child murder very much is.

'The games deal with intense themes of murder, severe injuries, dead children haunting animatronics because their corpses have been hidden inside, pedophilia and physical abuse.'

Why does your 9 year old even know about this stuff? How has he/she engaged with it at all?

I’m fairly scared just reading this brief overview. Who the hell is letting their kids watch this?!

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The Cool Parents I think