Psycho film being shown to 14 year old in English class

[Emydan83]

I’d like some opinion or advice for this situation I find myself, my partner and my 14 year old daughter in. In a council school in Scotland my daughter, who is 14 and in 3rd year , the English class were shown the film “Psycho” from the 70’s, then asked to write a critical essay from the view point of either the murderer or the victim. No parental consent was asked before they began this topic , now roughly 2 weeks later we have contacted school to make a complaint after realising the full scope of this topic. Not only is this film rated a 15 in the uk, no authority seems to have been given from any senior member of the school or any parents contacted. I truly believe a 14 year old child should not be subjected to this emotional torment to imagine themselves either committing murder or being murdered in the name of learning English.
I would be grateful for any feedback, thank you.

Wow, thats sounds brilliant. I do wish we did things like this in my English classes. Stop being so dramatic

I'm with you OP. The school should stick to age ratings. Even if 29/30 would be OK, the 1/30 that would not need to be considered.

What people choose to let their children watch at home is up to individual parents, but school have a duty of care.

I would not have shown a student a film like this without parental consent, and we would have made reading in the library an alternative. Very few parents had a problem with this.

My kind of English class

Psycho was made in 1960, not the 70's, there was a scene by scene remake done in colour in the 90's with Anne Heche in the Janet Leigh role.

It is, as has previously been said, a masterclass in film making - the only scene that is graphic is the shower scene, but it is incredibly clever in that it infers but doesn't show, there is the silhouette of the knife plunging, her face screaming, blood swirling down the plughole and then as she collapses unseen her hand grabs the shower curtain pulling it off ring by ring.

Thats it, thats as graphically terrifying as it gets, any modern action movie or thriller has far more blood and guts in. Hitchcock specialised in suspense not cheap thrills.

I first saw it aged 11, been a lifelong Hitchcock fan ever since, Sky Arts are currently showing his short 1/2 hour "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" films at 6.00 in the evening, great viewing!

Id add, I'm a teacher, and run a criminolgy club (which is very popular for years 7 to 11) with a friends husband who is a serving policeman and comes in to help.
One of the cases we look at is Christie/Evans and its role in the abolition of the death penalty, I screen "10 Rillington Place" annually, never had any negative feedback except for kids telling me what a powerful film it is and its got them interested in classic film / true dramas rather than action movies, that can only be a good thing!

God, I'd have loved something like this when I was at school!

That's the same age as Y10.

Just picking up on this - you can't draw equivalences with the Scottish system and English/Welsh system. Children entering school in Scotland are at the very youngest, 4.5 as the cut off is 28th February. So the very youngest child who is currently in S3 - third year of secondary - will have been 14 since 28th Feb this year.

Also taking into account that many children who are born in Feb/Jan are routinely deferred, most will have turned 14 by Christmas.

As the English/Welsh system has its cut off on 31st August, there is a 6 month mismatch between school years. So depending on where a Scottish child's birthday falls in the year, they could be in one of two years in England/Wales, and vice versa. AFAIK the cut off in Northern Ireland is different too, some time in July.

Probably worth adding that the BBFC ratings for films only apply in cinemas, they are put on the DVD case as guidance as to what the film was rated at for cinema display but are not binding.

All these ‘I watched it at 10 and am fine’ type comments fail to take into account that everyone is different. This is compulsory school work and doesn’t give the more sensitive students an opt out. My DS is only 9 but he’s very sensitive to things my DD would have batted an eyelid at, at a much younger age.

I think you’re being overly precious. It’s unlikely that at 14 he hasn’t come across or watched shows with murder in them. Even Disneys the Lion King has Scar murdering Mufasa. I watched Psycho at a young age, it didn’t remotely distress me. It’s also a fantastic movie for opening discussion about cinematography.

I’d err on the side of saying not appropriate because it very much depends on the individual. One of ours would have been fine with that at 14, the other not so much. School staff can’t know which category kids fall into.

I think you should chill out. Beowulf has some very creepy and violent passages, should kids not read that either?

I’m surprised you didn’t get a letter home to give your consent for your child to watch this. I wouldn’t have a problem with my 14 year old watching this considering what they can access now via Netflix, Tik Tok etc.

Death, crime, and mental illness are big themes in art, literature and life. The school chose a brilliant film to reflect those themes. The age rating does not apply. There is a huge difference between a bunch of 14 year olds going to the cinema and a classroom environment guided by a teacher. I'd love to know what poetry, plays and novels she's been assigned because I'll bet they also deal with bleak themes.

I think your reaction is OTT. I deal with third level students and they increasingly complain if they are shown anything that they claim causes 'emotional distress' ... Like the news! Now I can see where that comes from.

If it's a 15 then surely the school is not allowed to show it to under-15s even with parental permission? It's not like it's a 12A.

Reading is different from watching though, reading is reliant on one's own imagination, watching is reliant on other people's imagination.
I have two dc, one would have absolutely no issues with psycho, she'd find it fascinating and be on a mission to learn about cinematography and how scores work within a film for suspense etc.
Ds would end up having nightmares. Ds can't watch the news without getting emotional, even some Midsomer murders are too frightening for him...I've no doubt once he's an adult he'll do some sort of humanitarian work (it's why he can't watch the news, he gets so upset and angry when people get hurt/ injured/ ill).
He can't cope with any sort of supernatural/ scary / psychological stuff, he's highly imaginative and creative, and I think it just affects him much more. As a family there are lots of films we can't watch, it can be a bit of a pain, but at the end of the day, his wellbeing has to come first. Children mature at different ages, and I think letting parents know is sensible. I would be happy for dd to watch the film, not for ds. I know my children and I don't want to be dealing with nightmares at 3am when I don't have to...

14-15 is Uk Year 9.

I'm surprised it's only a 15. I've never watched it myself at any age because I hate horror films. The clips I have seen of it look absolutely sickening and terrifying.

I think it's really wrong to show a film rated 15 to anyone under that age anyway.

And parental letters should be sent out for anything dicey in a text for the younger years.

I think the teacher has made an error. I realise it's a classic, but I wouldn't want my daughter studying it at 14.

I'm surprised you find it sickening and terrifying tbh, from a modern perspective, being used to modern SFX, it's very obviously fake.

It's very tame compared to many other things also rated a 15, so it would be very strange for it to be rated higher than that. I'm somewhat surprised it's not rated lower.

You can't honestly think that most people are 18 before they can handle very mild horror? I've seen worse in Harry Potter!

You can't judge if you haven't seen it.

Psycho is NOT a "slasher" horror movie. It is black and white, and in the famous shower scene you see the outline of the person with the knife, and a close up of the woman screaming. The knife action is implied by the music. No blood. You don't actually SEE the stabbing. Blood is shown draining into the plughole. The entire shower scene is about 3 minutes long in a movie lasting almost 2 hours.

It is an absolute masterpiece of letting the audience's imagination do the work.

I wouldn't consider Harry Potter to be a horror film. I don't know what the ratings are on them, but if they are 15s then I still wouldn't show them to 14 year olds without getting consent.

I've just rewatched a couple of clips of psycho to be sure I wasn't misremembering but yes, the realism and identification with the woman in the shower, the shadow approaching, the the screaming, the music, the sound of the knife, the way she is trapped, the psychological terror of it, I find it very intense and horrifying still. Really uncomfortable and unpleasant.

I realise that not everyone might have such a strong reaction to it, but also not everyone watches violent movies or computer games or has become immune to it. Some people avoid those things.

Some kids have witnessed violence at home or elsewhere in their lives. As teachers we have to consider the needs and sensitivities of all the pupils in the classroom.

Please do feed it all back to the teacher OP, all of it, about the overall themes of all the text selections being wholly dark and disturbing. There are always other texts that could be studied. She perhaps hasn't considered this and I'm sure would want to know the impact it has had and perhaps reflect on that for the future.

Of course the teacher has considered it. It's been on the syllabus as an option since at least 1982 when I studied it. 😂

I meant, she may not have noticed that all the texts over past 2 years in English have been rather dark and disturbing topics, when taken as a whole.