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Scary Movies: Taking The Kids to Pacific Rim

 

I’m going to confess it. I am not a fan of most of the recent horror or monster movies (with the exception of Cabin in the Woods). There’s just too much splat and gore for me. But in this house there’s no escaping kaiju movies (for the uninitiated, that’s Godzilla and friends). My husband has loved them since he was a kid and he has loved sharing them with our kids. As scary movies go, they’re not too terrifying. I mean, how scary can a guy in a rubber suit really be, especially when you’re sitting in Daddy’s lap?

Movies today are a different story. CGI effects allow moviemakers to make truly frightening creatures that actually look like they could be real. There aren’t many kaiju books, and really, with kaiju, the moving picture is worth a thousand words. And movies today have a lot more foul language, sexual content, and graphic violence. With Daddy desperate to see Pacific Rim, the brand new kaiju movie, on opening weekend, the question became, with two kaiju loving kids who also dart from the room anytime they sense potential violence onscreen, should we take them to see Pacific Rim? The reviewer at Dread Central said, “This is a movie for everyone! Bring your kids”! (see the entire review here) Geek parents on Facebook told me it was a great movie for geek kids, depending on the kid. Movie Mom loved it but brought up that there was intense violence and mild profanity (see her review here). Common Sense Media also mentioned the intense violence and suggested it for ages 12 and older (review here). And it is a movie rated PG-13. My kids are 6 and 7. Would the “intense violence” overwhelm their excitement about seeing a brand-new kaiju movie with their dad? We decided to risk it. Was it worth it? Absolutely. They were swept away by the battles between the giant robots and giant monsters. In fact, on reflection, my daughter(who kept her eyes tightly closed during the bear scene in Brave) said she loved the “cool” glowing monster tongues. Frankly, I was more concerned about what they saw in the trailers that preceded the movie than what was in the movie itself.

I loved it too, and that’s really saying something. While I deeply admire the original Godzilla movie, I have a big problem with the representation of women as mainly love interests or passive victims in most of the early science fiction and horror movies. But while this movie failed the Bechdel test. it did have one of the most awesome female characters I have seen in a long time. It is true that I don’t get out to the movies much, but Mako Mori is my new favorite character in monster movies. In spite of an overprotective father figure and her own traumatic memories, Mako Mori is one of a very few pilots, the best in the world, who save humanity from extinction by giant monster. And she does it without ever getting romantically involved with her opposite-sex partner. While it’s implied at the end of the movie that a romance may devleop, she and her partner make it through the entire movie, working together and sharing memories and feelings, without even a kiss. I’m in love with Mako Mori, and my daughter saw a hero, a capable woman, who helped to save the world.

When you are considering taking your kids out to a movie that has monsters or extreme violence, I think it’s really important to consult multiple sources (I wouldn’t have used any of the three reviews I cited above on its own to make the decision), and to know your kids well enough to make the decision about whether to take them. You can’t depend on movie ratings for much, anymore. Had this movie had extreme gore or “adult situations” we would never have considered taking the kids. But it is worth the time to research it, if you have a monster-loving family.

Posted on July 25, 2013 by , Reply

Short Is Good: David Lubar and Why Short Stories Are Awesome

David Lubar is the author of many children’s books, including some great books to introduce to kids who love scary books, such as the Weenies books and the Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie series, and he now has published a “young adult” collection of horror stories called Extremities (the publisher failed to send us a copy for review, so I can’t tell you what that actually means in terms of age appropriateness).  It wasn’t an easy thing– he wrote about how difficult it was to get a publisher to show interest in short stories in this essay.

I think publishers in general have missed out on the appeal of the short story, especially for kids and young adults. A short story can have a solid impact that a novel makes too diffuse (if you want to see how awful translating a short story into a novel can be go check out Isaac Asimov’s short story “Nightfall” (I first read this in high school) and then read the novel version, Nightfall, co-written with Robert Silverberg (or not– how two giants of science fiction managed to make such a mess of such a masterpiece is beyond me). When a short story ends suddenly, it doesn’t feel like a cheat. It takes your breath away. You have to muse on that last moment– did the princess choose the lady or the tiger?  If a novel ends suddenly, it’s annoying– I want things tied up.

The short story requires economy of language. Every word must count, and what is left out can be as important as what is visible on the page. A collection of short stories provides variety. You can flip through and find something that probably will fit your mood. Even if one story doesn’t float your boat, it doesn’t mean you’re sunk with hundreds of pages. The next one might be fantastic. A short story can be read in one sitting. Someone who finishes what she’s reading builds a sense of mastery. It’s not required that you slog through a thousand page novel for that feeling of “Aha!”

Lubar wrote that he felt that one reason he wasn’t able to sell the concept was because, although he described it as an anthology of horror stories, not all of them had supernatural forces. That may matter if we’re niggling over the details of genre– Becky Siegel Spratford’s definition of horror states that it must have a supernatural creature or aspect. But it mostly doesn’t matter to the readers. Maybe it’s better to call them scary stories than horror stories, if genre definition matters that much. We receive anthologies and short story collections all the time (check out this link to our YA anthologies page and this link to our adult anthologies page). Some have supernatural horrors, some have human horrors, and some have both. Kids and adults both like short and scary stories, and a short story collection is a great place to take risks. Publishers, take notice.

Posted on July 24, 2013 by , Reply

Good Night, Sammy Terry: Guest Post by Mike Redmond– Bob Carter Is Dead, But Not Sammy

Sammy Terry - Sammy Terry George Wallwalker Bonus Picture

Sammy Terry– Photo courtesy of George Wallwaker.

If you grew up in Indianapolis in the 1960s, 1970s, or even 1980s, you probably remember Sammy Terry. Before cable, before movies came out on VCR or DVD, before Netflix and Hulu, if you wanted to see the classic (or classically awful) horror movies out there, you had to hope that your local television station had spent money on Universal’s “shock theater” package, and put together a low budget midnight movie show, complete with creepy host. The local station here was WTTV4, the show was Nightmare Theater, and the horror host was Sammy Terry, played by Bob Carter. Sammy’s impact didn’t stop in the Indy area (I was wowed by this tribute at Horror Hosts and Creature Features), but this is where he started, and when Bob Carter died on June 30, it was clear what a major influence he was on so many of us who grew up to love scary movies (and books). Sammy Terry’s official website can be found here, if you’re interested.

Mike Redmond, an author, humorist, journalist, and speaker who grew up in the Indianapolis area (and still lives here) agreed to share a tribute to Sammy Terry he had written here.

 

Bob Carter Is Dead, But Not Sammy

By Mike Redmond

The news came in the form of a text that said, simply, “Sammy Terry died.”

How sad. And how wrong. If you took a look at the World Wide Interweb thingie in the days after the story broke, with comments by the hundreds on Facebook, you would have seen that Sammy Terry was more alive than ever in the memories of all us kids who peeked from behind sofa cushions  (or, in the case of my brother, the sofa itself), when “Nightmare Theater” was showing on WTTV Channel 4.

The death of Bob Carter, who created and played Sammy from 1962-1989, brings a couple of ideas to mind.

The first is how much fun it used to be to watch a scary movie. Of course, my definition of scary has little in common with what passes for a scary movie today, unfortunately.

I’m a big fan of the classic monsters– Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy. Why? Because despite the visual impact of the monsters themselves, their movies rely on your mind to do most of the scaring. Blood and gore– the stock in trade for scary movies for the last three decades or so– aren’t necessary. The sight of the Frankenstein monster coming to life or Dracula’s riveting stare was more than enough to send a kid’s imagination into high gear. One of the greatest– and spookiest– shots in any classic monster movie has to be in The Mummy, after Im-Ho-Tep comes back to life. As he shuffles away, the camera fixes on a piece of linen trailing after him out of the room, and you just know bad things are going to start happening.

Bob’s death (I met him a couple of times so I’m taking the liberty of calling him Bob) also brings to mind how much we’ve lost with the death of local entertainment television. Kiddie shows like “Cowboy Bob’s Corral,” “Janie,” and “Harlow Hickenlooper” were just the beginning. Remember Jim Gerard’s interview show? I always thought that was one of the best things about being home from school.

Oh, well. That’s why we have memories, I guess. Which gets us back to Sammy Terry.

Bob Carter, the man who played spooky ol’ Sammy on Channel 4 during the 60s, 70s, and 80s, might have gone, but Sammy himself? He’ll be around forever, or at least as long as guys like me remember his spooky laugh, his spider George, and the creepy-campy fun of the classic monster movies he loved.

— This tribute first appeared in the July 16, 2013 issue of Current in Carmel.

 

 

Posted on July 19, 2013 by , Reply
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