Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 1, 1993 TAG: 9310010203
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
But Culkin isn't the affable, cute victim in his latest movie, "The Good Son," which opened last weekend. And that has at least one communications expert worried.
"Because he's such a big hit with kids, there is concern that little kids might beg their parents to see the new movie," says Mary Beth Oliver, assistant professor of communication students at Virginia Tech.
Seeing a familiar and adored "friend" become suddenly transformed into a malicious monster is particularly disturbing to preschool children, according to a forthcoming book co-written by Oliver, called "Horror Films: Current Research on Audience Preference and Reactions."
"I saw the movie last weekend, and he is pretty rotten," Oliver says. "It's not that visually horrifying, which can really scare young children. This is more conceptually frightening."
Culkin's character has a distorted face in some scenes of the movie. And he commits extremely violent acts off the camera and on.
"Young kids probably would be frightened by the great lovable Macaulay Culkin's transformation," Oliver says. "And there is a possible concern that a kid could try to imitate the behaviors. That's usually when a model is well-liked and heroic, though - and in this film, he's definitely not the kid the viewer identifies with."
The 29-year-old Oliver said the movie was so scary that "I had to suspend my own disbelief" to get through it.
A chapter in Oliver's book, due out this winter, theorizes that different-age children are frightened by different aspects of horror films.
Preschool children, for instance, are especially frightened by character transformations such as the one that occurred in "The Incredible Hulk," when the handsome, easygoing David Banner becomes the green, monstrous Hulk.
Older elementary-school children, on the other hand, are likely to take the perspective of characters, and their fright may come more from empathizing with the terrorized victims of the young villain than the actual villain himself.
While more frightened of visual effects than adults, young children are generally less frightened by conceptually threatening ideas. "When the TV movie about the nuclear holocaust, `The Day After,' came out, there was concern that young children might be traumatized," Oliver says.
"When in fact, it was adults who were most scared by the movie."
To reduce children's fears, physical strategies such as holding on to a favorite cuddly toy or getting a hug from a parent work better than receiving verbal assurances, according to the book.
Telling a child that the scary part is unreal doesn't help preschool children because they don't really grasp the distinction between fantasy and reality. Telling them that a scary event is unlikely to happen to them doesn't work, either.
For example, parents who explained to their children that most snakes are not poisonous -- just before the snake scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" -- actually increased younger children's fear responses, although it did reduce older children's fears somewhat.
It's not easy to calm the fears of young children scared by movies, so keeping them from seeing a questionable film like "The Good Son" is probably the safest approach, Oliver says.
"It is rated R, after all," she adds. "And I certainly wouldn't take a child whom you wouldn't want to see a PG movie to it."
by CNB