I've just watched Hammer's Curse of the Werewolf on TV's Horror Channel at 8 'o' clock in the morning!
For a baby boomer like me this is astonishing really.
When I was around 10 or 11 in 1970 watching the three channels we had on telly I would have had to wait till late at night before I could have seen Curse of the Werewolf back then.
So in 45 years the clock has turned full circle on werewolves and all the other Hammers of my grue-obsessed youth.
It's a revolution!
No longer midnight movies, the 'X' rated flicks of the Sixties are as tame as Saturday morning cartoons and can be watched whilst having your cornflakes!
The 9 pm violence watershed I grew up with has evaporated into a fine mist of milk and sugar.
This time-shift could only be topped by the morning newspapers coming with free copies of Creepy and Eerie comics!
Clearly a seismic shift in adult attitudes towards what kids can view I can't honestly decide if its a good thing particularly as I have just become a Granddad.
Do I want my young Grandson to have access to Hammer Horrors at breakfast time?
I suppose access is the key here. Parents [and Grandparents!] are responsible for how kids access technology in the home and therefore it should be easy to control.
But throughout history children have done what they are not supposed to and watched stuff they were never meant to see.
Just think of the video nasties during the 80's video boom. Adults supposedly had the control of the VCR but kids watched them anyway. In the public outcry that followed shopkeepers actually went to jail.
That was thirty years ago and now anything can be watched anywhere anyplace no holds barred. Instant telly for a superfast world where violence no longer respects a 9 pm watershed. Violence appears normal. Maybe this is the same in the comics genre too?
So compared to modern fare that children see on the interweb Curse of the Werewolf IS like a Saturday morning cartoon, but I will still have to think about at what age my Granddson can watch it with me. 10? 11? 12?
What do you think readers?
I'm probably old fashioned, and would prefer such films not to be children's TV fare. I feel the same about some Halloween "toys"- our local supermarket has a model severed foot with a bone sticking out, which I find pretty appalling in the first place- let alone that it is intended for children.
ReplyDeleteFor an old horror hound like me its a real dilemma Andy. I loved all that stuff as a kid. It didn't do me any harm ... I don't think....but whether I want young kids to be able to watch horror films in the morning is another matter.
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