Investigation blog post 16

 Introduction: This week’s blog post is about the perceptions of youngsters in horror films. I thought this would be an interesting film topic since there is a lot of kids in horror films and they make a lot of impact on these films and anything in the horror genre. Kids in horror films can be terrifying and memorable in horror movies or tv shows. Kids increase the fear factor since most people don’t want anything to happen to the kid and make the story even scarier if a kid experiences these supernatural and scary things. According to an article, I found they said that “Kids are an easy tool to use to depict the ongoing battle of good vs. evil in horror movies and TV shows. Children are especially effective here because their interactions with evil highlight the idea of lost innocence, which is something every audience member can relate to.” This is a way that kids are used in the horror genre and makes the movie more interesting to watch. It can be really scary movies or even not as scary ones like Hocus Pocus where it’s more light-hearted but still somewhat scary.

Inspiration: I decided to look up the most notable films that have kids in them and made a big impact on horror films. https://www.hollywood.com/movies/scariest-horror-films-starring-kids-60630880/#/ms-22907/1

• The Bad Seed

• The Good Son

• The Exorcist

• Before I Wake

• The Shining

• Orphan

• The Sixth Sense

• The Omen

• Stephen King’s Children of the Corn

• The Grudge

• Let the Right One In

• The Ring

A few of these I’ve seen or heard of and kids do really seem to make a horror movie scarier and get more people intrigued. People like to watch these horror movies, again looking at the article from earlier, “That's because it triggers something deeply personal for audience members: the loss of innocence. This strikes a chord for audiences as they can obviously relate to seeing something through the wonderment of a child.” It’s in trying how so many people relate to this and find it interesting to watch. Especially with any type of horror movie whether it’s just more scary, paranormal, bloody, or any type of movie it can really impact the audience with children being involved. A good example of kids in horror movies is Halloween. It doesn’t necessarily involve the kids getting hurt or anything, but it shows that child-like ignorance to Michel where he’s called the boogeyman and not really considered scary until the film starts to go on more.

Brainstorming/Experiemnation: Whenever I’ve watched a movie with a kid in it or a tv show I’ve been interested in how the kid reacts and how it affects them. One of the top things that come to my head for kids in horror is The Haunting of Hill House. It’s a good example of kids in the horror genre and how it’s fascinating and interesting to watch these kids being affected by hauntings and these events. I’ve made a horror short film before, it wasn’t that good and it had my little brother in it, but I don’t think it fits that idea of the loss of the child’s innocence. I would probably make another horror film, it was fun to make something like that. It’s definitely an interesting concept to see a child in a horror film go through these events. 

Reflection: I liked looking into this concept. There’s a lot of ideas and concepts around kids in horror films that I’ve never thought of before. Kids do make an impact in horror and just any genre really. It helps us to connect to that kid with however they might be feeling along with us. Kids are really amazing at portraying these emotions that a lot of adults can’t do since they’re young and see things differently than us. They make all films more interesting to watch and really get a reaction from you. I would defiantly like to explore children in horror films and, maybe make a movie with them. I don’t know if my little brother would want to make a film like that with me, but maybe one day when I can have hired actors.

Work Log: I hope to start filming this weekend.