So, of course, being the die-hard Harry Potter fan I am, I went to see the 4th movie on opening night. I think the books are far superior to the movies, but I still have to go! Anyway, I don’t know why I am surprized, because it happens everytime, but I just can’t get over how many parents bring their little kids to see these movies. I saw kids ages newborn and up. I know it is marketed as a kids book, but it’s not. And the older Harry Potter gets, the more evil and violence there is in the books. The first half of the movie was fairly lighthearted, but the second half was scary, violent and dealt with a lot of devilish people. I just don’t get it. Our world is scary enough without subjecting our little ones to things like this. At least reading the book, they can create their own images, but the movie does it for you and it was something like Alien vs Poltergeist. I heard three kids on the way out who said they were going to have nightmares! Poor things!
well crud, I was hoping to take Pixie to see it this morning, guess we’ll wait for DVD.
Well, Steph, if you took her to the other ones and she didn’t think they were scary, then this might be fine. But, I thought this was the most violent of all her books so far.
When I was 7, we had a baby sitter watching us for the night and we were supposed to watch the Bugs Bunny Special on TV, but my older sister thought it would be more fun to watch Amityville Horror followed by the Exorcist. I was damaged for life after that little experience! So, I am a bit critical of scary movies 🙂
I think my biggest issue in media is violence or anger without context — violence for the sake of violence. In the Harry Potter series, at least there’s a good vs. evil theme with love at its center. Halo and other violent video games or a lot of action movies, in contrast, are just violence for the sake of violence. Those aren’t the kind of influences I want on my child.
I think a mature older kid (maybe 8? 9?) could certainly handle these movies if they had read the books, knew what to expect, and had talked with parents about the themes so that they understood what was going on. A more sensitive child or a child who couldn’t contextualize at the same age, however, might not be ready for them at all. But any kid under 5 in those movies? I don’t think so.
We went with a friend to see Charlies Angels II when it came out (AWFUL movie — lots of violence, lots of sexual themes, nothing particularly redeeming) and someone dropped off a group of three boys ranging in age from maybe 7 to 9. It was a PG-13 movie. I was astounded. When we went to see X-Men in the theater, we sat next to a couple who brought their almost-2-year-old who watched the whole thing with rapt attention. And I saw something in the news about a 3 year old who, tragically, choked to death on his popcorn during the showing of Alien v. Predator that his parents took him to see.
And here I avidly read reviews and pre-screen rated G Disney movies to make sure there’s nothing in there I wouldn’t want my kid to see!
Hi!!!! Found your blog through Steph. Thanks for the post about this movie. I’m going to see it with a friend next week myself, but was really wondering if I was being over sensative to not allow my 8 year old DD to go with me. We’ve never read the books together (waiting a couple more years so that we can go directly from one book to the next without 2 and 3 year pauses to account for more mature situations in the latter books), so she doesn’t know what to expect with each consecutive movie, as I do (having read all of the books, to date). Reading that there are others of the opinion that this may be too much for a child definitely firms my resolve that my DD won’t see it before it comes out on DVD (and we can watch, pause, discuss, stop, etc movie at home as needed).
Blessings. –Kati
Kati, I think that’s wise. The film takes the scary parts and makes it very graphic! {Spoilers ahead} Especially the part where voldemort comes back to life with Harry’s blood and Wormtails hand. Voldemort grows out of the cauldron like a gooey snakelike alien. And then they also make you really like cedric diggory and you see him killed without much discussion or explanation. I don’t know if I will want Kaia watching this until she is 10 or 12. But, again, I may just be extra paranoid because of my history.