Hi Gang,
For the last two years, I've been a consultant for Peter Turner of the Oxford Brookes University regarding the viewing of horror films by underage viewers. His initial paper is out so I thought I'd post the link here as it's quite a read (it can be downloaded, too, so you can convert for your preferred e-reader).
It is obviously more geared to the UK's history and in particular the so-called (and imprecise, panic-term) video nasty. Incidentally, as a participant, I saw very little 'traditional' video nasties and have no interest in plotless horror that is just about revenge or hate, but I certainly saw stuff too early. I began watching horror in 1978 when Night of the Demon and Curse of the Werewolf were broadcast, and from there on I watched Alien, Amityville Horror, 'salem's Lot, the Halloweens and so on.
My parents were strict, but their discipline didn't extend to horror, but if there was sexual content, they would forbid me from watching.
I'm also working on an academic-flavoured essay on the inappropriate inclusion of horror literature with science fiction and fantasy. More and more I've noticed the disparity between SFF and horror, perhaps more so in literature than movies. I've become more than a little fatigued with the snobbery leveled against horror by genre fans, and my work on the Chronscast (podcast with @Dan Jones) has underlined just how poor a mix horror lit and sff are. I'd argue comedy has far more in common with horror than it does with sff, but as we are all aficionados of genre fiction here, horror gets crowbarred in, despite a fundamental misunderstanding about horror, it's purpose and its creation. (And I never get tired of banging on about how I hate the term 'horror'; it's a reductive term describing an emotion, not a genre, and I suspect mostly responsible for the maligning and misunderstanding of my beloved genre)
But I digress. The point of this post is to offer the link for Pete's paper, so here it is:
For the last two years, I've been a consultant for Peter Turner of the Oxford Brookes University regarding the viewing of horror films by underage viewers. His initial paper is out so I thought I'd post the link here as it's quite a read (it can be downloaded, too, so you can convert for your preferred e-reader).
It is obviously more geared to the UK's history and in particular the so-called (and imprecise, panic-term) video nasty. Incidentally, as a participant, I saw very little 'traditional' video nasties and have no interest in plotless horror that is just about revenge or hate, but I certainly saw stuff too early. I began watching horror in 1978 when Night of the Demon and Curse of the Werewolf were broadcast, and from there on I watched Alien, Amityville Horror, 'salem's Lot, the Halloweens and so on.
My parents were strict, but their discipline didn't extend to horror, but if there was sexual content, they would forbid me from watching.
I'm also working on an academic-flavoured essay on the inappropriate inclusion of horror literature with science fiction and fantasy. More and more I've noticed the disparity between SFF and horror, perhaps more so in literature than movies. I've become more than a little fatigued with the snobbery leveled against horror by genre fans, and my work on the Chronscast (podcast with @Dan Jones) has underlined just how poor a mix horror lit and sff are. I'd argue comedy has far more in common with horror than it does with sff, but as we are all aficionados of genre fiction here, horror gets crowbarred in, despite a fundamental misunderstanding about horror, it's purpose and its creation. (And I never get tired of banging on about how I hate the term 'horror'; it's a reductive term describing an emotion, not a genre, and I suspect mostly responsible for the maligning and misunderstanding of my beloved genre)
But I digress. The point of this post is to offer the link for Pete's paper, so here it is: