Kids in Horror: Victims

Children in horror can be a bit of a touchy subject. Some people refuse to read anything which has hints of child abuse or graphic descriptions of violence against them. I can't say I blame them too much, it is something that makes me a little bit squeamish. I say that even though some of my own works have scenes which fall along those lines.

Class 5 opens with a scene which features the death of a young boy, and it includes a scene of the boy's father finding the body later on.

Hannah has a scene where the family dog attacks the son, and later a twisted version of that same pet kidnaps the daughter.

Killing a child isn't something that should be done haphazardly, and certainly not, in my opinion, done just for shock value. It should be important in the context of the story.

One of the earliest scenes of a child's death in movies is of poor little Maria in the classic Frankenstein. The scene isn't gruesome, or even dark, it's sad. It's important because the scene brings focus on the monster's childlike innocence, and how he's not evil. The scene becomes tragic because he's not trying to kill Maria, it's completely accidental as he tosses her into the water where she drowns because she can't swim. He just wanted to see her match the flowers after she pointed out how pretty they were floating on the water's surface. Without this scene, it would be much harder to feel pity for the monster later on when the town is chasing him and calling for it's death while he has no idea why everyone hates him so much.

The death of Alex Kintner in JAWS was one of the more gruesome scenes we've seen of a child's end. There are several reasons for this scene though. It shows that nobody is safe, not even in a group (though he was out further than everyone else). It broke the mayor's hold on the problem in a way that he couldn't keep it quiet anymore, forcing the community to see and acknowledge the issue facing them. The resulting press conference also led to the introduction of Quint, so his character doesn't just feel dropped into place later on. It's also a major psychological moment for Chief Brody, who likely would've had the memory flashing through his head as he ran to his own son on the beach after their small sailboat is knocked over, and the guilt likely assisted in forcing him to accompany Quint on the shark-hunting expedition in the end, in spite of his fear of the sea.

This is one that shook a lot of people. It really comes out of nowhere and even though it's not graphic, the implied carnage is easy for most people to imagine, especially thanks to the kind of things that commonly get shown on the news and on social media these days. The death of Gage in Stephen King's Pet Sematary is so important that there wouldn't be a story without it. It's the strength of the sense of loss, something most people can relate to, that drives Gage's father to test the power of the pet sematary, setting in motion a series of events that are all as horrible, or worse, than the one that sets the whole thing in motion.

Children are innocent. They don't know the truth of  the dangers and horrors of the world around them. That's what makes it hit so much harder when dark fates befall them, and why so many people can't stand to see these kinds of scenes. Their deaths are almost always "Wrong place, wrong time" and they rarely have any hand in the things that happen to them. Maria just wanted a friend to play with, Alex Kintner just wanted to play on his raft a few minutes more, and little Gage was just chasing the kite string. People don't like seeing bad things happen to innocents, just like with pets.

Still, I don't think any horror story should be avoided simply because a child dies. As my examples show, even in death, many of them showcase the beauty of childhood innocence, they illustrate the power of grief, and show that life does still continue.

And isn't that the point of horror? That no matter how hard or bad things get, life (usually) goes on, and things do get brighter again eventually. You know, unless you bury your son in an ancient graveyard possessed by pure evil...

~ Shaun