One of the best because it 'went there.'

It's not so much being "politically correct" but more about today's filmmakers worrying more about box office results, since murdering a child would instantly get a film an R rating, and R-rated films are generally believed to be less likely to make money than PG-13, PG, or G-rated films.

The 1980 George C. Scott film "The Changeling" has an on-screen murder of a child by drowning. It got an R even though it had no foul language nor any other violence.

Good post Engelhaft. A child dies on camera in Halloween III and many more off camera at the very end. A child is suffocated with a pillow in the 1992 Belgian film Man Bites Dog and a child is shot to death in the 1997 Austrian film Funny Games. Man Bites Dog is on Youtube right now!

Perhaps the most disturbing child murder is in the unrated version of Caligula. A baby is beaten against the stairs, I believe.

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Such a scary film. It's all great, but the first half-hour, with Carol Kane trapped in the house, it's really nailbiting.

I think the issue with horror movies nowadays is that most will follow the formula pattern and the characters do things that we as audience members know they shouldn't be doing (especially when it's been spoofed and described in DETAIL in "Scream") so when we see this happening it ruins the suspension of disbelief. Like in the remake of When A Stranger Calls the baby sitter does everything you know not to do (like walking around in a dark room and then leaving the security of a locked house to go and check on a guest house where the lights keep going on and off and no one answers the phone), and so the audience no longer buys the whole scenario.

In the original WASC the viewer doesn't actually see the kids being murdered; we hear about it and get the description and then later we see the killer in a flashback in the kids' room covered in blood so it's our imaginations that fill in the blank. Same with the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre because a lot of viewers thought it was really gory but it was only the last few minutes that were really bloody; everything else was filled in by the viewer's imagination (which is sometimes scary than actually seeing anything). I myself thought that TCM was really gory until I watched one of the special features on the DVD and it was described how the movie wasn't as gruesome as many thought it was 😃, so I watched it again and they were right.

Engelhaft, I don't know if you've seen the remake of WASC, but if you do, I'd like to know what you think of it. I was cringing and rooting for the killer to get the main character.


But'Cha Are, Blanche! Ya'Are In That Chair!