I feel sorry for the children actors...

It more depends what the atmosphere in the studio is, for example there's interviews with the kids from Salo: 120 Days of Sodom that talk about how incredibly fun the set was because between takes people were joking around, and they made it clear it was just play acting...and that movie makes this look like a happy, carefree joy dance in comparison. Kids are generally less stupid than we tend to give them credit for. If those came out enjoying the experience and wanting to act more from a movie where there's feces eating, anal rape, vicious brutal torture, urine drinking and so on, this seems like it would be pretty tame in comparison. So long as they had fun acting, what they happen to be acting tends to be neither here nor there

--
*+_Charos_+*

"I have often laughed at weaklings
who thought themselves good because
they had no claws."

Me too, I felt sorry for them.

There are some scenes where they simply can't cut the traumatic parts. How can anyone explain the child actor putting lipstick and wearing his mother's clothes? Or the scene at the hospital after rape?

I hope they didn't see this movie after production. Ever. It would cause them so much trauma.

And no, children aren't stupid, and many things get to you at a very young age, mentally and psychologically.

me neither

I don't think people realize how movies are made. People think the kid in "The Shining" must have been traumatized because it was so intense, but it turns out he didn't even know he was in a horror movie.

I don't recall the young actors ever being naked in this movie, but why would that bother anyone? Very few women are attracted to small boys and men have certainly seen themselves or other kids naked growing up, so unless they're pedophiles. . . I DO recall Asia Argento playing a body double for her "son", who was supposed to be posing as "his" mother, and seducing Marilyn Manson. Now THAT disturbed me (should you be aroused or horrified by Asia Argento pretending to be a pubescent boy who's pretending to be a grown woman, also played by Asia Argento, and is about to have sex with Marilyn Manson?).But I don't think the kids were even involved in that scene at all.

I also suspect the parents were probably very protective of the kids, given that the content of this movie might attract a certain element. That's not a slam on the movie, but parents and other adult s would have been very wary of content like this. It's like when they made "Lolita" most recently, they went through great pains to shield the 15-year-old actress because the sexual content was just so incendiary. A year later though the same (still-underage) actress is in the more mainstream "Face/Off" and, hey, it's time for a gratuitous rear panty-shot!

Maybe watch the movie with the commentary on, then you won't feel so bad for them. Just sayin'.


I’m surrounded by a cesspool of activity.

I agree. I would NEVER EVER let my kid (I don't have any yet... but still!!) star in a movie like this.