Boiling Point: Kill More Kids

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on September 28, 2009

bp-killachild

Kids suck.  Everyone knows this.  They’re noisy, they smell, they ruin sex lives and movie going experiences.  But that’s in the real world.  Kids in the movie world are far, far worse.  They’re sickeningly cute, they say the darnedest things, and they somehow survive every situation no matter how fucking implausible.  I mean seriously, kids are easy targets.  In the middle of the African jungle, kids don’t accidentally stumble out of the way of the lion.  The lion eats the kid.  Or kills it for sport.  Don’t even get me started on Velociraptors.  Kids are slow, stupid, and delicious.  Any kid entering Jurassic Park ever is nothing more than a snack.

So why don’t movies reflect this reality?  Why aren’t more kids biting the big one?  I’m not advocating dropping a house on some fat kid in a Pixar movie and having his brain squirt out of his ankles.  But in big boy adult movies, why are kids given a free pass?  Why is Michael Myers slashing babysitters but not babies?  You want to show true evil, kill a kid.  You want to show reality, kill a couple.  It just takes you out of the movie.  You seriously want us to believe that the ultimate evil isn’t evil enough to kill a kid?  You think I’m going to believe this assassin can shoot the wings off a fly but misses a kid running down a hallway?  Am I supposed to buy some maniacal killing machine with an ax to grind and cut heads off with can’t catch a rugrat and smash his head in?  Let’s get real, Hollywood!

Some movies get it right though, and they deserve some props. Who Can Kill a Child? is a good place to start.  You want to know who can kill a child?  Tom, the protagonist.  Dude is down with machine gunning kids and beating them with planks of wood.  Because they deserve it, the evil little bastards.  Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight also deserves a little love.  There is a young kid in it, maybe 13 or 14 or whatever, and he doesn’t make it.  You know why? Because kids are shit when compared to demons.  Demons are immortal hell warriors, not little bitches like kids.  Sleepaway Camp was all about youngsters getting the ax, even a whole bunch of like 5 year olds got hatcheted.  Hell yeah!  Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow featured a young boy who didn’t get away – because the Headless Horsemen don’t fuck around.  Rambo featured some very effective massacre scenes where, true to life, no one gets away.  Not women, children, mothers, daughters, sons.  Because the real world sucks and everyone gets it eventually.  Now that last one is certainly a bit more disturbing than the other ones, which are less serious fare.  Back on the lighter side of things, in a way, is perhaps the ultimate in child killing – Beware: Children at Play, from masters of messed up horror, Troma Entertainment.  It’s said when the trailer for the film was shown, half the theater got up and walked out.  The climax of the film is a 10 minute sequence of adults killing kids.  Lots of kids.  Like 50 kids.  Do the kids survive or get away?  No.  They had it coming.  Also, they’re dumb and slow.

If you can’t go into an R-Rated movie and watch some kids get killed, you probably shouldn’t go into a movie.  If you’re one of those morons who thinks watching something in a movie or on TV means its going to happen, you’re an idiot – in addition to being a moron.  Movies are movies, not reality.  Wanting to see something happen on film is in no way indicative of someones mental state.  Millions of people watch horror movies without killing people.  We watch movies about Nazis without joining up.  We watch movies about infidelity yet an alarming number of us keep it in our pants.  Fuck, even the new remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street seems to have removed the child killing aspect.  What the fuck, man?  Can we not show bad people doing bad things?  It’s not the writer or director killing people.  It’s a character in a movie.  No children actually died.

So wake up, Hollywood, and grow some nuts.  It’s time to kill more kids.  They’re asking for it.  Begging for it.  Give your bad guys more oomph, your villains more evil, and your serial killers more fodder.  It’s just being realistic.  Show it how it is.  You have no trouble killing off the fat guy because he’s slow, but even the fatty can outrun a child.  It bugs me when someone little brat who has no real shot of evading anything somehow manages to come out unscathed.  In fact, seeing a kid survive some implausible situation that an adult wouldn’t pushes me right past my boiling point.

Can’t get enough of Robert Fure’s rants? Get them in real time on twitter: Twitter.com/RejectRobert. Also, check out the Boiling Point Archive.


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  • chille
    Well AVP: R killed a kid in the first ten minutes but I'd rather forget that movie all together. A great movie that features some kid killing was Drag Me To Hell. Not only did a kid get killed in the first five minutes, but he was also damned to burn in hell for all eternity.
  • Yeah, that is a good example. All the kid did was steal something - that was returned - and whammo. Hellfire.
  • Aleric
    AVP came to mind when I was reading the article. Not only did they kill kids but babies and that to me showed that the Aliens didn't care about humans, we were incubators, pure and simple and it made the movie more believeable in my opinion.
  • rpaine
    Jaws killed a kid.
  • You sir, need to see Battle Royale.
  • I saw it. And read the manga. They're supposed to be 14 or so, but looked older, so it lessened the impact. Although the one still photo of last years winner was like, an 8 year old girl, so that is awesome. But yes, Japan is much more liberal about tearing kids in half.
  • BrutalDecap
    I almost died when I read this, I have been saying this forever!!!!! Everyone thinks I'm just a masochistic kid hating bitch. When I am finally able to do my own movies, kids are dying everywhere.
  • venture82
    For those who stream their Netflix content, "Beware: Children at Play" is available to watch instantly. Definitely in my queue, now.
  • nadanuff
    Kids died in these movies:

    Mimic
    Feast
    Feast 2 (sick--saw the clip, didn't even watch the movie)
    Final Destination 2
    The Blob (80's version)
    Jeepers Creepers 2
    Alien 3 (off camera, but still)

    I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones I thought of. I'm not impressed with killing kids (guess I've got too much heart) but I agree that heartLESS killing monsters (Freddy, Jason, etc.) and animals/creatures should not differentiate when it comes to their kills. The fact that kids are spared just shows that directors are rejecting pure realism to avoid controvery. Seriously, that clip from Feast 2 is burned into my brain.
  • tylerdurden1681
    The thing that really pisses me off is how children are kept alive so writers can use the adult characters to put them in harms way and often get killed while trying to protect or save the child from the danger.
    For instance when little Tommy forgets his iPod outside, he leaves the safety of the group to wander outside where the killer or monster is to fetch it. Now the adults who obvisouly are not smart enough to notice this eventually figure it out and run outside in time to get slaughtered while trying to save the kid from the dumb thing he did.
    That has been overused for years.
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