I took my 4 year old daughter to see a G-rated movie ostensibly about a cute little kitten and his adventures in a strange house of wonderful magical contraptions.
I was expecting a delightful daddy-daughter shared experience full of whimsy and wonder and kittens. What I didn't expect was a lengthy opening sequence in which strongly suggests that THE KITTEN IS GOING TO DIE!!!!!!
Now I am the first to admit that my daughter is a bit jumpy. She finds it hard to watch the Adventures of Peter Rabbit (the Fox is a little bit frightening). She also squeals during the more tense parts of the Octonauts. So when the cinema's website said "some scary scenes", I was prepared for a gentle build up of tension followed by a mildly scary chase scene that lasts a minute or two at most, culminating in a satisfying last-ditch escape: enough to give the little ones a bit of an adrenaline surge, but nothing that will affect their ability to sleep.
The G-rated "Thunder and the House of Magic" takes terrifying small children to a level I had not previously experienced. It opens ominously, though subtly with a kitten being dumped on the side of the road. An adult quickly works out this is a cat being cruelly abandoned, but an innocent child can easily imagine it is just a mistake, the kind that happens frequently in kids movies and books and ends with a happy and tear-filled reunion some minutes and/or pages later.
In this case, the newly abandoned kitten is almost immediately caught up in a life-or-death struggle for survival involving fast moving motor vehicles. Cars and trucks zoomed past and over the kitten at very high speeds and very close range. The kitten looked terrified. So did my daughter. At this point, I have to stress, my daughter was pretty much convinced that THE KITTEN IS GOING TO DIE!!!!!!
I held her hand through this and reassured her that everything would be fine (as an adult I am aware of the convention of not killing kittens in the opening scenes of a G-rated movie). But instead of breaking the tension with a nice happy scene involving flowers and butterflies, this one went from traffic terror to a torrential storm soaking the poor little kitten to its miserable skin, and accompanied by extremely close and frequent lightning strikes which my daughter was sure meant that THE KITTEN IS GOING TO DIE!!!!!!
But that's not the end of it. The terrified kitten finds shelter in the creepiest freaking attic imaginable, made creepier by the terrifying shadows cast by the lightning outside, and when the creepy silhouette of the coat and top hat flashed for just a second on the screen (appearing like a well dressed invisible psychopath), my daughter was certain that THE KITTEN WAS GOING TO DIE!!!!!!
Then, just when I thought I had her convinced that everything was going to be fine, the kitten was attacked and chased through the strange house by the Evil Bunny and the Mean Mouse, who make it abundantly clear that the kitten was not only not welcome, THE KITTEN IS GOING TO DIE!!!!!!
Finally, after what seems like an eternity of terror in the mind of a four year old who really, really likes cats (which is, incidentally, why I chose this particular movie in the first place), we meet the owner of the creepy house who of course turns out to be a very kindly old man, but for reasons I can only assume involve some sort of childhood trauma, the film-makers decided to make look, on first impression, like a terrifying mad man. They certainly didn't disguise the fact they wanted everyone in the cinema to know that THE KITTEN IS GOING TO DIE!!!!!!
At this point I managed once again to convince my daughter that everything was going to be OK, that this was going to be a happy movie, that I didn't know it was going to be so scary, and that I love her very much and didn't deliberately go out of my way to bring her to the most frightening movie she had ever experienced in her short life. And for a few brief moments, as the nice old man took the poor scared cat to bed with him, it looked like I was not lying to her. And then the Evil Bunny and the Mean Mouse poke their heads up over the edge of the bed and tell the cute little kitten that if it doesn't leave the house before sunrise IT IS GOING TO DIE!!!!!!
At this point my daughter asked for the third time if we could leave, and I had very little choice but to agree that it seemed like the best thing to do. We left, we went to the park, and we had a lovely day together thanks for asking. But even several days later, I have to wonder who thinks it reasonable to put a G-rating on a movie which is, from the perspective of a small person, all about the terrifying final moments in the life of a cute little kitten.
Now I am in no way suggesting that this movie should not have been made this way. I'm sure there is a market for kiddie horror movies in which cute animals are constantly almost killed, just as I am sure there are children who don't at all mind watching a kitten being terrified out of its wits at every turn. I'm simply saying that I relied on the G- rating as an indication that this was not such a film, because my daughter is not such a child.
I urge you to consider a special warning on future promotional materials that quite clearly states: IMPLIED IMMINENT DEATH OF KITTEN MAY DISTURB SOME YOUNG VIEWERS.
I was expecting a delightful daddy-daughter shared experience full of whimsy and wonder and kittens. What I didn't expect was a lengthy opening sequence in which strongly suggests that THE KITTEN IS GOING TO DIE!!!!!!
Now I am the first to admit that my daughter is a bit jumpy. She finds it hard to watch the Adventures of Peter Rabbit (the Fox is a little bit frightening). She also squeals during the more tense parts of the Octonauts. So when the cinema's website said "some scary scenes", I was prepared for a gentle build up of tension followed by a mildly scary chase scene that lasts a minute or two at most, culminating in a satisfying last-ditch escape: enough to give the little ones a bit of an adrenaline surge, but nothing that will affect their ability to sleep.
The G-rated "Thunder and the House of Magic" takes terrifying small children to a level I had not previously experienced. It opens ominously, though subtly with a kitten being dumped on the side of the road. An adult quickly works out this is a cat being cruelly abandoned, but an innocent child can easily imagine it is just a mistake, the kind that happens frequently in kids movies and books and ends with a happy and tear-filled reunion some minutes and/or pages later.
In this case, the newly abandoned kitten is almost immediately caught up in a life-or-death struggle for survival involving fast moving motor vehicles. Cars and trucks zoomed past and over the kitten at very high speeds and very close range. The kitten looked terrified. So did my daughter. At this point, I have to stress, my daughter was pretty much convinced that THE KITTEN IS GOING TO DIE!!!!!!
I held her hand through this and reassured her that everything would be fine (as an adult I am aware of the convention of not killing kittens in the opening scenes of a G-rated movie). But instead of breaking the tension with a nice happy scene involving flowers and butterflies, this one went from traffic terror to a torrential storm soaking the poor little kitten to its miserable skin, and accompanied by extremely close and frequent lightning strikes which my daughter was sure meant that THE KITTEN IS GOING TO DIE!!!!!!
But that's not the end of it. The terrified kitten finds shelter in the creepiest freaking attic imaginable, made creepier by the terrifying shadows cast by the lightning outside, and when the creepy silhouette of the coat and top hat flashed for just a second on the screen (appearing like a well dressed invisible psychopath), my daughter was certain that THE KITTEN WAS GOING TO DIE!!!!!!
Then, just when I thought I had her convinced that everything was going to be fine, the kitten was attacked and chased through the strange house by the Evil Bunny and the Mean Mouse, who make it abundantly clear that the kitten was not only not welcome, THE KITTEN IS GOING TO DIE!!!!!!
Finally, after what seems like an eternity of terror in the mind of a four year old who really, really likes cats (which is, incidentally, why I chose this particular movie in the first place), we meet the owner of the creepy house who of course turns out to be a very kindly old man, but for reasons I can only assume involve some sort of childhood trauma, the film-makers decided to make look, on first impression, like a terrifying mad man. They certainly didn't disguise the fact they wanted everyone in the cinema to know that THE KITTEN IS GOING TO DIE!!!!!!
At this point I managed once again to convince my daughter that everything was going to be OK, that this was going to be a happy movie, that I didn't know it was going to be so scary, and that I love her very much and didn't deliberately go out of my way to bring her to the most frightening movie she had ever experienced in her short life. And for a few brief moments, as the nice old man took the poor scared cat to bed with him, it looked like I was not lying to her. And then the Evil Bunny and the Mean Mouse poke their heads up over the edge of the bed and tell the cute little kitten that if it doesn't leave the house before sunrise IT IS GOING TO DIE!!!!!!
At this point my daughter asked for the third time if we could leave, and I had very little choice but to agree that it seemed like the best thing to do. We left, we went to the park, and we had a lovely day together thanks for asking. But even several days later, I have to wonder who thinks it reasonable to put a G-rating on a movie which is, from the perspective of a small person, all about the terrifying final moments in the life of a cute little kitten.
Now I am in no way suggesting that this movie should not have been made this way. I'm sure there is a market for kiddie horror movies in which cute animals are constantly almost killed, just as I am sure there are children who don't at all mind watching a kitten being terrified out of its wits at every turn. I'm simply saying that I relied on the G- rating as an indication that this was not such a film, because my daughter is not such a child.
I urge you to consider a special warning on future promotional materials that quite clearly states: IMPLIED IMMINENT DEATH OF KITTEN MAY DISTURB SOME YOUNG VIEWERS.