I’ve always been a fan of horror films (although my tastes have changed over the years), and despite the fact that I haven’t seen every Wes Craven film (I don’t really think I’m the target audience for Nightmare on Elm Street XV) I have enjoyed his work. He has brought new and interesting twists to the horror genre and one thing in which he is consistent is that he does not flinch when it comes to scaring the audience.
In the past this has meant that his movies are consistently R-rated, as they should be. In the case of Shocker it actually took about 13 trips to the MPAA review board to get the film down to an R rating.
So what is my point?
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My point is that the pre-trailer banner above is for Wes Craven’s latest film: Cursed, which due to the wisdom of studio executives has been whittled down from an R rating to a PG-13. So here you have a film that was originally meant to be targeted at adults, which has had scenes trimmed bit by bit to get it down to a PG-13 so all the kiddies can get in to see it.
I’ve ranted on this before: Taking a film that was created with the intent of being rated R and trimming out bits does not make it into a PG-13 film! You can remove explicit scenes, or rather a few seconds of material from explicit scenes of sex, violence and foul language, but in the end the subject matter and theme remain.
So here you have yet another a PG-13 flick (that tons of uninformed parents will allow kids that aren’t even 10 years old to see) that contains horror violence and terror, sexual references, nudity and foul language. I mean look at the rating box… is it not ridiculous to see a PG-13 above that list of items???
From what I’ve read about Craven, I’m sure that he railed against whatever cuts were made (I understand the film has had a rocky history, taking a year to get to the screen since completion). His intent no doubt was to make another scary R-rated film but the cash register automatons that run the studios overruled him.
I really am sick to death of the targeting of adult material at kids, and the boundary keeps getting pushed further and further. I hate to think what will pass for a PG-13 movie 10 years from now.
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5 Comments
Good grief… I can’t imagine how hard it is to be a parent these days. I remember back in the early 90’s, when Basic Instinct was causing all that controversy. Today, you can see more objectionable material on any flavor of CSI.
On the other side of the coin, look how many parents are bringing very young children to adult-themed movies. The increasingly forgiving rating system is undoubtedly part of the problem, but parental indifference plays a large part as well. People take their young kids to adult-themed movies, then they wonder why they grow up all confused about the difference between movies and reality.
Brian
You have no idea how difficult it is for me to restrain myself from saying something when I see parents bringing their six year old to an R rated or “hard” PG-13 movie. I tend to think that the type of parent who would bring a young child to the movie in question is quite likely to be the type to tell me to drop dead.
And no doubt their little tyke will grow up to be the same type of model citizen.
Vic
looking for other banners for the beginnings of movies like the pg banner above only “R”, for use in a college movie. Can you help me locate one?
I think it’s stupid to suggest that movies should be rated R strictly based on theme or mood. A movie’s rating should be based on content (ie sex, violence, profanity) because that is objective, while what constitutes as an “R-rated theme” is purely subjective. For instance, I think “The Vigrin Suicides” which was written R strictly for theme, should be PG-13, while movies like “The Ring” or “The Sixth Sense”, which were PG-13, would definitely be rated R if movies could be rated R just for “tone”.
PG-13 does not equal a kids’ movie. It can have a mature theme, intense material, controversial subject matter, frightening/terrifying scenes, and all that, just without the explicit, graphic content that pervades R-rated films. I think it’s great when a film can be intense, mature, or scary without resorting to graphic content, hence the reason why such films should be PG-13.
And I stand by my “stupid” point of view.
Vic