A tarted-up middle aged woman walks down the hallway and toward the front door of her own house. A little boy sits as close as possible to the television in the adjoining living room, glued to the hypnotic moving images emitted from the 51 cm cathode ray tube. The woman turns her head toward the boy as she sorts through her bag to find the house keys and says “Hey little Billy boy, Mommy will be down the street spending time with Mr. Daniels & Mr. Beam, now don’t you go watching any bad things on TV okay darl?”. She looks at the innocent young man with adoration and even guilt. The little boy, Billy, replies without turning away from the screen, “Okay mommy”. The mother gives her son a “goodbye” and “I love you” as she slams the door shut, locking it behind her.Billy slowly turns his head toward the closed door. He thinks to himself about another night alone, with a stomach full of macaroni cheese and a head full of insecurity. Why doesn’t she like to stay home with me since daddy left? He sighs and reattaches his eyes to the screen. Billy starts flicking through channels but nothing colourful catches his eye. Suddenly he eyes something of interest. It’s some kind of weird, funny looking burnt man with a hat and colourful sweater on. His name is Freddy and his colourful, eye-catching image is too much to resist and the boy finds himself watching the movie in its entirety.

Billy falls asleep in front of the television that night. His mother returns home drunk and as she slams the door shut with drunken ignorance, Billy awakens from the middle of a nightmare, screaming. The mother rushes over to Billy, holds him, apologises for the noise and asks what’s wrong, “I had a dream about the burnt man with the razor fingers mommy, he was coming to get me and was going to take my soul” replies Billy. The mother looking terrified at her son, says “Billy, why would you dream such things? There’s no man with razor fingers!” Looking startled over at the television he replies “Yes there is mommy, I saw him on the television”. The mother rather angrily replies “Well I told you not to watch such naughty things didn’t I. Why would they put such rubbish on the television anyway? Tomorrow morning I’m going to gather up a group of friends and rally outside that television station for playing such crap at any time of night!” Billy looks at his mum sadly “I’m sorry mommy… I was just lonely; I’m always on my own lately!” His mother is far too involved in her drunken anti-violence / anti-horror rant to hear her son’s cries of loneliness and Billy is finally fed-up. Billy looks at her with anger and rejection is his eyes and grabs a letter opener sitting on the side table next to the couch. Billy’s mother looks back at Billy while holding him still and says “I mean Billy – why would such filth be put on TV anyway!?” He stares into his mother’s eyes for the last time and says “Welcome to prime time, bitch!” and stabs the letter opener into her neck several times, penetrating vital arteries with each stab. The mother drop’s Billy and he falls to the ground, Billy just stands there staring at her as she grasps at her neck in a desperate panic-stricken attempt at blocking the gaping holes in her neck. She chokes as she sucks at the air to breathe but cannot and she falls to a heap in the blood soaked carpet.

One year later…

Billy is still in an institute for children for the murder of his mother. It was ruled by the judge that Billy need constant psychiatric evaluation during his time in the institute and to not be released until he is of the appropriate age and mental stability to be released under his own care. Upon release he will be given a new identity and have to start from scratch with not a single purpose or guide in life.

Since the case of Billy there has been public outrage particularly amongst mother groups who are concerned, convinced and angered by the effect of violence in horror & action films brain washing children and turning them into violent & anti-social members of society. It is reportedly assumed that going by the channel which was still running when police arrived on the scene that Billy was watching A Nightmare on Elm Street right before murdering his mother. A previous incident with another horror film, Child’s Play, was brought up during the court case of two boys who murdered a toddler after watching it. You can almost imagine the parents of these two and the lawyers. Imagine them telling the boy “Right… the best thing to do here is blame a movie! We’ll say the reason you spent all day stealing from shops at a mall, the reason why you tortured and killed an innocent child, is because you watched a film about a possessed doll who only manages to kill adults and in far less gruesome ways in which you murdered this child. It’s perfect!”. Naturally, it was a good defense as people are easily lead to believe such “bad influences” to deny that the innocence of youth could be so mentally disfigured with thoughts of murder and torture.

Of course at no point in any of the trials was the parenting conditions brought up or any of lack of responsible action of the parents for not being there to at least view the films with the child or ensure the child is not watching these kinds of films. It’s a lot easier to point the finger at such “influences” and blame them for their wicked ways. It never seems to be noticed that these movies have ratings on them for a reason and that they are usually played rather late at night. If the child is not watched and left at home on their own or with an inappropriate carer of course they’ll be exposed to whatever is on television because all an irresponsible carer wants the child to do is “go away” or “shut up”. The fact also remains that all the child need to do to be traumatized by REAL messed up content is watch the news and that’s on all day. Still even with something such as the news, we have the problem, which is with no parent comes no censorship or control.

In Australia specifically we don’t have R ratings for games. But when Grand Theft Auto IV comes up the mother groups come out and complain about the game. Hey – kids can’t buy it if it has a R rating. Kids can’t watch horror films – if you DON’T LET THEM. Children will NEVER know the context in which a horror film is meant to be representing – WITHOUT PARENTAL GUIDANCE.

So please – for fucks sake – instead of banning something again. Instead of attacking art or film that is intended for a mature audience in the first place. Please approach the slow decline of traditional family nurturing and parenting.

Leave horror films alone, they’re (traditionally) made by mature aged filmmakers FOR a mature aged audience.

-The Bludgeoner

**Some great links to show examples of scapegoated films and opinions on such matters:

Movies Made Me Kill

Teens Mimic Horror Movie Murders

Opinion On Media Violence