Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 is in cinemas and is another example of a PG-13 horror movie not having any teeth. When did that happen? Spoiler alert: This article contains a spoiler for the ending of Drag Me To Hell. How old were you when you started to discover horror films? This writer was far ... Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 | When did PG-13 horror lose its edge?
Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 is in cinemas and is another example of a PG-13 horror movie not having any teeth. When did that happen?
Spoiler alert: This article contains a spoiler for the ending of Drag Me To Hell.
How old were you when you started to discover horror films? This writer was far too young to be watching people chopped to pieces, but films like Jurassic Park and The Sixth Sense were hugely influential and later led me to seek out films like The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby and The Shining to mention a few.
The Sixth Sense and Jurassic Park – which isn’t a horror film per se, but certainly a little scary at points – were both rated PG-13 in the US. In the UK, The Sixth Sense is a sensible 15 while the dino adventure is a 12A, but it was relatively easy to get hold of both films even if you were below those age ranges.
PG-13 horror tends to get a bit of a bad rep; it has to always cut away just as someone is about to get killed, hold back with its scares and in general imply more than show. After all, isn’t the golden rule of cinema “Show, don’t tell”? But there have been some excellent, terrifying PG-13 horror movies that influenced a whole generation to love horror movies and found inventive ways to terrify and surprise without spilling too much blood.
Films like Poltergeist, The Gate and Tremors all offered horrifying thrills without having to show too much blood. American remakes of Asian horror films like The Ring and The Grudge also made many of us seek out the originals. They all relied on atmosphere and some well executed jump scares with just a hint of bloodletting to leave a lasting impression on the minds of pre-teens.
But what happened to PG-13 horror films of today? Films like Five Nights At Freddy’s, Imaginary and M3GAN all feel disappointingly tame and unimaginative when it comes to the horror elements compared to what came before. There’s no face peeling a la Poltergeist or a woman missing her entire jaw, as seen in 2004’s The Grudge remake.
None of the films mentioned here so far have managed to be as shocking as Sam Raimi’s 2009 horror romp Drag Me To Hell. The fact that Raimi’s film is rated PG-13 seems a little mad considering how much it shows and how overall grim it is story-wise. Spoiler alert, but the film literally ends with a woman being dragged to hell, as the title suggests. Alison Lohman’s Chris ends up falling on some train tracks just as she’s about to get her happy ending and before a train runs her over, several rotten arms tear through the earth and drag her down into the fiery pits of the underworld as her flesh starts disintegrating, too. It’s pretty nasty.
It’s not even all about gore. Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield found some clever ways to get around not showing too much to avoid a higher rating by using handheld footage. The overall chaos of the movie being presented as found footage only adds to the intensity and while we see very little, that’s kind of the point.
It wasn’t just The Sixth Sense that cemented M Night Shyamalan as the most prominent, intriguing horror director of the noughties. 2002’s Signs manages to also creep us out and includes one of the most effective jumpscares that convinced an entire generation that aliens could very well be strolling down our own street. Yet, the film was all perfectly watchable at the tender age of 13. Sure, it left many of my friends rather disturbed and no one really wanted to come over for a sleepover after that was my movie of choice, but hey, at least they now know horror films weren’t for them.
Even if they are deeply disappointing, films like Five Nights At Freddy’s and its sequel are hugely important. Everyone deserves a chance to feel that particular type of fear and excitement that comes with horror films safely, but how come a movie based on a horror video game franchise seems so worried about being too scary? In its credit, Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 has a couple of very loud jumpscares and certainly tries to tap into something much darker than the first film. Director Emma Tammi mostly hides the scary animatronics for most of the film, but when they are on screen, their effectiveness is undeniable.
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PG-13 horror has always played a massive role in introducing the genre to younger fans. It allows them to experience fear in a much safer way than watching someone be melted by acid (see Saw V) or be burned to death by tanning beds in The Final Destination 3. Not all R-rated horror is perfect. and the blood and guts don’t automatically make a film good. Horror is so much more than just gore and jumpscares, so why aren’t we offering the same things we love about the genre to younger watchers?
There have been no formal changes to the PG-13 rating system, but what was okay in the 80s – ripping out a heart from a man’s chest in Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom, for example – probably wouldn’t fly today or at least, no one seems to be willing to put anything like that in their films anymore. Unfortunately, there’s a whole generation that is missing so much that horror movies have to offer.
Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 is now in cinemas.
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