{"id":1883,"date":"2015-10-24T09:42:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-24T17:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=1883"},"modified":"2015-10-24T09:42:00","modified_gmt":"2015-10-24T17:42:00","slug":"thrills-and-chills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/thrills-and-chills\/","title":{"rendered":"Thrills and chills"},"content":{"rendered":"
By: Darien Campo\r\nStaff Writer<\/pre>\n
October is slowly coming to a close, but the horror movies keep playing in my house.
\nThis week I watched \u201cNightmare Before Christmas\u201d (1993), \u201cSweeny Todd\u201d (2007), \u201cTusk\u201d (2014), \u201cThe Frighteners\u201d (1996), \u201cGoosebumps\u201d (2015), \u201cCabin in the Woods\u201d (2012), and \u201cFriday the 13th\u201d (1980). <\/p>\n
2015 saw the revival of R.L. Stine\u2019s Goosebumps series with a new film starring Jack Black. <\/p>\n
While the movie was a bit lacking in places, it was a fun nostalgia trip back into the classic series that used to occupy me for hours. I used to collect all the Goosebumps books as a kid — I loved the creepy, gross, scary, and shocking tales R.L. Stine had provided for me. I was a horror fanatic in a child\u2019s body, and authors like Stine fed my fascination.<\/p>\n
I used to read all the ghost story collections I could find back then. <\/p>\n
Authors like Bruce Coville gave me plenty of chills, but there was one trilogy of books that really stuck with me all of these years. Alvin Schwartz\u2019s \u201cScary Stories to Read in the Dark\u201d trilogy gave me legendarily bad nightmares. The grotesque illustrations of Stephen Gammell were twisted beyond all belief and made those books transcendently terrifying. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m not alone either, adults still celebrate Schwartz and Gammell\u2019s work, and in fact, a new documentary about their trilogy is currently in the works. Those books may have frightened us, but even as children we knew that it was fun to be frightened.
\nI don\u2019t feel that enough attention is put into horror entertainment geared toward children. <\/p>\n
We tend to assume that it\u2019s an adult-only genre, but there\u2019s a world of opportunity for juvenile horror. We\u2019ve seen some great examples before with movies like \u201cParaNorman\u201d (2012), and \u201cCoraline\u201d (2009). <\/p>\n
These movies know how to scare children and keep them laughing. But the undisputed master of children\u2019s horror would, of course, be Tim Burton. No one else quite has that perfect blend of wondrous, childlike fun mixed with a sick fascination with the morbid and macabre.<\/p>\n
Movies like \u201cParaNorman\u201d are usually met with opposition from parents wanting to protect their children, and the \u201cScary Stories\u201d trilogy is a regularly challenged book year after year. <\/p>\n
It can be hard to imagine horror as an acceptable genre for children. But it\u2019s important to remember that it is a ton of fun to be scared, no matter how old you are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
October is slowly coming to a close, but the horror movies keep playing in my house. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}