Good Taste or Bad Parenting?: Upping the Ante with My Horror-Loving Son
Wherein we ask, "When is one old enough for 'Texas Chain Saw Massacre?'"
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I.
When it comes to the parenting of our two kids, I am the “good cop” in the household. Lenient to a fault, I am likely to grant the “five more minutes” our tween son often requests at bedtime, and I am apt to give in to our teenager’s pleas to drive her to Starbucks or Target. When the younger child wanted to try the ultra-caffeinated, gamer-bro drink of choice, Prime Energy, I consented; when on her fifteenth birthday the elder kid asked that I lift the explicit content filter from her Apple Music account, I caved.
Much of my permissiveness stems from that of my parents’. Understanding intuitively the benefits of “self care” long before that term was in circulation, my mother would allow me on occasion to stay home “sick” from school to sleep in, read, draw. To encourage a love of literature, my parents let me to read most anything that drew my interest. This is how in fourth grade I, reading Stephen King’s The Stand (1978), ended up asking my teacher what the word dildo meant. High marks for vocabulary on that report card, let me assure you.
So, dear reader, given this context and my own parenting disposition, what do you suppose my response was to my 10-year-old son when he asked to watch Halloween (1978) on a weekend when my wife was out of town?
“If you think you can handle it. But the lights stay off.”
II.
I don’t know exactly how old I was when I first saw Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1975), but it was sometime before October of 1989, when I was 9. That particular month saw the VHS release of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), the first movie my family rented upon purchasing our first VCR. My introduction to Massacre stands out in my memory not simply because of the film itself but because of the peculiar format on which I saw it: on VideoDisc via a rented player sometime in our pre-VCR days. VideoDisc (aka a Capacitance Electronic Disc, or CED) was a short-lived video format from the early 80s that used a stylus to playback audiovisual information stored on an LP-sized vinyl record encased in a plastic cartridge. Shit you not.
So how did a film about a family of redneck cannibals that impale young women on meat hooks find its way to me at such a tender age? Having been undaunted by relatively tame horror flicks like Poltergeist (1982), Gremlins (1984), and Fright Night (1985), and having suffered no bad dreams as a consequence, I was convinced, and one day declared to my grandfather, that “No movie can scare me.”
“We’ll see about that,” he said before hopping in his pickup and driving away on a mission to call my bluff. He returned half an hour later with a box in his arms. My grandfather explained that he had visited the local video store and asked the clerk for “the scariest movie you’ve got.” The clerk handed him The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I can only assume my grandfather left out the part that the intended audience had not yet sprouted his first armpit hair. Oversight?
III.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre indeed scared the shit out of me, but rather than recoil, I was fascinated by it. In short order, I became a grade school horror buff. Naturally, I watched everything I could get my hands on, but I also began taking out horror novels from the library. I picked up a copy of Stephen King’s Danse Macabre (1981) expecting a tale of terror only to discover it was nonfiction, a work of criticism. I read it anyway.
King’s book sent me backward into the genre’s past (the Universal monster movies from the 1930s, Night of the Living Dead [1968], Tod Browning’s Freaks [1932]) and outward towards its margins — mondo fare such as Faces of Death (1978), exploitation films like I Spit on Your Grave (1978), cult classics like The Wicker Man (1973). Then I discovered Fangoria magazine, which turned me on to indie horror movies like Re-Animator (1985), Basket Case (1982), and Bad Taste (1987), the gory, ultra-low-budget debut film from Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings fame.
I had become something of a pre-pubescent gore aficionado, and my parents, as they were wont to do, indulged my interests no matter how “out-there” they were. My father even signed a form at the my local video store giving carte blanche approval to rent any “R”-rated movie in the shop without my parents having to be present. And they did all this despite intensely hating the genre.
I was left to my own devices. It’s a wonder I didn’t wind up in an institution.
III.
Being an incurable cinephile and a one-time film professor, I take great joy in sharing the things I love with the uninitiated. What could be more joyful than sharing His Girl Friday (1940) or In the Mood for Love (2000) or M (1931) with students? Ditto for watching my own children watch E.T. (1982) for the first time, or Goonies (1985), or My Neighbor Totoro (1988). I delight in seeing them delighted by the things that delighted me.
I was therefore thrilled when my 10-year-old son Whit began to show an interest in spooky movies. I started him off with Gremlins, of course, along with Jaws (1975) — which I contend is a monster movie —, The Sixth Sense (1999) and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) to gauge his shock tolerance in preparation for more intense stuff. Like me at his age, my son began to think himself invincible and asked that I take the training wheels off.
I thought for certain The Ring (2000) would send him fleeing from the living room, but he weathered it with grace. Halloween, he admitted, was scary, but not too bad. The opening scene of Scream (1996), which I warned him would test his mettle, barely fazed him. He even correctly guessed the killers early on in the proceedings, which I failed to do upon seeing it as a teenager.
Since the rest of our family has no interest in the genre, Whit and I reserve our scary movie nights for when they are away from home. My horror-averse wife knows we are watching these, but thankfully, she has seen very few of them herself. I doubt she would co-sign our little movie club if she were more familiar with the titles.
But therein lies their appeal. Horror films, by their nature, are transgressive, frequently pushing against the boundaries of what’s considered acceptable. It’s fitting, then, that my son and I bond over movies that brush against — and sometimes breach — the limits of good taste (and perhaps of good parenting). Just as allowing him a sugary snack before dinner or letting him stay up past his bedtime now and again represents a small indulgence, watching scary movies is a brief flirtation with the forbidden and a momentary deviation from the everyday.
Who knows if his interest in the genre will continue on past adolescence. For now, I am grateful for the time I get to share with my son reveling in our unsavory pleasures.
IV.
But unlike me as a boy, my son has some guardrails.
Recently, as the end credits rolled on Scream, I asked Whit what we should put on our list for next time.
“Texas Chain Saw Massacre!”
“Not a chance! It’s way too intense.” I replied.
He groaned.
“Maybe when you’re 12,” I added with a wink.
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FWIW: I saw TCM when I was 11 years old by sneaking out of my room and hiding behind the couch. It was scary, but didn’t do nearly the amount of damage as watching Watership Down :D
I saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre at a drive-in with older cousins when I was 9. I was terrified. And then we watched the second half of the double feature: It's Alive. And Stephen King was my favorite writer. There is a tribe of us, enit?