Children and horror are often thought to be an incompatible meeting of
audience and genre, beset by concerns that children will be corrupted or
harmed through exposure to horror media. Nowhere is this tension more
clear than in horror films for adults, where the demonic child villain
is one of the genre's most enduring tropes. However, horror for children
is a unique category of contemporary Hollywood cinema in which children
are addressed as an audience with specific needs, fears and desires, and
where child characters are represented as sympathetic protagonists whose
encounters with the horrific lead to cathartic, subversive and
productive outcomes.
Horror Films for Children examines the history, aesthetics and generic
characteristics of children's horror films, and identifies the 'horrific
child' as one of the defining features of the genre, where it is as much
a staple as it is in adult horror but with vastly different
representational, interpretative and affective possibilities. Through
analysis of case studies including blockbuster hits (Gremlins), cult
favourites (The Monster Squad) and indie darlings (Coraline),
Catherine Lester asks, what happens to the horror genre, and the
horrific children it represents, when children are the target audience?
