by Amber Gaye

Created on: March 08, 2009

"They're here..." the PG and PG-13 rated horror movies that is. There is a debate that rages amongst horror movie aficionados as to whether or not there is a place in the horror movie genre for PG-13 rated films. If we consider this question carefully, we find that many of the greatest horror flicks of all time have been rated PG-13 or below.

Certainly there are great R rated blood and sex filled horror films, but true artistic genius needn't rely on copious amounts of blood and bare skin for shock value. Consider Dracula (1931); Nosferatu (1922); Night of the Living Dead (1968); Jaws (1980); Frankenstein (1931); and of course, Poltergeist (1982). Each of these films not only fall into the list of the top 25 horror movies of all time, (according to entertainment site IGN.com) but also carry a rating of PG or below.

As a genre, horror has been around since the start of the movie making industry. Audiences were no less scared by the implied horror of Hitchcock's famed Psycho shower scene than had we actually witnessed the knife plunging into Janet Lee's bare flesh. In fact, an argument can be made for the advantage of implied terror.

In the iconic 1982 horror film, Poltergeist, we see little of the actual spirits terrorizing the
Freeling family, and none of the parallel world of the damned that little Carol Anne gets sucked into. What's happening to her in there? Who has her captive? What do they look like? Therein lies the true horror. We know something terrible is happening, and we can't see it, so our minds fill in the blanks. What better tool to terrify us than our own mind?

More recently films such as White Noise and White Noise 2 have been released, both of which carry a PG-13 rating, and yet manage to reel us in with an atmosphere of suspense and foreboding, shocking and scaring us without nudity or buckets of gore. Even the wildly successful Monarch of Horror, Stephen King, has blessed us with chilling films that follow us into our nightmares, yet only garner a PG-13 rating. Who can forget the evil residing in King's room numbered 1408? Personally, I don't think I'll ever stay on the 14th floor again...anywhere. Then, there's the murderous mind-bender Johnny Depp delivered in King's film Secret Window, who knew corn cobs could be scary?

So it would seem that true horror lies in the mind of the viewer and not in the rating. I, and many others like me, would love to see more films in the horror genre that earn a PG-13 rating. Without the typical crutches of gallons of blood and guts, or nude butchery and gratuitous sex, filmmakers are forced to reach deep into our minds and become creative masters of horror and story telling.

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