Monsters

By Lex, on Tue – March 23, 2004

When my son was only three or four years old, we rented “American Werewolf in London * ” and brought it home to watch. I remembered the film as light-hearted and funny, never thinking for a moment what the impact might be of some of the gory stuff on a young mind – he was the first kid, the experiment. We learned along the way. We hadn’t watched very much when we realized it probably wasn’t suitable for him, and stopped the tape until he’d gone to bed. After he was asleep, the Hobbit and I resumed watching it. At one point, while the protagonist is changing from human to lupine form, with his hand elongating into a claw, complete with sprouting fur and nails, we heard a gasp behind us. The Critter had woken up, and snuck back into the room just in time to see this scene. I remember the look of wide-eyed shock on his face, a look of innocence lost. He looked at us and said, “That can happen?”

No, kiddo, we explained. It’s just TV, just make-believe. There’s no such thing as monsters.

But that really isn’t true, is it?