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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Too scary for kids?
Filed under: Media
Since we are a bunch of geeks in this house, we had our tickets
for the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire lined up well in advance. I bought four tix,
intending to go with my husband (Jay Allen, whom you know from these pages), my oldest daughter, Meg, who is 20, and my
second oldest, Neve, who at 8 1/2 is a HUGE Harry Potter fan.
We did have some misgivings about the PG-13 rating, but we know what Neve can handle pretty well so felt comfortable bringing her. Jax, who is six, and Veda, who is four, wanted to go as well, but we vetoed that until I could see the film and judge the scary factor for myself. I was actually surprised at how many people came out to the opening night with sleepy little ones in tow.
We have a full review of the film up over at Cinematical, but I wanted to give you a parent’s perspective on the film here: this film is very intense and scary in places. It’s a very dark and mature film, and deserving of its PG-13 rating. In particular, the dragon scenes, the merpeople and Voldemort (an almost unrecognizable Ralph Fiennes) are quite frightening, even for adults. The basilisk in Chamber of Secrets was pretty scary, but these dragons are amazing, and the merpeople will forever drive images of Disney’s frothy singing mermaids from your mind.
Neve, at 8 1/2, handled it very well, just clinging to my arm occasionally and once or twice hiding her eyes (but peeking between her fingers). She’s read all the Harry Potter books, though, and we talked to her well beforehand about the likelihood that this film was going to be scarier and more intense than the previous films. I’d say use your judgment before taking a child under 13 to see Goblet of Fire. More mature kids in the 8-12 range can probably handle it, especially if they’ve read the books and know how dark the later stories get; younger kids will probably find the dragons and merpeople a little overwhelming, especially in a dark theater with Dolby surround sound. We will wait to let the younger kids see it until it comes out on DVD, where they can watch it in the more secure environment of home on the small screen, with the volume turned down a little lower and all the lights on.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
12-18-2005 @ 7:13PM
suburban misfit said...Good for you, previewing it before your littler ones saw it.
We plan on going over Thanksgiving break, just me and my husband, and then if we think it's OK, we'll take either both kids or just the older one.
Reply
12-18-2005 @ 7:13PM
momma2mingbu said...We're taking our (almost) 7 year old tomorrow afternoon. We figure if he can handle reading the end of book 6, he can handle this movie. He is *SO* excited about it. We've been reviewing bits of the GOF book with him to help refresh his memory about the parts that are likely to be the scariest in the movie.
Reply
12-18-2005 @ 7:13PM
t mac said...Went to see it with my little bro 10 and he handled it quite well. But it is a little dark.
Reply
12-18-2005 @ 7:13PM
Angel said...I took my 10 yr old to see it (she's read the book) and she was fine, but then again, she's pretty mature for her age.
It drives me nuts when people bring little kids to films like this though.
Reply
12-18-2005 @ 7:13PM
Ann Adams said...Mine 10, 10, & 12 will probably go next week. I've kept up with the books and will take a look at the reviews in the meantime.
I may warn them ahead of time though that not all will be happy times. They were okay with the last one even with one of the main characters dying.
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