The R-Rating: A Manifesto

It’s been awhile since I’ve been really excited about a movie. You know, what I mean. The kind of movie that you count down the days until opening day. The kind of movie that you will happily pay the nearly ten bucks it takes to see a first-run movie instead of waiting for Netflix to make it available. The kind of movie that is a pure fun, popcorn and candy movie. When I first saw the trailer for the new film Insidious, I was excited. I immediately told my husband to pencil April 1 into his calendar because we would be going to see that movie opening night.

            Then, I noticed the film was rated PG-13, and I know I shouldn’t let something that small affect how I rate my movie-going experience, but it did. That kid on Christmas morning excitement that I had felt just moments before had completely dissipated.

            Here’s the thing.

            I don’t believe in the PG-13 horror movie.

            I want to, I really do. It’s not that all PG-13 horror flicks are inherently bad. In fact, there have been a few notable exceptions within the past year. Both Devil and The Last Exorcism were rated PG-13, and both were incredible films. Both films also were attached to master filmmakers, M. Night Shyamalan and Eli Roth, respectively. Here’s the thing, though. Both films had great scripts and great actors, too often a rarity when it comes to the horror film. Some might even argue that these two films don’t even belong in the horror genre—that they are more of character analysis—even a social commentary—with a strong horror element.

            For a PG-13 horror movie to really be excellent, it has to rely on spot-on storytelling because it can’t rely on the gore factor. It has to play with your mind and really pull you into the world it’s created. And, even more difficult, the PG-13 horror movie has to make you jump in your seat without actually showing you what is behind the curtain. Not an easy task.

            More often than not, when I see a film that is billed as being “horror” yet is rated PG-13, I assume two things: 1) I won’t get to see any of the blood, and 2) the characters are going to be talking in a squeaky clean vernacular. In other words, no guts, no glory.

            I’ve heard people argue for the other side, spouting the praises of the PG-13 horror movie, saying that it forces the filmmaker to rely on more sophisticated scares rather than buckets of fake blood and goo. It’s a good theory. After all, I’m all for sophisticated scares. I love it when the filmmakers take the genre seriously, but I also love it when they have fun with the genre. I can see the merits of both Audition and Pirahna 3D (both rated R, by the way), but I don’t think that an R rating equals lazy storytelling. Don’t believe me? Paranormal Activity, a movie that showed nothing in terms of graphic violence, was rated R for language. It managed sophisticated scares and a realistic setting (because what other twenty-something wouldn’t pepper a little R-rated language into his or her day-to day existence? Don’t even get me started about the characters in most PG-13 horror films, who all talk like they grew up watching too many Dawson’s Creek reruns).

            What does bother me is the way most PG-13 movies handle their storytelling. Too often, it feels as if these films want to be proper horror movies but are too afraid to cross the border into the dark. Case in point: this year’s Twilight, er, I mean Red Riding Hood. Believe it or not, this film is listed as in the horror genre by IMDB. I, too, was under the assumption, after watching the trailers, that this would be a horror film that went back to the roots of the familiar fairy tale. I was wrong. What I wanted was the original fairy tale in all its Grimm Brother’s glory. What I got was pretty people in a pretty place with a drop or two of bright red blood. (By the way, isn’t blood supposed to be dark red, almost black? Only Argento can get away with the day-glo stuff.)

            Maybe it’s just me. But I want an R rating with my horror. I’ll even say I wish they’d bring back the X rating (or is it NC-17 now?), but just give me a film I can sink my teeth into. Is that so much to ask?