FEATURE: Fact-Checking PG-13 Horror

Something's been stuck in my craw for a while now: horror fans who whine about PG-13 horror.  Without citing specific cases, I've heard many complaints.  The charges?  (1) PG-13 horror sucks.  (2) PG-13 horror sucks because it's so pervasive.  (3) PG-13 horror sucks because studios cut movies down for a wider audience.  (4) There was a glut of PG-13 horror after Scream.  And (5) There was a glut of PG-13 horror after The Ring.  

I've heard these claims in fan forums, in real life, at conventions, and on horror websites.  At first, I thought PG-13 horror wasn't a big deal at all.  Then I wondered why so many complained about them.

Did this need more gore?

So let's consider this a resource.  A valuable assemblage of information.  I chose to stick to wide-release Hollywood films, because those are the films most likely to be rated PG-13, the ones most likely to bow to pressure from the ratings board, and the ones most often under attack.  Note: this post and its format was inspired by the horribly addicting website Politifact:

1) "PG-13 horror sucks!"

Status: Irrelevant

I can't refute this claim.  It's your opinion.  Enjoy having it.  Sure, a lot of PG-13 horror probably sucks.  But a lot of R-rated horror sucks.  A lot of movies suck.  If Sturgeon's Law is accurate, 90% of everything sucks.  Furthermore, if we assume that anything short of an R-rating fails to qualify as "quality" horror, we may as well toss out every horror film released pre-1968, when the rating was invented.  Before then, people had to base their opinions of the movie on the actual movie.  Those were dark times, indeed.

Sorry Eleanor...but you suck now.

2) "PG-13 horror sucks because it's so pervasive!"

Status: Half-True

Well...hold on.  Are we counting the Twilight movies?  I'd place them more in the company of young-adult-fiction flicks like Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia.  Hell, the Dementors in Prisoner of Azkaban are scarier than anything in Twilight.  Ignoring those genre-blurry borders (because genre is a mosaic),  there's a bit of truth here: PG-13 horror films increased in recent years, mostly in the middle of the last decade.  An explanation is forthcoming...

3) "Studios cut down movies for PG-13 ratings!"

Status: Mostly False

The majority of horror releases in Hollywood are rated PG-13 because their story content does not merit an R.  The most prevalent example of this kind of film is the rise and fall of Asian horror remakes. There's nothing about horror films like Shutter, The Ring, The Grudge, or The Uninvited that necessitates an R-rating.  The only notable (re: provable) example of a studio cutting down a film intended to be R-rated is Wes Craven's Cursed.  Certainly there are other films, like The Wicker Man and The Fog, that re-tool their original R-rated material to appeal to a wider base, but that happens at the beginning of the creative process, not the end.  Worthy of criticism, maybe, but a different situation.

4) "There was a glut of PG-13 horror in the wake of Scream!"

Status: False

Scream was released in 1996.  In 1997, only one PG-13 horror film was released: Anaconda.  In 1998, no PG-13 horror films were released.  In 1999?  Four PG-13 horror films.  Three of them (Bats, The Haunting, and The Sixth Sense) were in no way informed by Scream in terms of story.  The other, Killing Mrs. Tingle, was written and directed by Scream author Kevin Williamson, which confuses the idea of "influence."  Given that its title was altered from Killing Mrs. Tingle due to the Columbine massacre, the rating likely had more to do with decorum than commercialism.

I suspect this weird-ass claim (Scream being R-rated and all) came from a key trend that Scream started: using rising stars from shows targeted at teenagers.  Neve Campbell, the hero of Scream, was best known for her work on the Fox show Party of Five.  Subsequent horror films followed this tack.  Three examples.  Halloween H2O featured Michelle Williams of Dawson's Creek.  Urban Legend featured Jared Leto of My So-Called Life.  I Know What You Did Last Summer featured Sarah Michelle Gellar from Buffy.  There are many more.  This gives the films a teenage "flavor," even though they're hard-R slashers.

Another, smaller trend.  Scream caused studios to dust off old franchises and apply a fresh Screamy paint job:

Hmmmmmm.

6) "There was a glut of PG-13 horror in the wake of The Ring!"

Status: Mostly True

Yep.  I made a graph.*  Judge away.

PG-13 releases increased in the wake of The Ring (2002) and maxed out in 2005, accounting for half of the 16 wide-release horror films.  However, the actual trend of making films in the style of The Ring didn't hit its peak until 2008, when three Asian-ghost-horror-remakes hit the screen and oversaturated the market.  Still, the numbers definitely increase; Hollywood produced eight PG-13 Asian horror remakes in the past decade.  On average, though, less than a third of Hollywood horror films are PG-13, and that holds true for 2011.

It's difficult for me to call this a significant "problem", given that the majority of horror releases in a given year now come from independent studios, be they foreign or domestic.  Hollywood horror is a narrow wedge in the pie.

Certainly there are some films that would've been better without the restriction of such a rating, just as there are some films that weren't helped at all by their excesses.  Those are considerations for another time.  For now, I just know that I'm happy to have seen movies like Drag Me to Hell, Eight Legged Freaks, 1408, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and even that Willard flick that's mostly about how many different ways Crispin Glover can be photographed in shadow.  Say what you will about his interests, the guy knows how to vamp.

---

* I compiled this based on entries in Wikipedia - if there are wide-release horror films I've missed, let me know.  However, it's unlikely that I've missed enough that my conclusions would cease to be fair.  By year:

2001: (none)
2002: Darkness, Eight Legged Freaks, The Ring
2003: Darkness Falls, Willard
2004: Alien vs. Predator, Godsend, The Grudge, Van Helsing
2005: Boogeyman, The Cave, Cry Wolf, Cursed, Dark Water, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Fog, The Ring Two
2006: An American Haunting, The Covenant, The Grudge 2, When a Stranger Calls, The Wicker Man
2007: 1408, Blood and Chocolate, I Am Legend, The Invasion
2008: Cloverfield, The Eye, The Haunting of Molly Brown, One Missed Call, Shutter
2009: Drag Me to Hell, The 4th Kind, The Haunting in Connecticut, The Uninvited
2010: The Last Exorcism
2011: Apollo 18, Red Riding Hood, Shark Knight 3D