Comments on: Bad Daddy https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2007/02/26/bad-daddy/ Culture, Politics, Academia and Other Shiny Objects Fri, 02 Mar 2007 04:02:31 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.15 By: pxib https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2007/02/26/bad-daddy/comment-page-1/#comment-3305 Fri, 02 Mar 2007 04:02:31 +0000 http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=337#comment-3305 I believe that your daughter’s attitude is a symptom the ubiquity of high quality cinematic special effects. Children are exposed to such a barrage of realistic but obviously fantastic images in advertising, television programming, and movies. The line between visual fantasy and reality gets drawn far earlier and with more sophistication than it did in our less saturated childhoods.

Additionally, the creepy costumed morlocks exist in the psychological wasteland of Masahiro Mori’s “uncanny valley” along with demon dolls and haunted statuary. Their twisted, unmoving faces are still unnerving today. The Nazi Assassin is more fully realized and (even wasted and bloodless) more comfortably human… and the tentacles are completely inhuman, completely unreal, and easily dismissed as scary fun rather than nightmare factory by your daughter’s sophisticated mind.

The scene may not have been avert-your-eyes scary so much as avert-your-eyes tense.

There are many reasons not to watch the recent Silent Hill adaptation with your daughter… but its creatures are a better example of Morlock-style uncanny valley horror.

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