Cremona, the eighth grade horror film in the “hole” hour: students passed out. Parental anger

There are films so gory that they cause nausea and fainting in adult viewers. It happened this year in American cinemas with “Terror 2”horror film released on October 13 last year. And it also happened to Cremona not in a cinema, but in a middle school classroomthird class, during the screening of the first chapter of «Terrifier» the 2016 slasher movie (film genre in which the protagonist is a homicidal maniac, ed) by director Damien Leone. During an hour “hole” the kids launched the proposal to the substitute teacher: «Shall we watch a movie?». The teacher agreed, leaving ai thirteen the freedom to choose: «Terrifying”in fact, forbidden to minors under 18 years not by chance, because it is not a film for weak stomachs. The protagonist is the mass murderer Art The Clown, a sadistic serial killer clown. The scenes are really gory. Some students fell ill, the screening was interrupted and, once they learned of what had happened, the parents protested with a letter to the principal.

While watching the movie, many students turned away, others felt nauseous facing rivers of blood, quartered bodies, eyes gouged out in full splatter style on the model of the films of the eighties. To the pupils who complained and covered their eyes, the “bloodthirsty” classmates suggested not to look and to occupy themselves with something else. The projection has been stoppedbut the anger of the parents, informed by their children still in shock, mounted once they got home from school.

Moms and dads confronted each other. Not everyone considered what had happened in class to be “serious”. The most bewildered parents didn’t take a step back and wrote to head teacherasking how such levity could have been possible in their children’s school. The principal does not comment on the story. He explains that the school administration has acted in the manner prescribed and resolved the issue, comparing the teacher, students and parents. Sure, average the carabinieri did not arrive as had happened in February of this year in an elementary school in Gessate where six parents of fifth grade children had presented themselves to collect their children during the screening of Benigni’s «Life is beautiful». “After watching the first half, a little girl cried her eyes out. The masterpiece is not discussed, but some children are more sensitive and impressionable», explained a father.

In Cremona case closed, indeed not. The controversy is fueled by Giovanni Schintu, manager of the Filo cinema-theater. “It really leaves you speechless – he comments – the superficiality with which the teacher consented to the viewing of the film without even inquiring about the typology, then leaving the final choice of what to see to the students themselves. And this suggests that cinema, unfortunately and too often, is considered by many to be a trivial moment of entertainment». And again, «it is disconcerting that in defiance of any legislation, a film has been shown that absolutely does not respond to the concept of “viewing for school use”: in fact, both film distribution and SIAE grant the possibility of viewing films, subject to authorization and release, within the school only if the educational purpose is well defined, and here I’m having a lot of trouble finding it. The hope is that what happened will be a stimulus to everyone for a fruitful reflection on what it means to show a film to young people in a very particular age group».

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