Classics Dark and Dangerous

While I was looking for the audio information about “The Rocking Horse Winner” as performed by John Shea on “Selected Shorts” (post), I came across a British short film of the story. I watched the first several seconds of the introduction and then I saw this title card.

The carnival font and coloring is too much

I can only imagine how many kids had this title card scare the bejesus out of them, as Thames’ “Chocky” introduction scared me near senseless. How wonderful to frighten children.

I really wonder about cultures and their various levels of willingness to gift dark stories to children. The Grimm stories are very much of this form, but some of them are (frankly) incomprehensible out of their time. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” also seems to have a lost meaning to its darkness that we can no longer handle. I suppose the fact that we forget how to encounter the strange is all the more reason that the strange must re-present itself over and over again.

scary
childhood
writing