Scary books and movies suitable for a 7yo

[SweetSilver]

DD loves graphic novels and scary stories, picture books and will listen to chapter books if she's really interested.  She really loved the 1951 "The Thing".  At the extreme, she loves the LOTR movies, and they are pretty scary and violent (we read all the books together, and The Hobbit) but that's normally a bit beyond beyond, if you know what I mean.  She loves the old Greek myths, like Bellerophon and Pegasus battling the Chimera and those stories.  She loves Hamlet and MacBeth from Marcia Williams' collections of Shakespeare tales.  We are trying out a couple of Goosebumps novels, so I know about those.  I even thought about getting the old Star Trek TV shows.  I found them phenomenally boring when I was her age, but then I was a Little House girl and didn't touch sci fi beyond Star Wars until later (she loooves Star Wars!)

Any suggestions?  Old "horror" flicks?  Newer scary adventures for kids?  Movies and TV shows (on DVD)?  Graphic novels or old comics collections?  Books?

[treegardner]

Hmmm, what about Doctor Who? It's a great show and if she's into sci-fi/fantasy stuff this will be right up her alley.

 

[rhianna813]

We actually find a lot of newer Scooby Doo movies to be suspenseful and scary but not too scary: Witch's Ghost and Zombie Island are too good ones. A movie called The Little Vampire is a bit goofy scary with a young boy who's family moves to England and he makes friends with a real vampire family.

Halloween related books or movies for kids might be a good route... as they are scary-lite.

[SweetSilver]

Originally Posted by rhianna813 

We actually find a lot of newer Scooby Doo movies to be suspenseful and scary but not too scary: Witch's Ghost and Zombie Island are too good ones. A movie called The Little Vampire is a bit goofy scary with a young boy who's family moves to England and he makes friends with a real vampire family.

Halloween related books or movies for kids might be a good route... as they are scary-lite.

We do like halloween books for exactly that reason!  I tried the Goosebumps I mentioned earlier.  At least one book....eh.  Too much tween drama.  But perhaps specific titles are better that others.  I'll look into the Scooby Doo movies, I think I remember the zombie island one.  I always did love that TV show (Rooby Rooby Roooooo!)

We are still on the hunt, and biding our time with (another) round of The Hobbit.  We also loved the Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III books, but she decided dragons are "supposed to be red" and balked at starting the 6th one.  I think she either got too bored, or something that really scares her to the core, like old bearded guys, might have turned her off to it.  "Heidi" terrifies her!  So, I think she really likes feeling scared when she feels safe because she is such a nervy girl, it gives her power to conquer other, lesser fears.

Thanks for the suggestions!

[Daffodil]

How about Coraline?  Would that be too scary?  A less scary (but still kind of scary) Gaiman picture book my kids loved was The Wolves in the Walls.  I hate this book, but my kids love it and have checked it out from the library multiple times.

A scary chapter book my kids loved is The Silver Crown by Robert C. O'Brien.  It's not horror, and it's not all scary, but parts of it are pretty scary.  My kids also liked the Bunnicula books, which are not actually scary at all, but are about scary things, if that makes any sense.  Cornelia Funke's Ghosthunters series is sort of scary but not too much

As far as movies, my kids liked Monster House. They first saw it when DS was 5 and DD was 8, and parts of it were too scary for DD the first time around, but she was fascinated by it and eventually watched even the scariest parts.  Spirited Away is a wonderful movie with scary parts.

[rhianna813]

Oh yeah Nightmare Before Christmas is a big hit in this house. Coraline unfortunately, freaked me and DS out hahaha But we have friends who kids liked it a lot.

Sleepy Hollow as a story would be a good suggestion.