Basic Trope: Children watch horror films and get terrified.
- Straight: The children Alice and Bob watch the horror film Vampires of the Cottage. They end up horribly scared and suffering nightmares for weeks.
- Exaggerated: Alice and Bob get a PTSD-like disorder from watching the film.
- Logical Extreme: Alice and Bob are literal babies that, somehow, just somehow, managed to be smart enough to operate to gain access to the film, and just one minor Jump Scare and the two get a heart attack.
- Downplayed:
- Alice and Bob suffer nightmares the night after watching the film, but that's it.
- The film is not (strictly) in the horror genre, but is still R-rated and contains intense Nightmare Fuel for Alice and Bob.
- The film is Defanged Horrors that really was intended for children, but is still too scary for Alice and Bob.
- Alice and Bob are in their early teenage years, and after watching the film a few times in a row, they both get uncomfortable and have chills, but their sleep didn't go horribly, also, they get startled without actual screaming when a scary part comes.
- Alternatively they don't get directly scared, but more disgusted than actually scared.
- Justified:
- The film has genuinely gruesome and scary scenes that children understand.
- The child has PTSD due to a traumatic event and the horror film has scenes that depict similar events, which further traumatises the child.
- Alice and Bob are too young to realize that it's a work of fiction. They think that the people who were killed in the movie also died in real life, and that vampires also exist.
- (For the teenage downplayed example) Alice and Bob are not used to watching those type of movies and are normally only going for light-hearted works.
- Inverted:
- Alice and Bob watch it with their parents. Alice and Bob don't find it scary at all, while their parents end up terrified.
- Alice and Bob don't get scared by the horror film, but do get scared by films that are supposed to be child-friendly.
- Subverted:
- Alice and Bob are scared while watching the film, but are okay afterward.
- Alice and Bob are about to watch the film. A lot of Tempting Fate from them (e.g. "This can't be so scary, can it?") ensues, but when they start watching, they don't find the movie that scary.
- Alice and Bob start having nightmares more often after watching the movie, but it turns out that the movie had nothing to do with the cause of their nightmares.
- Vampires of the Cottage actually isn't a horror film after all.
- Double Subverted:
- However, when summer comes and they're going to their cousin's cottage, they're terrified of going there.
- About halfway through the film, there's a scary part that Alice and Bob are genuinely frightened by, though.
- While Alice and Bob didn't have nightmares about the movie, they were still pretty scared by it.
- Even though Vampires of the Cottage isn't supposed to be a horror film, it does still contain content that Alice and Bob find scary/disturbing.
- Parodied:
- Alice and Bob Wangst about the film for five minutes before forgetting it entirely.
- Alice and Bob don't care about the scenes in which characters are brutally murdered, but get terrified when a cute doll with no plot significance is destroyed.
- Alice and Bob both act terrified, but they both end up laughing, admitting that they weren't really scared.
- The kids end up traumatized by the film... not because it was scary, but because it was that horrible of a film.
- The film is actually an example of Spooky Kids Media, and is pretty light in tone and has a happy ending, but Alice and Bob still get nightmares from watching it.
- Zig Zagged: Both get scared while watching the film, but only Alice suffers nightmares afterward. They go away fairly quickly. Then it's time to visit their cousin's cottage. Alice has forgotten the film entirely, but Bob is now terrified...
- Averted:
- Alice and Bob don't watch a horror film.
- Alice and Bob watch a horror film, but don't get scared.
- Enforced: The producers or meddling executives want to Scare 'Em Straight with An Aesop about why this kind of film is for adults and not children.
- Lampshaded:
- "So you have nightmares too? I guess watching that film wasn't good for us..."
- What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?
- Invoked: Jerkass Cassandra encourages Alice and Bob to watch the film, hoping they'll react like this and get in trouble.
- Exploited:
- Daniel comforts "horror film victims" at the cost of a few sweets.
- Seven-year-old Alice watches a horror movie that her babysitter Bob put on, with him not knowing she was watching. When he hears her screaming, he panics and starts giving her whatever she requests to make her feel better. Then her mother comes home and sees the movie still on and reveals Alice actually loves horror movies. Bob's the sixth babysitter Alice has pulled this on.
- Defied:
- Alice and Bob remind each other that it's only a film and they should get over it.
- Alice and Bob stop watching the film before they get more than a little scared.
- Alice and Bob's parents don't allow their kids to watch scary movies, at least not until they're aware that it's all just a movie and there's nothing to be afraid of.
- Discussed: "I don't think watching that horror film is a good idea. What if we end up traumatized?"
- Conversed: "You'd think some of the children who watch horror films would enjoy it, but it never happens on TV."
- Implied:
- After watching the film, Alice and Bob start getting less sleep.
- Alice and Bob suddenly become afraid of vampires, despite the work taking place in a setting where vampires don't exist.
- Deconstructed: Alice and Bob are permanently turned off horror films.
- Reconstructed:
- When Alice and Bob grow up, they decide (or get forced) to re-watch the film for some reason. This time, they enjoy it. They also ensure that their children don't watch horror films before they're mature enough.
- Their parents (or a guardian who's drastically older) are near enough to hear the screaming, and later comfort them.
- Played For Laughs:
- Alice and Bob do various weird things to "protect themselves from vampires".
- Alice and Bob keep laughing to each other because the movie "isn't that scary". Then the real scary part shows up, and they start screaming.
- They scream so loud, they managed to bring their house (or the even the entire city) into having a power outage, shattering every glass object, or both.
- Alternatively, they screamed so loud, they caused a sonic boom.
- Played For Drama:
- Alice and Bob have a good reason to be terrified: They have witnessed a murder in the past, and the killings in the film remind them of it.
- Alice and Bob have to watch the movie for English Class homework, and there's no substitute they can do instead.
- Played For Horror: they explode into just after screaming out of fear for some reason.
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