Shocked youngsers ‘are walking out of The Hunger Game’ as experts demand …

By
Liz Thomas and Alison Boshoff

PUBLISHED:

21:54 GMT, 27 March 2012

|

UPDATED:

21:54 GMT, 27 March 2012

Psychologists, child health professionals and parents yesterday joined calls for The Hunger Games to have its rating raised to a 15 because of its violent content.

Children who see the controversial film are at risk of having its disturbing scenes ‘hard-wired’ into their brains, one expert warned.

The movie – about teenagers in a totalitarian future being forced to kill each other in gladiatorial combat – was initially given a 15 certificate by the British Board of Film Classification but this was lowered to a 12A after producers agreed to make several cuts.

Violent content: Experts are calling for the film The Hunger Games to have its rating raised to a 15

However, with concerns about the film’s adult themes growing, a BBFC insider has admitted that it remains a ‘borderline’ case for a 12A rating – which means children aged 12 and over can see it alone, while younger children can see it if accompanied by an adult.

Some parents claimed their children had been left so distressed by the film that they had to leave the cinema early.

One mother said: ‘The fact that you actually see kids killing other kids is something I would not want a 12-year-old to watch.’

TWO HOURS OF BRUTALITY

Despite being aimed at young teenagers, The Hunger Games includes several disturbing scenes.

An especially brutal part of the 142-minute film depicts a bloodbath in which many of the young contestants die at the start of the games.

Later, a boy is mauled by a pack of mutated dogs before being shot in the head with an arrow to put him out of his misery.

Elsewhere, a girl of 12 is speared through her abdomen by a rival, while another scene features a teenage girl’s skull being smashed with a rock as she tries to slash the heroine’s throat.

One teenager snaps a younger boy’s neck before throwing his limp body on the floor.

Even Zygi Kamasa, chief executive of Lionsgate, the company behind the film, said he would not let his ten-year-old daughter watch the movie, which he admitted had a ‘lot of adult themes’ and ‘frightening and gory scenes’.

Geoffrey Beattie, professor of psychology at Manchester University, says watching teens killing each other will have a stronger effect on young people than adult battle scenes.

He said: ‘If you identify with the characters then it is going to seem more familiar and ... the things that happen will feel more visceral and have a stronger emotional impact on you.

There is a danger that there is so much death or violence that teens become desensitised.’

Many have defended the film, insisting it reflects the difficult content of the Suzanne Collins book on which it is based.

But writing about the film on her
website, best-selling author and paediatrician Dr Meg Meeker said: ‘Kids
process images they construct in their minds from written words
differently than they process large, hyper-real images on a screen.

Starlets: The film which stars Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth grossed £5million in the UK in its opening weekend

‘During the preteen and teen years, children’s minds are mentally pliable. They are being hard-wired... So, when an image comes into a teen’s brain it melds into that wiring and sticks.’

The BBFC said it had received a small number of complaints from people who have seen the film.

The Hunger Games, which stars Jennifer Lawrence, Woody Harrelson and Donald Sutherland, has grossed £5million in the UK in its opening weekend, twice as much as the opening instalment of another teen favourite, the Twilight Saga.