to buy or not to buy

Parenting via Livejournal: last resort. Though really, this is parenting by fangirl, which is far better.

I'm looking at the anniversary edition of Bladerunner for Christmas this year for Child (it's on sale, and I like to plan ahead). He's eleven and fairly comfortable with horror and sci-fi (I've restricted it to idiotic sci-fi movie of the week or the classics I've already seen and I have a very, very weak stomach, but I'm guessing Nightmare on Elm Street is coming up fairly soon since that's standard fare for girls when I was that age; basically, I can't deal with it so I don't let it in the house quite yet if I can't watch it with him or haven't seen it myself already).

Long story short: good idea/bad idea? I haven't seen it, which means it'll be a treat for both of us, but I'm not entirely sure about the sexual versus violence content versus adult issues that will make no sense to him. He know movie violence (and critiques sci-fi channel for it, which is hilarious), and eleven-twelve, if I remember correctly, is when he *should* be hiding this stuff from me and watching on the sly. I'll probably screen it first anyway, but give me an idea of what I'll be looking at.

Also grabbing him the first Star Wars trilogy finally. We have them, but they're fairly old, and I think the new edition has some commentary (he does, in fact, watch the commentaries and extras: God, he's going to outgeek us all) and he gets a kick out of it.

For reference, what he has seen: Halloween (first one), Halloween IV (on sci-fi, seriously, that cut it makes it hysterically funny), um, most sci-fi movies of the week involving snakes, pythons, bugs, or killer mammals, The Ring (bored out of his mind, liked the girl a lot, don't know what to do with that), Final Destination I and II (we both enjoyed and freaked out), Alien I, II, III, and IV, Alien Versus Predator I and II (seriously awesome, so ashamed), Scream I and II, the one with the giant bug people and a bus or something?, etc etc etc. No later Fridays, no Nightmare on Elm Streets, no Halloweens other than mentioned, no Hostels or Saws or super slasher movies (so misleading to read that for a slasher). Those he can do on the sly with his little friends at sleepovers so I have a.) plausible deniability and b.) don't have them in the same building I am in.

Weirdly, I'm really ambivalent about George Romano's stuff, because it's a.) good stuff and b.) it freaks me out but I can still watch it and love it, which makes me nervous how he'll take it. He really should see the original zombie movie of greatness. OTOH, again, I get nightmares off of made for TV horror so I am a really bad judge.

(Hellraiser for instance. It's a classic, and I read the synopsis, and it scares the shit out of me, but I can't tell if it's because it's me and I am bad with horror movies, or if it's, you know, objectively terrifying.)

(Add Chainsaw Massacre to that list as well, just the first. These are the ones I can't judge; I know objectively they're *good* horror and awesome, but they freak me the fuck out.)

Done for today. Re-reading Daybreak by giddygeek because Groundhog Day in Atlantis is never not awesome.