(Content notice: there is mention of violence and abuse in this post.)

Halloween is fast approaching and although I’m a horror fan throughout the year, it seems even more appropriate to watch scary movies. Drawn by the creepy movie picture as I scrolled through movie choices, I decided to watch Hulu’s original horror movie, Mr. Crocket. To increase the suspense, I didn’t look up what the movie was about, although the movie poster did give me a bizarro Mr. Rogers vibe.

The movie begins with a young boy watching a children’s program, one reminiscent of the ones we might remember as children- a central character and a bunch of children around him singing kids’ songs. He’s ordered to the dinner table by his stepfather and the viewer can feel the tension between each of the characters as he sits down to dinner. The stepfather proceeds to berate the boy and the man on television, Mr. Crocket, responds to the scene by peering at them from the screen, then squeezing himself out of the VCR. It sounds cheesy, but the scene where his eyes peek out of the video cassette slot was actually creepy. Mr. Crocket winds up at their door, invites himself in, and proceeds to torture the stepfather. He then leaves with the boy.

Mr. Crocket is a horror story, complete with some of the standard horror tropes, but with an underlying theme of child abuse. The demonic children’s television host was himself abused as a child until he grew strong enough to attack his father. Later on, he died and while in hell, made a deal to slay “bad” parents and kidnap children for his demonic television show. To Crocket, there is a wide spectrum of bad parenting, from being physically or mentally abusive to being inattentive or ungrateful. He believes he’s saving the kids by keeping them in a hellish version of a children’s television show. It’s up to one of the kid’s mothers to stop him.

This movie stuck out to me because of the child abuse aspect. If you think about it, abuse is a horror story- imagine being powerless and trapped in the home of an abuser throughout your childhood. After watching the movie, I reflected more on the theme of child abuse and consumed other media on the topic, including a Josh Johnson stand-up set in which he described being spanked and understanding because “we were poor. There was nothing to take away. There was a year when my mom and I shared a bedroom when I was a little kid. What was she going to take away? The floor?” Although the set was comical, I started to research corporal punishment and the general abuse of children- in the US and around the world. How many children are spanked or otherwise hit by parents? How many are abused in other ways or are neglected. What are the immediate and long-term effects?

According to the National Children’s Alliance, over half a million children in the US were victims of abuse and neglect in 2022. The World Health Organization estimated in 2022 that up to 1 billion children around the world have experienced physical, sexual, or emotional violence or neglect in the past year.

The concept of abuse has been argued for many years, with some parents taking the stance that spanking or corporal punishment is a valid means of correction and with other parents and experts describing such corporal punishment as abuse. Some parents have even treated it as a rite of passage, repeating the refrain “I was spanked (or hit with objects) when I was a child and I turned out just fine.” According to a study done by Dr. Elizabeth T. Gershoff and Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, however, “…spanking was associated with a higher number of detrimental child outcomes. In childhood, parental use of spanking was associated with low moral internalization, aggression, antisocial behavior, externalizing behavior problems, internalizing behavior problems, mental health problems, negative parent-child relationships, impaired cognitive ability, low self-esteem and risk of physical abuse from parents.” Aside from physical abuse, some children suffer from sexual and/or emotional abuse, and neglect. Each of these has a detrimental effect on children, an effect that can last through adulthood and, if untreated, can lead to some perpetuating the cycle.

This is a deep dive triggered by a horror movie, but it is chilling to know that there are thousands of abused children who don’t have someone to assist them. There is no scary, demented TV host waiting to claw his way into our homes to avenge abused or neglected children- we, as parents, are our children’s disciplinarians and their best advocates. Perhaps films like Mr. Crocket, though grisly and far-fetched, can help remind us of the important role we play in our kid’s lives and futures and can encourage us to be more intentional in parenting.

*In my research, I came across a blog post by Dr. Diana Divecha, developmental psychologist, who wrote about the detrimental affects of corporal punishment. This is a great read, especially because she includes several resources for parents who are looking for different ways to reach and teach their children, including Instagram personalities, books, and guidelines about childhood development.