Honestly, I get severely bored with parents insisting that children's films are too frightening. When we think back to the classic children's films of yesteryear, they range from the severely bizarre (Most of the Disney movies) to flat out terrifying (See Fantasia or The Wizard of Oz). Children enjoy being frightened. It is a central tenant of nearly all children's literature. Would it be better if we removed Captain Hook from Peter Pan? Or perhaps all of those fairy tales about evil stepmothers and wicked witches should also be purged.

This repulsive nostalgia to a younger, more innocent day is not only ridiculous but wrong. It encourages people to believe in a mythical, pre-lapsarian era where things were the way they WANTED them to be rather than the way they are. Horror in children's literature is a necessary function. It appears in every culture, in virtually every story. If we extracted it from our children's entertainment, then they would be neglected one of the most important factors for their development.

Of course, I haven't seen Despereaux, so maybe the main character gets eviscerated on screen. I dunno.