Film Fans Like Scary Stories

* Re “Horror Genre Refuses to Die for Moviegoers,” news analysis, Sept. 26:

News flash: People love scary stories. Well, hel-loooo? Anybody remember the dire doings of a guy named Hamlet? Or a witch planning to cook up a couple of little kids for dinner? Not to mention one brother killing another? Storytellers have been scaring the daylights out of willing folks forever. Now we just do it with fake blood and inventive camera angles. Lots of it is schlock. Lots of it has always been schlock.

And I’m sure lots of people thought that guy Shakespeare (or whatever he was called) was ruining civilization with his blood and gore.

MAXINE O’CALLAGHAN

Lake Elsinore

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* Art seems an ever-changing force, marching through history, with fairly predictable cycles. The current cycle of decadence, marked by extremes of sex and violence, will run its course in its own time. Censorship will not obstruct the waves of artistic cycles.

Instead, the public has the right of judicial review where obscenity is ostensible or where the artistic creation poses a clear and immediate danger to public health, safety or morals.

Meanwhile, parents would do well to remind children that “the blood is not real--it’s catsup” and to explain that artistic depictions are fantasy, make-believe, stylized or play-acting. But, parents, you’re on your own when it comes to explaining to your children the blood flowing on a nightly news report. That’s the real test.

MARC SCHWARTZMAN

Rancho Mirage