Another one is last years "Boy A", which was a brilliant character study of someone who had committed a horrific murder of a child, when he was a teenager, and his life when released from prison with a new identity. The writer really had you feeling compassion for this guy, despite of what he has done.

It was actually really well written, you never actually find out what he did until later in the film, although it is heavily hinted at. And thus you get to form opinions and form an affection for him before you realise the full picture. The ending was handled really well and I doubt many people would have finished that movie thinking that he never suffered for his crime.

I agree. 'Boy A' was a good film with some excellent performances.

It was largely based - I understand - on this case - Jamie Bulger.

But has the murder been shwon on screen? And he was a kid himself when he did it.

http://www.teako170.com/faq2.html

Here's something that might help, but really alll rules have exceptions.

Gary

Horror and Thriller Don't's

Don't kill an animal on screen. It just isn't done, not by good directors. It's a cheap and repulsive way to get an emotional effect. I will generally stop reading a screenplay where this happens.

While it is perfectly all right to have an undead creature strangle the department store Santa to death under the neon lights, less cartoonish violence, especially when directed against the weak (women, children, pets) often throws the reader and the audience out of the movie. So, for example, if you have a physically abusive husband who's going to get his just desserts later on, you should not show him beating his wife on screen. You don't show a rape on screen. You never show someone hurting (as opposed to frightening) a child on screen. It is classier and more effective to show the aftermath of extreme violence than the violence itself.

You can, if you must, kill your animals off screen, but personally, I prefer a movie in which the pets have the sense to snarl at the vampire and run away.

In Spiderman 3, Sandman hits a dog and in Resident Evil as well she kills dogs and nobody had any problem and both are true Hollywood films.

The only time I laugh killing dogs (I'm so ashamed) was while watching "A Fish Called Wanda" with the elder lady's yorkshires. But it was clearly a comedy

Have ever watch that Spanish movie called "¿Quién puede matar a un niño?". The Englsih title was (badly) "Island of the damned" but the spanish translition says it all "Who could kill a kid?" Here the  plot summuary from IMDB :

"A couple of English tourists rent a boat to visit the fictitious island of Almanzora, just off the southern Spanish coast. When they arrive, they find the town deserted of adults, there's only children who don't speak but stare at them with eerie smiles. They soon discover that all the children of the island have been posessed by a mysterious force or madness which they can pass from one to another, and which makes them attack and murder their elders, who can't defend themselves because nobody dares to kill a child..."