Most raw and shocking scene ever ??

The little girl wasn't really shot and killed, and she actually turned up some years later in the sequel to 'Meatballs'. SO THAT'S FREAKIN' AWESOME!

Definitely black humor, the whole "vanilla twist" was genius
But Carpenter has this ambiguity to him that makes him different from the average director, his films work both ways, even the really somber ones

I watched the movie for the first time tonight. I wasn't shocked by the scene, but I was surprised that it happened so callously. I didn't find it to be black humor at all. If you want to laugh at kids being gunned down then go watch Uwe Boll's Postal movie.

I was quite shocked as well. I guess the 1970s was probably the only time in history that such a scene could get into a film. By the 1980s a certain amount of political correctness had began and it would already have become taboo to see a child killed in cold blood on screen like that. Of course one thing that did lesson the impact slightly was that it was so obvious she was shot with some sort of paint gun. The slightly strange shade of red paint spreading in splatter over the front of her dress instead of appearing to form a neat bullet like hole on the girls body. With today's improved gun shot wound special effects, the scene would have been all the more horrific.

15 years ago!

That scene, the violence is not glorified. Carpenters 2nd film. 1st non sci fi film and he tells that story, plays that scene pitch perfect.

Killing a child on film could go wrong in so many ways, he took the risk and pieced it together with such a precise hand where it was shocking but you didnt feel that it was sensationalist nor reveling in the violence. It happened, it didnt give the audience any sense that they should take joy from it.

Other directors may have failed in that respect.

Child murder on film especially when you see a kid get shot in close frame is a very difficult thing to pull off and I think Carpenter tactfully dared to accomplish that.

The message? These Bad Guys are B-A-D. 😉

The death scene was certainly unexpected that’s for sure. Another thing that was unexpected was SPOILERS

I thought the person who killed her would be the main villain throughout the movie because of the way they kept showing him at the beginning like he was going to the main antagonist or something ,but he wasn’t in it very long.