Castle Rock parents guide: Why you shouldn't let your kids watch the Hulu series, explained

Castle Rock takes the audience through the quintessential Stephen King world complete with horror, suspense and supernatural elements. The Hulu horror series is set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine, where the residents face a mysterious threat. While the storytelling is undeniably engaging, the series is unsuitable for children due to its disturbing themes of violence, mild nudity and strong language.

What is Castle Rock about?

Castle Rock is psychological horror series adapted from Stephen Kings’ fictional universe. The anthology series is set in the backdrop of the eerie small town in Maine. In Season 1, Henry Deaver comes back to town following a long and unexplained disappearance. He now works as a death-row attorney in Texas and arrives at the Shawshank State Penitentiary to learn about the imprisonment of a mysterious boy. The nameless kid seems to possess some strange dark abilities. Henry’s mysterious past and the kid’s sudden appearance, sets off a chain of unexpected events.

In Season 2, the audience is introduced to Annie Wilkes, a nurse, currently on the run with her daughter Joy. She ends up in Castle Rock and uncovers chilling secrets about the town and the opposing residents.

The Hulu series premiered in 2018 and ran for two seasons. It is now available to stream on Netflix in USA. The series is created by Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason. It holds a critic rating of 88% and audience rating of 79% on Rotten Tomatoes. The series is executive produced by King and JJ Abrams. The cast includes Melanie Lynskey, Bill Skarsgard, Andre Holland, Jane Levy, Lizzy Caplan, Tim Robbins, Paul Sparks and Elsie Fisher, among others.

As per IMDb, the synopsis of the show states,

A psychological-horror series set in the Stephen King multiverse combines the mythological scale and intimate character storytelling, weaving an epic saga of darkness and light, played out on a few square miles of Maine woodland.

Why shouldn’t you let your kids watch Castle Rock?

Castle Rock is rated TV-MA in the United States, which unequivocally means that the series is intended for mature audience only. The horror series contains themes of violence, disturbing content and strong language that are not suitable for children. The Hulu series also has scenes with mild nudity.

Almost every episode of the series, spanning both seasons, contains some form of violence. One scene depicts a mother choking her five-month-old baby, while acts such as throat-slashing and gun related killing are shown repeatedly throughout the series. One of the gorier scenes in Season 2 involves a man getting stabbed with an ice cream scooper. The violent scene is depicted in graphic detail. In another scene, a man is stabbed in his eye socket with syringe. Needless to say, such scenes are highly inappropriate for children

There is mention of drugs in the series with one of the characters having addiction problem. Strong language is a consistent feature as well, with profanities such as f*ck and s*it used frequently. Despite the absence of traditional jump scares, the series’ intense depictions of supernatural elements and dark, violent undertones render Castle Rock inappropriate for younger viewers.

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