Heads up, parents — you might want to take out the Finding Nemo DVD and replace it with something a bit less violent. Consider There Will Be Blood.

An exaggeration, sure, but a new study out of the University College London and the University of Ottawa has found that primary characters in children’s films are 2.5 times more likely to die than characters in films for adults.

That’s just regular old death, though. On-screen murders are 2.78 times more likely to occur in children’s films. Those numbers get more dismal for parental figures in children’s films, who were found to be five times more likely to die than parental figures in films not solely for children.

The study looked at primary characters in the top 45 grossing children’s animated films and compared them to primary characters in the top 90 grossing adult dramatic films.

As it turns out, characters in children’s movies not only die more often, they also die faster. The study uses Finding Nemo and Tarzan as examples of early deaths — each film sees a parent die only seconds after the four minute mark. In comparison, The Butler sees Cecil’s father shot six minutes in.

In terms of what this could mean for a child’s development, the researchers do acknowledge that a character expressing a healthy grieving process could be beneficial.

It is also possible that such exposure could have a positive impact on children’s adjustment and understanding of death, if treated appropriately. Films that model appropriate grief responses could help children to gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of death. Nonetheless, death and/or the grieving process often go unacknowledged in children’s animated films.

While children’s movies are oftentimes more colorful and funny than their R-rated counterparts, the researchers conclude that they’re “hotbeds of murder and mayhem” and not, as many believe, “innocuous alternatives to the gore and carnage typical of American films.”

Who knew?

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