Whether fiction or real life, one fear proves scariest

I suppose the sadistic torture porn in "Saw V" is what scares some people this Halloween. Although others might find it frightening that "High School Musical 3" is the nation's No. 1 movie and poised to repeat the staying power of "Beverly Hills Chihuahua."

For many of us, the fear that the wrong guy might win the presidential election on Tuesday is the stuff fueling our nightmares. Of course, the economy is a horror in three dimensions for lots of folks, with people worried about stocks, jobs and surviving.

But this week's sad news out of Chicago ranks as the most universal fear for most suburbanites - a 7-year-old boy goes missing and turns up dead. Little Julian King's body was identified this week by Oscar-winning actress and singer Jennifer Hudson, his aunt, as the sad end to a heartbreaking drama that saw Hudson's mother, Darnell Donerson, and brother, Jason Hudson, also murdered.

The photo of a smiling Julian, who was missing for the three days after the initial murders, appeared in newspapers and on television. Jennifer Hudson had offered a reward of $100,000 for the boy's safe return. All those fears about "a missing child" culminated with the darkest truth.

That is the fear that trumps all others for parents, godparents, uncles and aunts, teachers, neighbors and anyone who has strong feelings about a child. The subject moves us in a way other scary things can't.

"A sign of the season, as reliable as the first frost or the turning foliage, is the proliferation of dead, abused of endangered children on movie screens," writes A.O. Scott, a film critic for The New York Times. "Nothing cranks up the dramatic intensity quite as effectively as a child in peril."

Movies about missing, endangered and dead children are not limited to Halloween.

"It's as stable a genre as romance," says Daily Herald film critic Dann Gire, who recently gave four stars to the dark and gripping "Changeling," director Clint Eastwood's latest film. It tells the true story of a mother (played by Angelina Jolie) whose son goes missing - and then things get even scarier.

When "Changeling" was shown at the film festival in Cannes, Eastwood called it "a horror story for adults, not for thrill-seeking kids."

In "Rachel Getting Married," directed by Jonathan Demme, the wedding brings back memories of a younger brother missing from the celebration because he died in an accident. A French film called "I've Loved You So Long" deals with the murder of a 6-year-old boy killed by his mother, who is released from prison after serving 15 years. A film called "Christmas Tale" deals with another boy who is gone - this time killed by a rare genetic disorder.

But the film that kept me up for hours is "Have You Seen Andy?" - which won the 2008 Emmy Award for best investigative journalism. I watched it as research for a column about missing Buffalo Grove teenager Lee Cutler, who drove to Wisconsin a year ago and then disappeared. His pants (with wallet and car keys) were found in a river, but no one knows for sure where he is or what happened to Cutler, whose 19th birthday arrived this month with him still missing.

To understand the depth of stories about missing kids, the folks at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children thought I should watch filmmaker Melissa Perkins' documentary. It is about her childhood friend Andy Puglisi, who vanished on a hot day at the pool in 1976 and hasn't been seen since.

"What has been healing for me is to be able to get together and talk with the other children who knew Andy when he vanished," Perkins says during our e-mail exchange. "We are still as haunted by his disappearance today as we were 32 years ago."

That is the power of a missing child, a dead kid. That fear is timeless, without end, because our love for children has no expiration date.

One of my sons, a huge fan of those "CSI" TV shows, will cover himself with gruesome wounds, wrap himself in yellow police tape and go trick-or-treating Friday as a "CSI" crime victim.

I cringe at the notion of a boy dressed as a murder victim going door-to-door to get treats, especially with the week we've had. We talk about it. I relent. But we both realize just how scary that costume is.