My general rule for my DS8 is that he has to read to book before he can see the movie. That keeps him from getting too scared since he can process the information easier when it is from a book than in a movie. (I think he can choose somewhat how much he visualizes.) It also has the added bonus of slowing him down a bit, since he reads through things so quickly. My DH and I *love* HP, but we chose to make DS wait until he was 8 until he could explore the world of Hogwarts. There are some concepts of dating and kissing, as well as a lead character being murdered in HP4, that we didn't really want to get into at an earlier age. So on his 8th birthday, he was allowed to start reading HP1, 2, and 3. It only took him 2 and a half weeks to burn through all three books, but then we had to put our foot down and keep HP4 firmly on the shelf. To say that the HP books are magical is a major understatement!! (grin). He still, nearly a month later, walks around saying magical spells.
As a comparison, my son was much more freaked out by seeing the movie WALL-E this weekend. He goes to bed at night obsessing about the state of the Earth and what we are doing to it. Our dinnertime conversations are now exclusively driven by his need to understand global warming and how it is affecting our planet. And we thought we were seeing a G-rated movie about robots falling in love.
