Films you saw as a child that you probably shouldn't have (lighthearted)

[DoTheNextRightThing]

My parents were never very restrictive of what I watched as a kid. Their mindset was "if she doesn't like us, she'll tell us," which meant I watched a lot of 15+ movies when I was still a tot. Braveheart, Deep Impact...

Has anyone got any stories about movies they watched as a kid that affected them and they probably shouldn't have watched?

Mine was The Sixth Sense. I was all good until the bit where Hayley Osment sees the hanging people. Then Mum took me to bed because I was so freaked out

Nightmare in Elm Street - when I was about 8. My brother was babysitting me and watched it with his girlfriend. I snuck down to see what they were up to and they were watching that and screaming. I wasn't perturbed at all!

I can remember me singing "One, Two Freddie's Coming For You..." at him and I told off by my DM ha!

Flowers in the attic, must have been about 7 or 8, mum popped it on one Sunday afternoon while doing the ironing. It was only when I was older I realised just quite what I have watched.

I was so sheltered from all this, everyone at school was like you lot! I wasn't even allowed to watch Gremlins ffs. I remember going to see Sleepers for a friend's 13th birthday party that really affected me. Always remember my friend's parents' video collection encased in faux leather book covers

A lot of these 70s/80s films were cut heavily on TV so I wasn't actually watching the versions you see now on streaming.

Like grease had a lot cut out- swearing, the condom bit, the gang bang reference etc. So no wonder it went over my head. And I must have watched dirty dancing 20 times without realising penny had an abortion.

The scariest films were the PGs- Jaws and Return to Oz were both much worse than nightmare on elm Street etc.

I saw Jaws at about 7 and was scared of the bath for months.

But it was a PG??? Weird decision and apparently upgraded to a 12 in recent years.

@Abhannmor

Based on Casting the Runes by M R James. I think the director didn't want to show the demon but was over ruled by the money people? You are quite right...stuff that's hinted at is way more scary!

That's interesting. Thanks. They should definitely just have hinted. In my mind it was the scariest movie ever...until I saw it in my thirties. Such a disappointment. But it was a good story.

Ha @BadgeronaMoped I remember those dvd cases. My uncle used to have then and used the little stickers too

@FuzzyPenguin

Flowers in the attic, must have been about 7 or 8, mum popped it on one Sunday afternoon while doing the ironing. It was only when I was older I realised just quite what I have watched.

I loved this film as a kid! So creepy when the camera pans across the graves being dug...

Terminator II at a friends sleep over, I think I was 12. My parents were very strict with the TV and I was a kid who found archaeology programmes with skeletons terrifying. I had nightmares for weeks about a big robot stepping on a pile of skulls.
Funnily enough I like sci-fi and horror now.

The Hand when I was about 10. Haunted me for months, and I had to have a lamp on with so many soft toys around me for 'protection' there was hardly any room for me to move in bed.

The Thriller video petrified me as a child, especially the wolf part. I honestly don't think I could watch it now

Mine was age appropriate - Jurassic Park when it came out at the Cinema (PG and I was 7ish)

It was terrifying! I should have let my parents see it by themselves and gone with my grandparents and toddler brother to look at windmills instead (what they did while babysitting DB while the rest of us were at the cinema)

Some bright spark was watching that notorious programme Ghost Watch when me and my sister were about 8. I was genuinely terrified. Nobody turned it off, just told me to stop being silly.

I went to a sleepover at a friend’s house and we ended up watching Aliens because her older brother had rented the video. I think I was 11. Far too young for it, and it gave me grisly nightmares for years.

I was allowed to watch any horror, things like Poltergeist, The Omen etc. Only one that got to me proper was Salems Lot , couldn't sleep for weeks and started wearing a silver crucifix

DH put Sausage Party on for the DTs (6) and DD (8) and promptly fell asleep on the sofa. Luckily I was wfh and switched it off before it got too bad.

He thought it was a kids film apparently.

Childminder's son put on a certain sea-themed horror film, I was four.

Pretty sure if my parents realised that it caused me PTSD that they'd have sued.

35 years later on and it still causes severe nightmares and flashbacks, if I go in the ocean, or something related comes up in the news.

This is despite specific therapy on multiple occasions

@Dubbin

The Birds - Alfred Hitchcock This was a family favourite; children aged 4 - 14!

I saw it at 12 and I still don't trust the fuckers.

I watched Don’t Look Now when I was 20.

Don’t think I was ever going to be ready for that one. Certainly not now that I have children.

@LimeRedBanana

We watched Grease at school in class, aged 11!

At least half of it went right over my head, including thinking Sandy would be very, very tired if she didn’t go to bed until she was legally wed.

That's very cute!

Hahaha yeah that's adorable!

Like pps said, a lot of these were considered mainstream at the time. Hammer definitely was. Everyone at junior school watched hammer films. And actually looking at them now they're pretty tame really. But I'm fairly sure that both Jaws and Poltergeist were marketed as family films. Jaws was a summer holiday blockbuster! I mean, it was released at peak family cinema going time and everyone I knew went to see it with their folks.

I dunno if all of that was so very inappropriate. The actual content isn't really any worse than a lot of the action scenes in marvel and plenty of folks take their five year olds to see those.

Agree that Freddie, Friday 13th etc weren't for children but to they weren't aimed at them. Me and my friends all watched them from around 12yo but we certainly weren't supposed to. We just lived near a video hire shop with staff who didn't much care what people were borrowing.

Robocop my brother had got it out on VHS I put it on and my 5 year old sister started watching it. I would have been 11! My mum was furious and as soon as she spotted what we were watching said get that thing off!!
But yes have watched Freddie Cruger, Dirty Dancing, even Exorcist the list could go on with the stuff I shouldn’t have been watching as a kid.
Even used to watch Prisoner Cell Block H- rejoiced when the meanest prison officer was put inside herself, now that was a great finale!

@TheVolturi

I must have been 7 or 8 when my parents decided we'd all sit down and watch good old Poltergeist 🙄

Me too. It was in the early days of us having a video player and my dad thought it would be good so we all sat down as a family including me and my brother who was 3 years younger than me.

It was rated PG though I think? At the time what your parents did was fairly standard. It was released as a family movie, really.