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Original poster

To ask for the most wtf films your parents let you watch

193 replies

Thetruth02 · 19/10/2019 23:24

So inspired by the fact that “Wish you were here” is now on amazon. Watched it the other day and clearly remember it being on tv and everyone in my class shouting “up yer bum” for a week. I reckon we were around 8 years old!

Watched it today and am shocked that not only did my parents let me watch it, but seemingly so did lots of others.

I also remember going to sleepovers and watching things like nightmare on elm street etc at a pretty young age.

What can’t you believe your parents let you watch?

OP posts:
PumpkinKing · 19/10/2019 23:39

My parents seemed to have no concept of appropriate television for children. Commando was my favourite movie when I was 5, which says everything. We watched X Files together every week. I turned out fine only needed a nightlight until my teens

Original poster
Thetruth02 · 19/10/2019 23:39

@ SchrodingersMeowth so did I. Odd as I can’t stand it now... used to take a lot of Stephen king out of the library as well- surprised they never said anything

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Crunched · 19/10/2019 23:40

My DSis is 10 years older than me and when she first left home at 18, student house in London, I stayed over whilst my DPs had a night away. I sat alone in the, as I remember it, huge social room watching ‘Don’t Look Now’. I was too terrified to move and even now, if it is trailed on TV I get a shiver.
I have never re-watched it.

MintCassis · 19/10/2019 23:40

Dirty Dancing when I was 4 😯 They fast forward the middle bit when I wasn’t watching so I only saw the dancing.

When I was 6 my Gran was babysitting and it was on TV. I was able to tell her the plot so she let me watch it, the full thing. My parents were horrified but only had themselves to blame 😂

Vikandriv · 19/10/2019 23:40

My dad put life of Brian on for me aged 8 while my mum was out doing the food shop. I don't think she was too happy when she came home Grin

Original poster
Thetruth02 · 19/10/2019 23:41

@PumpkinKing lol I was chatting to my mum the other day about this - I used to go to brownies on a Wednesday and looked forward to watching xfiles afterwards.

We also used to watch red dwarf after brownies Grin

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Mentounasc · 19/10/2019 23:42

My parents had no concept of age-appropriate viewing either: one of the first things I remember seeing in the 70s (aged 4 or 5?) was the wife-swapping sketch on Monty Python, which I just didn't understand. But being allowed to watch late-night vampire films and Hammer House of Horror around the same age? Not cool Mum. And I was taken to see Jaws with them in the cinema aged 6. That wasn't exactly family viewing.

Whataboutthattthen · 19/10/2019 23:42

The Wickerman when I was about 11.

Wasn’t allowed watch Dallas, but the wickerman was Ok Confused

ChanklyBore · 19/10/2019 23:42

Carry On films. I mean WTF. This was in the 90’s. Carry On Girls and Carry on Camping.

Horror films by age 10/11. Proper ones, we’d already worked our way through jaws, Jurassic Park, IT. We were up to Halloween, nightmare on elm street, the silence of the lambs. I saw Scream and The Blair Witch Project at the cinema and I wasn’t old enough for either.

I’m not sure why they did that.

Original poster
Thetruth02 · 19/10/2019 23:43

I sort of think though that, as my mum thought, I just didn’t get anyway. Anything inappropriate went completely over my head

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AlliKaneErikson · 19/10/2019 23:44

Thinking of TV, Dallas and Dynasty were firm favourites, but thinking back I have no idea why my parents let me watch Kenny Everett!!

SchrodingersMeowth · 19/10/2019 23:44

Oh, I loved Tales From The Crypt!

@Thetruth02. See, I wouldn’t think twice about someone young reading Stephen King but I mostly believe that reading shouldn’t be censored and if you can read it and want to read it, you can read it. But that’s how I was treated with books when I was young and I loved reading because of it.

Admittedly my children aren’t really reading yet, so maybe my stance will change.

Original poster
Thetruth02 · 19/10/2019 23:45

@ChanklyBore but carry on films tend to be shown during the day anyway (have always hated them - they make me think of boring Sunday afternoons)

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Mileymileymoomoo · 19/10/2019 23:45

My nana lived in the middle of nowhere and rented videos from the mobile library. Always horror films like The Hills have Eyes and Deliverance. We would watch them and she would go up to bed and leave me to sleep on the sofa in the living room. I was primary school age.

Also with two older brothers I saw a lot of revenge of the nerds / king Ralph type stuff

MintCassis · 19/10/2019 23:46

My Mum used to let me watch Crimewatch after Guides, until they re-enacted the horrific attack on Josie Russell and her Mum and sister. I still remember it today 😢

PumpkinKing · 19/10/2019 23:47

@Thetruth02 we watched Red Dwarf too!

We watched Bottom and The Young Ones a lot. I still watch Bottom now if I catch it.

Chocolatedeficitdisorder · 19/10/2019 23:47

I clearly remember getting our first video recorder in around 1981. I was 12 and my brother was 14.

We took a family trip to the video rental shop, it was very exciting!

My parents chose both the films we rented that night. They reckoned they were getting happy, cheerful family movies, both with animals in the title. How lovely!

The Deerhunter and The Elephant Man.

Original poster
Thetruth02 · 19/10/2019 23:48

@SchrodingersMeowth well it’s given me a life long love of reading (I write for a living too), so think it’s done me well.

However I do remember reading something in. Stephen King novel about... well basicaj wanking... and being super confused

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ChanklyBore · 19/10/2019 23:48

But they definitely fit the WTF category. The two I mentioned are particularly nausea inducing. One is the one where they have a beauty pageant and the other is the one where Barbara Windsor’s bra pings off and she is sexually assaulted in several tents.

PowerFlowerrr · 19/10/2019 23:48

I remember watching Dirty Harry with my grandad.

Original poster
Thetruth02 · 19/10/2019 23:49

@Chocolatedeficitdisorder that’s made me really laugh

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64sNewName · 19/10/2019 23:50

I never watched horror but I did used to read the cheap 80s horror paperbacks they had in the little book section at Tesco, while my mum shopped. Some of them were actually really disturbing. Almost more because they were kind of cynically, nastily written than because of the daft horror elements.

I still remember one short story ending with a woman being cremated alive in her coffin, and feeling her eyeballs melt and run down her face. (Like you wouldn’t just pass out. Freaked me out at the time though)

SchrodingersMeowth · 19/10/2019 23:51

@Thetruth02 Yeah, I guess there are some parts that could be rather confusing.

Oh I remember us getting some of the Japanese scary films from the video shop, The Ring, the Grudge and Dark Water. Those were really quite scary!

Original poster
Thetruth02 · 19/10/2019 23:53

@MintCassis - crime warch was bloody terrifying! Real life stuff is so much more scary. I also remember spreading a load of newspapers over the floor and reading the Hillsborough coverage (I would have been 8).
It genuinely gave me nightmares for a while.

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QuestionableMouse · 19/10/2019 23:53

Texas Chainsaw Massacre... At 11 ish.

Ditto the original IT.

Oh and Event Horizon at about 14.

Then I wonder why I have anxiety as an adult. 😂