What movie did you watch as I kid which you shouldn't have?
What movie did you watch as I kid which you shouldn't have?
My dads brother visited us one time - when I was around 7 years old - and they sent me to bed and watched a movie together on TV. I'm not sure where my mom was, perhaps taking care of my little brother, but I quietly went down the stairs and saw them watching the movie, and I stayed very quietly so they would not know I'm there.
It was a Bruce Lee movie, "The Big Boss (1971)". In that movie Bruce works at a ice factory and his boss kills some people and puts them into the ice. That's not the worst of it. They then have those big ice blocks and a big blade saw and that saw cuts the big blocks into smaller peaces. It also cuts those bodies in the ice blocks into smaller pieces.
I couldn't believe what I saw and went back upstairs and couldn't fall asleep. I never told my parents.
This really creepy Czech Alice in Wonderland movie. It used stop motion with animal skeletons, fish heads, and tons of other things.
My mom put it on when I was little in an attempt to keep me occupied.
“Would you like to watch Alice in Wonderland, Thelsim?” She’d ask.
“Yea!” I would shout enthusiastically, thinking she meant the Disney movie.
Half an hour later I’m crying and hiding under the blankets.I never did watch that movie again. Maybe it’s not so bad now, but the screenshots still make feel very queasy.
A sample 🫣
An American Werewolf in London.
I stayed up watching it on my brother's black and white TV. My parents had no idea. I nearly shit the bed afterward when my brother jumped on me in the dark and yelled "raaaah."
Alien when I was about 4. That's what happens when you make an uncle who is still in high school babysit.
The X-Files episode "Home"
You're all in here with horror and mature movies, but I'll hit you with Watership Down for the win 😉
I saw a nasty horror movie as a kid of around 7-8. My friend had this weird uncle who was living with his mother house next to ours. He was the only one at street with VHS player. One day, instead of our favorite Tom & Jerry, he put a cassette with the movie into the player. It was some weird horror called "the spirit of the Forest" or something like that, about a cabin in the forest and a spirit possessing its visitors, making them kill each other. I had trouble getting back home in the middle of the day. Fortunately, no nightmares. Few years later, the uncle killed his mother, because voices told him to. He got locked up in the psychiatric ward and my friend moved in with his parents, yay.
I'm old, so keep that in mind.
I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey in the theater when I was 7. I wasn't even with my family, I was with a friend and his parents. It freaked me the freak out. That space baby at the end. The dreams I had.
Look, it was the 80s/90s. We had one TV. My parents were not going to watch kid shit during their down time so we watched whatever they felt like watching. Thus, I have too many to list here.
But for context apparently Alien and Aliens made me squeaky and giggly/happy as a baby. To this day I sometimes have bizarrely detailed dreams with xenomorph subplots.
Watching Hellraiser 2 was pretty bad. I didn't understand what was going on, but forever remembered the scary woman with no skin!
Scary Movie 3. Among many reasons that's a film you shouldn't watch as a child, that was my introduction to the Ring, and I had a TV in my room.
Akira definitely counts. I'm sure my parents were in the "all cartoons are for kids" camp that everyone was in in the 90s. Similarly, the Guyver.
I think I was about ten and an older girl down the road showed me and my friends Pet Sematary. There was a scene where this creepy ass girl chokes in bed and that scared me for years. I slept with the light on and was too scared to roll over in case she was in my bed. It's probably so cringey now though if I was to re-watch it.
I was chaperoning on a school bus full of kindergarteners. They started chatting about the scariest movies they had ever seen. Some of them were talking about Goosebumps and some were talking about stuff in the realm of ET. The one little boy in my group looked up to me and said that stuff for babies that's nothing. I said oh yeah? What are you watch. He said I like Jason I like Freddy I like Michael Myers. I asked him which scenes that he thought were the best and he actually seemed to have watched it all. I said so what did you think of IT by Stephen King. His eyes got wide and he said no no no no no no no. We're not going to talk about that.
When I was roughly 10 years old I watched my next door neighbors' parents' home made hardcore sex tape. She had found it while snooping in her dads closet. So yeah, little old me (boy) and closest friend (girl) sitting on her parents bed watching a very graphic homemade porn.
Definitely shaped my sexual development...
The Ring
Videodrome. Watched it few years ago and started strongly recalling watching certain scenes. 20 minutes in I was like oh wow I've seen this before, but by the time James woods was doing bdsm with a debbie harry television, I was like "who let me watch this?"
It explains a lot, honestly
I watched The Shining at a friend's house when I was like 10. First and last time I ever watched that nightmare fuel.
Twilight Zone movie.
Watched alone on dark night.
The part when the lady visits the house, where the family is terrified of putting a foot out of line.
That has the most distasteful feeling of dread. Really well done, not for kids!
Omen, Excorcist, Nightmare on Elm St, Jason, Cujo, Friday the 13th - I was a very free range kid. The one that really sticks out is (IIRC) The Amityville Horror. There is a scene with these red glowing eyes down a dark hallway...the adult in me knows it was probably just some guy with two flashlights, but it still raises the hairs on my arms thinking about it
To many but the one that haunts me is “chaser”. A Korean movie about a serial killer who haunts prostitutes.
Why I remind it? Well, I watched it with my brother and when I got back from the toilet, he pretended to be some rando in a hoodie with a knife. Keep in mind, I was 14 and it was 11:30PM.
The Lover 1992 when I was like 9 or 10. Those who know the movie, will understand that this maybe was a bit much for a boy. However it had a lasting effected on my appreciation, of what a good emotional movie looks like. I'd call it double edged sword, as obviously that movie is inappropriate for a kid to watch. However the relationship between the two is very beautifully portrait and made me a helpless romantic. It was at a time when they'd show movies like that on free TV at night and I was visiting my grandparents and they had a TV upstairs.
I pretty much accidentally watched Evangelion as a kid thumbing on a TV set. It has definitely shaped my type for women for years to come.
Jaws at about 5 yrs old and Robocop a couple of years later at about 7yrs old the uncut version loved them both except jaws made me phobic of the ocean and open water so paid a price with that one lol although I have all 4 movies on dvd watch them from time to time. Have both Robocop original and the newer one which is sh@t comparitively, no surprise being just a 12A no swearing and or adult humour no guys exploading on windscreens from being melted down with toxic waste then hit by a car lol and no fist spike weapon either. It will never hold a candle to the original movie which is a true product of the 80s and a must own movie, one rad movie.
I still can't believe Jaws was classified just PG and still is that's to savage for kids really not all of it the shark looks awful corny and cheap tat but the scenes you don't see it and the man in the pond where you see it sideways it looks real then it bites his leg off and you see the leg sinking those scenes aren't fit for kids no way. .
Dad took me and my brother to see Predator in the theater. Would have been about 10 and my brother 8. While I applaud him wanting to share something he was excited about with his children I am sure there were better options.
Flatline (1990)
Stephen King's IT from behind the couch.
How I didn't develop a lifelong fear of clowns I have no idea.
Unexpectedly got nightmares for years after watching the movie Twister.
The Exorcist and Candyman.
Also, I can't remember the name of it, but my mom was watching some movie about women in prison. And someone got mad, took out her fork from her cup noodles, and stabbed a woman in the leg. Twisted, pulled it out, wiped it in her pants and kept eating.
I was maybe 5 or 6, but I swore I would never go to prison after that. I had nightmares of that woman and that fork
When I was 10, my parents rented The Kiss of the Spider Woman. I was forbidden to watch it, so I snuck downstairs and watched it late at night. They were right, I should not have watched it. I was definitely not mature enough to understand everything that was happening and it really caused me some emotional turmoil for a month or two, just thinking about it. It's such a tragic movie. Likely Raul Julia's finest performance, and William Hurt is also quite excellent in it.
It's the only movie my parents ever forbid me from seeing.
Candyman. I couldn't even look in a mirror for weeks.
When I was around 10-11 my dad sat me down to watch Mulholland Drive with him (because a coworker got it confused with another, more wholesome movie)
For the most part, my neurons were plastic enough to just accept the weird surreal dream logic, but for some reason my subconscious drew the line at sex. I must have been flushing, because my dad turned to me after the movie was over and started apologizing profusely.
The only time I remember feeling that much stunned embarassment/shame at watching a movie was when I got my sister Enter The Void as a gift, having never seen it. (Great movie, but the incestual implications make it hard to watch with family).
Now I'm a lesbian. Mulholland Drive got to me young enough to forever warp my sexuality. (Enter The Void, luckily, did not).
I saw Cujo as a 6 year old and its still sitting with me 25 years later. Our house was always the summer hang out spot for my family since we had a pool, so my aunt and grandma would always go to blockbuster on Friday to get some movies. I got to rent Pokemon Stadium 2 and all I wanted to to was play the game.
I couldn't play it until I watched a movie with the family. The adults decided we should watch cujo (the perfect film for kids aged 8, 6, 5 and 4 right?)
I still have weird memories of watching the movie, getting freaked out and burying my head in the couch to try and not see or hear anything. After the movie my grandma said I could go play my game, and I still associate the Golbat mini game with it since the dog got rabies from a bat.
So next time you want your grandkid to bond with you, don't fucking scar them ok?
My brother showed me a movie from my dad's hidden porno stash when I was 8. So probably that.
Mars Attacks! was very poorly marketed. I remember the commercials for it seeming tame and asking my parents to take me to the theater to see it and it fucked me up for a few good weeks. We didn't even stay to the end, but I had nightmares about it that very same night.
I had nightmares from Dawn of the Dead for weeks. I was 8 or 9 when my mom tried to show it to me, lol
Evil Dead
Dad allowed me to watch Species. Had to sleep in my parents' bed that night. Mom was FURIOUS :D
There was a movie with Rosie O’Donnell called Exit to Eden. My mom was not particularly uptight about us seeing R rated stuff and the previews made it look like a slightly dirty comedy. It was Rosie O’Donnell in like…the 90’s so I mean…she did not look into it any further than that.
Turns out it’s basically a soft core porno with a couple funny bits and it was extremely awkward to sit through.
Candyman, a mates older brother showed it to us when I was around 10ish, don’t think I was ever the same again.
Also caught a bit of Toxic Avenger on late evening tv around the same age, when I should have been asleep but sneaked on the tv. Boy did I regret that.
Insidious 1. First and last time I was scared.
And I watched "Mission to Mars" (2002) somewhere around 22:00 on TV snd that was deeply creepy.The Howard Stern movie. Pretended to be asleep and watched through holes in blanked
I like Wolfie's Just Fine's song about this exact experience https://youtu.be/qG8iAtpavK4?si=VzTW2qGWlJ7Lg9f0
I watched Borat with my dad when I was 9.
The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I’m scarred for life :/
Revenge of the Nerds when I was 7. Adult forgot about the peephole scene.
Brain Damage. Scary and way too sexual for a little kid.
Alien & Aliens by the 4th grade, the Terminators, Robocop...I had action figures for all those movies.
I also learned a lot from USA Up All Night.
Also got into my dad's playboy stash in the 3rd grade.
My mom led horror movies but was too scared to watch them alone.
For some reason she thought kids don't really remember things until around 6 years old.
So with her I watched hellraiser, IT, Freddy Krueger, Chuckee, The Thing (Carpenter version), Amytiville horror, Pet Sementary, Alien, the exorcist, and some others when I was 4 and 5.
Only ones that really freaked me out as a kid was Chuckee, and that hellraiser movie where pinhead comes out of a screen specifically (the third hellraiser I think?). Alien and Amytiville were my favorite ones.
I was around 7 and my much older brother convinced me to stay up until very late in the evening when the dirty softcore stuff was on tv. Must have been midnight or whatever. Finally it started... I don't know what I expected but I was like "that's it??!" It was so boring! Fell asleep a minute later.
- The Neverending Story: STARTS with a horse DYING FROM SADNESS and the movie is about existence being devoured by nothingness.
- Nightmare on Elm Street: where the fuck were my parents?!
- Time Bandits: the cages floating in the void, the dwarves being chased down a corridor, the parents die to evil at the end...don't they? Ambiguous existential dread all around this one.
- The Thing: no clear childhood memories or nightmares but I know I saw it before I was 10.
- Reanimator: ditto for The Thing.
- The Shining
- Cat People
...i don't know that i shouldn't've seen it, but the 1978 invasion of the body snatchers was my introduction to existential horror at the ripe age of seven years...
...what shouldn't i have seen?..about a year earlier, a family friend handed-down a big brown grocery bag stacked to the rim with pre-code EC horror comics: that was some teeth-gnashingly gruesome stuff...
Death Wish (1974). There is a rape/murder scene at the beginning that really affected me as a seven or eight year old. It made me afraid of NYC as well lol.
Horror Express and Poltergeist, or how to gain a fear of of glowing red eyes in the dark, televisions, closets, windows near trees, and mirrors.
My family bought in to cable television very early on, and we had HBO as part of the service. My parents forbid me from watching it alone, but of course that just upped the intrigue and I would sneak viewings when they weren't around.
The first mistake was The Thing. I had no idea what the movie was about, and so the first part of the film seemed unremarkable; they're at an arctic base, there's the shootout, all relatively tame. Then the dog scene. Holy crap that one is burned into my memory forever. I was utterly terrified but glued to the screen. That gave me screaming nightmares for a bit but I could never admit what the issue was, since I wasn't supposed to have watched it!
The second a few years later was Aliens. Wasn't nearly as bad of an experience but the scene with the people glued to the walls in the tunnel was a bit much. I recovered from that one much quicker than The Thing.
My mom took me to watch Superman (with Christopher Reeves). I was 3. I had to sleep with the light on for 2 years because the moment I was in the dark, my brain would freak out giving me flashbacks of the movie very bright scenes.
Basically I had cinematic PTSD at 3yo.
I dunno what the movie was called, I was 7 and had fallen asleep in front of the TV. When I woke up there two 'grey' aliens of in hindsight terrible costumes crouching in some bushes.
I had never seen a depiction of a grey alien before that and my uncanny valley sensor peaked higher than ever at any other point in my life and I ran to my room without even shutting off the tv.
It's funny to look back and remember that as a moment of legit fear, knowing what I do now.
The Brood, the captures of the film adverted at our movie theater fucked me up as a kid and I will never watch it.
Watched old horror movies all the time with my grandfather growing up. None of that was scary. Watching Chuckey when I was probably 8 with my brother was terrifying. Didn't help we had one of those big my buddy type dolls in the house. I think I was Chuckey for Halloween that year.
I caught Robocop 2 on late night cable at some point when I was definitely too young to see the scene when the criminal robot picks up his girlfriend by her head and snaps her neck.
Beast master
I was really into He-Man and honestly all things medieval so thought it'd be great for me, but that film kinda fucked me up for a while as a wee one.