Movies your folks wouldn't let you see?

[Trevor]

My folks wouldn't let me see The Towering Inferno: I was about seven then and it was probably a good decision looking back. That elevator scene  

[RCMerchant]

Nothing. They would pack us up and drop us off at any double feature-just to get us out of their hair. Which was good. I saw many cheap horror movies in the 70's that way.

[Alex]

Evil Dead. No idea why, I'd seen much worse before and after.

[claws]

Nothing. My mom loved horror movies so I grew up watching horror movies at the theater at an early age 

[Rev. Powell]

DEEP THROAT.

But no R-rated movies, my mom started taking me to horror movies with her around 12: I remember seeing THE SHINING and THE HOWLING in particular.

[lester1/2jr]

my Mom would not let me watch Helter Skelter when it was on TV

[Allhallowsday]

My folks wouldn't let me see The Towering Inferno: I was about seven then and it was probably a good decision looking back. That elevator scene  

Hee hee hee... JENNIFER JONES as a hanky... you do realize it's poop?

Of course, in the 1970s, a lot of "bad" movies were broadcast on network TV.  If our parents were out on Saturday night, my mother would call and ask: "You're not watching that filthy movie are you?"  Thank you Mom for always reminding us to watch sh!t like BORN INNOCENT or ROSEMARY'S BABY or THAT CERTAIN SUMMER or VALLEY OF THE DOLLS ...

[ER]

Funny, I remember being told I couldn't watch a TV show but I can't think of any movies I wasn't allowed to see. I could also read anything without restrictions and listen to any music I wanted. All that makes the fact one tv series was snatched away from me even odder in retrospect.

[Cult_Moody_Movies]

My parents didn't let me rent or watch rated R/horror movies (outside of 50's sci-fi, PG- 13 fair or kaiju films) when I was younger. This changed around my 13th birthday when they let me see True Lies.

[FatFreddysCat]

I got one: my Mom refused to let my brother and I see Star Wars (!) during its initial theatrical run in 1977 because it was rated "PG," and to her that meant "there must be sex in it," and therefore we were not old enough for such things. (My bro and I were about 7 and 8 at the time).

No matter how much we argued, begged or pleaded, she would not bend. So we missed out on a shared experience that pretty much every other kid in our generation took part in (some more than once). So yeah, thanks a LOT, Mom.

Oddly enough, Mom had no problem with us playing with Star Wars toys, reading the Marvel comic adaptation, or the paperback novel, etc., etc., so we knew the story backwards and forwards before we ever actually saw the movie, but it wasn't quite the same, obviously.

By the time Empire Strikes Back rolled around in '80, my parents must have decided that we were now "old enough" for such things, so we did get to see that one in the theater. I remember when we walked out at the end of the movie, my Dad said "That was really good! Now I wish we'd seen the first one!" -- I swear, I wanted to KILL him right there in the parking lot. 

We did finally get to see the O.G. on the big screen when they re-released it around '81 or so, which placated me somewhat, but y'know what, my bro and I still bring this up to Mom every once in a while, umpteen years later, just to let her know that we haven't forgotten or forgiven.

[M.10rda]

Wow, STAR WARS. That's rough, FFC! 

I'm 45 and my parents were famously permissive about my early 80s TV watching. I think I was 5 when I caught most of the first 30 minutes of AMERICAN WEREWOLF on HBO, which is of course the best/scariest part of the movie... the opening scenes on the moors, the home invasion nightmare. I might be recovering from that latter one even now.

Nevertheless there were at least two films (among hundreds of inappropriate titles) that I was not allowed to watch until I was 12yo: APOCALYPSE NOW and BLUE VELVET. Still not sure why they drew the line at those. I didn't have much awareness of or appreciation for who David Lynch was until TWIN PEAKS premiered, and although I get why BLUE VELVET might have been inappropriate, I found it rather mild once I got around to it in 1990. Likewise APOCALYPSE, which I had read about and anticipated for many years. At that point I was a couple years away from my home video viewing of FULL METAL JACKET, which legitimately disturbed and bummed me out (though constructively, as it convinced me to avoid all military recruiters in perpetuity). Maybe should also mention that I'd been hosting 5th and 6th grade sleepovers where I would screen the likes of RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND to other 10 and 11 year olds... clearly the cow had left the barn early.

In my parents' defense, I'll cite Peter Harris, a boy I went to school with from K through 12th grade. Even into high school, it was a well-known amusement that Peter's overprotective mother would only allow him to watch "Sesame Street", "321 Contact", "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood", etc. As soon as Peter got out from under his mother's clutches, he was busted in his first semester of college for getting blackout drunk and committing thousands of dollars of vandalism to public property. Me, I'm still on the loose and my rap sheet is clean. So.

[ralfy]

Believe it or not, almost nothing! I saw movies like The Devils, Alien, Halloween, and others.

[Gabriel Knight]

They never told me I couldn't see a specific movie, luckily, because we used to watch a lot of horror movies with my friends.

Although I distinctly remember my mom covering my eyes while we were watching PUPPET MASTER, during the scene in which two characters are having kinky sex in the bed, and Leech Woman shows up. Awesome stuff right there. I may have been 8 or 9 at that point.

[M.10rda]

Although I distinctly remember my mom covering my eyes while we were watching PUPPET MASTER, during the scene in which two characters are having kinky sex in the bed, and Leech Woman shows up. Awesome stuff right there. I may have been 8 or 9 at that point.

That's a pretty good scene at any age. 

[The Burgomaster]

Nothing. In fact, they took me to the drive-in to see stuff like The Exorcist and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex . . . But Were Afraid to Ask. And they allowed me to go to the drive-in with my friend's family to see The Godfather.