What movie did you watch without your parents' permission that they wouldn't otherwise have let you see?

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Trinikas@reddit

The only time my parents ever rented a movie that they didn't watch with us was Silence of the Lambs. I'd seen violent action movies before then but I was I think in 2nd grade so it was probably a good call. There's a big difference between a movie like Die Hard or Commando where it's just goodguys and badguys with guns versus the horror of that film.

I actually admitted to my mom a few years back that all the times I'd told her one of my childhood friends' mother had signed off on him watching R-rated movies at our house were a total lie. In our defense she refused to let him watch some stuff that was even appropriate for our age, the show "are you afraid of the dark" was considered "inappropriate" by his mom, but ironically she had no problems with us playing Doom on his dad's PC.

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ElectrOPurist@reddit

Terminator 2: Judgement Day (I was probably about 10)
There’s Something About Mary (a few years later)

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Prestigious_Secret61@reddit

Along with the last channel button was staring at a scrambled station hoping to catch a brief glimpse of something naughty when it unscrambled for just a second.

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Comfortable_Ninja842@reddit

Porkeys

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toomuchtv987@reddit

My mom was really permissive with movies as long as there wasn’t too much violence or terrible graphic sex. I honestly can’t remember her forbidding any movies.

You gotta set that last channel to something believable- plausible deniability.

My mom also initially hated me watching the Simpsons.

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Budgiejen@reddit

I remember my parents didn’t want us watching the Simpsons. Then my older half-sister made a random visit to wreak havoc on our lives for a couple weeks, and she brought us all this merch. And watched it. So suddenly we were allowed to watch it.

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Chuckpgh@reddit

Yep. Hurry and flip back to the Discovery channel.

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Novel_Towel6125@reddit

I feel like every parent has that one thing that they irrationally hate.

My parents were also permissive. We were basically allowed to watch anything and everything except...The People's Court.

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toomuchtv987@reddit

HA!!! Of all shows!!!

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VincentVanGTFO@reddit

My mom set it up so I could rent R rated movies from the video rental store I would bike over to and rent from... and ended up working at for a decade, lol.

Still when I brought home "From Dusk til Dawn" I watched it with my finger on the pause button of the VHS player I'd saved my allowance for a year to buy from Sears for $130... and ended up being glad for my due diligence when my mom opened mu bedroom door to call me for dinner.

(I am old).

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OkAdagio9622@reddit

I'm sorry to hear that.

I remember my mom dropping me and my brother off to see that movie. I think it was the first movie we watched in a theater, without some kind of supervision

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round_is_funny@reddit

"Last Channel" - where is that tee-shirt? Nickelodeon (27) on channel, MTV (25) on the other.

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einTier@reddit

You had to click “last channel” then change the station. It gave you plausible deniability of channel surfing and not “you changed the channel just as I walked in, what were you watching?” Plus, now last just went back to Nickelodeon or whatever.

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PhilDemptee@reddit

Only on some remotes.

DECEASED.

To this day I don’t like having my TV or computer screen set up so my back is to the door.

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GeorgeLCostanza251@reddit

Dude SAME. This convo helped bring out that trauma and show its source.

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Gorkymalorki@reddit

Same here, except somehow I watched Porky's with my older brothers one time when my parents weren't home. They got really mad at my older brothers.

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toomuchtv987@reddit

NOT PORKY’S!!!! 🤣

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svu_fan@reddit

Hahaha, my dad was like that. Let me watch Fast Times at Ridgemont High when I was 10(!!!!!!!), which is VERY DECIDEDLY inappropriate for a 10yo to see, yet didn’t want me watching Married With Children.

I am 9 years old. Alien is being broadcast on HBO for the first time. I am not allowed to watch it, "You'll get nightmares." So one night, my dad stays up late alone to watch it. I creep in, sitting on the floor in the shadow of the hallway, and I watch the whole thing, sitting there in the dark.

Reasonable-Coconut15@reddit

The only movie I wasn't allowed to watch was Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and my parents are both too old to remember why they wouldnt let me. I have never figured it out. There was nothing in that movie that I hadn't seen in another movie, but I had to sneak to see that one.

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thisplateoffood@reddit

They played 9 1/2 weeks on network television in like 1991. I was maybe 11? It was scrubbed but still nuts.

Story time.

My sister and I chose Mermaids on VHS for our weekend movie. We were allowed to watch G, PG, and PG-13. No rated R.

Mermaids, even though it’s PG-13, has so much sex in it. My mom got PISSED and banned PG-13 movies based on that movie alone.

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Secret_Elevator17@reddit

1990, ABC had a miniseries of Stephen King's It, the Tim Curry version.

More like what movie didn’t I watch without their permission?

Atrocity108@reddit

Full Metal Jacket

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ladyzowy@reddit

Barbarella and Flesh Gordon. It was always on late night TV here in Canada on a Friday night blue to red run.

I distinctly t'emmener renting C.H.U.D from the video van one summer whilst my parents were working.

That van let us rent anything!

Anyway, huge mistake. Was terrified to the core.

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Former_Balance8473@reddit

I had a TV in my room from when I was six... and we lived next to a drive-in theatre and saw everything they showed for like 10 years.

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Apprehensive-Fig3223@reddit

American History X

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Illustrious_Tap3171@reddit

Fun story: super religious parents, I was allowed to watch select Disney movies, other select movies (homeward bound and other movies that traumatized us), and veggietales. The only exposure to pbs and weekend cartoons were the times at my grans house.

Then in 4th grade I got removed from my parents house and placed with my grandmas house for the first time, she taught me what my mom’s PIN code was and how to bypass parental controls. She wanted me to have an average life. She then brought my cousin who has always been my favorite or one of them, who wasn’t raised in SDA over and handed him the remote and said “she needs education on movies and music, we have at least the entire weekend.” That weekend I got introduced to Costco hot dogs, bacon, and a ton of movies.

And even after PG-13 was introduced (1984), the criteria on what made a movie PG-13 was sketchy for the first decade.

2cstars@reddit

In middle school my Sunday school class teachers took is to the movies. We picked To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar. Totally didn't get why most of the parents had a problem with it until way later. Still think it's great and would recommend.

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Content_Talk_6581@reddit

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TangledUpPuppeteer@reddit

The old lady that befriends Noxie is the librarian in ghostbusters.

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OkAdagio9622@reddit

I remember, as a kid, being curious about the movie. Even back then RuPaul was all over the place, so it wasn't weird to see a drag queen

I still haven't seen it, but I guess I should

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Budgiejen@reddit

That was very popular with my high school friends because it was filmed here.

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greaterwhiterwookiee@reddit

I’ve still never seen this

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strippersandcocaine@reddit

Oh you must! I’m off to see if it’s streaming anywhere now!

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a_solid_6@reddit

This is still one of my favorite movies lol

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Evil Dead 2 when I was a kid like maybe 7-8.

BIG MISTAKE

I just smiled and nodded when she asked how I felt about "the chainsaw scene with the friend in the bathroom". To this day I still haven't actually seen Scarface lol

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AncientHorror3034@reddit

Nothing. My parents said I could watch anything as long as I didn’t have nightmares.

I had a few nightmares but didn’t tell them. Didn’t want my horror movie permission revoked. Nothing was barred.

One night, my mom let me rent “Faces of Death” from Blockbuster, we watched it together. We ended up stopping as a mutual decision.

Since there was no restriction, I often witnessed sex scenes in horror movies. My parents absolutely would have restricted soft core porn or just flat out porn. But ewwwww, no one would ever watch that, near or around their parents.

To this day, I absolutely love horror movies!

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lonely_nipple@reddit

Poltergeist. I don't remember why, now, but I was by myself around 13yo at my grandmother's house one afternoon, so I was watching TV and it beats hell out of me how I found it, but I did.

By the time it was about 2/3 through it had gotten dark out, but I was curled up on the opposite end of the sofa from the closest lamp. Damn near pissed myself when the phone rang.

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My family was geared up to watch "Flash Gordon" one Friday night. We got the big-ass 2-pizza box from Little Caesar's and stopped by Mad Man Video to rent the movie. Got home, everyone's finally settling in to watch the movie, my dad gets it in the VCR and it starts playing and the title screen says "FLESH GORDON" instead of Flash.

He just wouldn’t believe me and was convince Di was lying. I ran to my mom and I was like “who is the conductor on Thomas?” She said “the new one? his name is George Carlin.”

My dad said “you knew about this??”

“Of course. I know everything they watch. Even when they sneak around with their cousins and watch what they aren’t supposed to…”

Oh hell. She was going to calm him down and then scream at me too. Wonderful.

Still don’t know how that episode ended. Five minutes from the end. My dad’s calling card.

But suddenly, once my dad knew George Carlin hosted a children’s show, it was ok for me to watch him. That’s totally unfair to all children who were too old to watch Thomas or too young to care! also, you don’t know about this until you started yelling. No one knew this was going to happen. What kind of random bonus round is this?? Dude showing up unexpectedly in a kids show means that kid is now old enough to watch this thing that just had them yelled at??

moissan2nite@reddit

It seems like both those girls were growing up in not-great environments. Poor kids.

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Oomlotte99@reddit

It’s interesting to look back on stuff from childhood with adult eyes and realize, huh, something was up there.

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Linzcro@reddit (OP)

I feel like I had a similar experience. Poor girl but damnit for the tattling.

OkAdagio9622@reddit

I remember my uncle watching 48 Hours, while I was in the room. I was probably too young for that, but looking back it was probably the censored version, on TBS, or something like that

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ResurgentClusterfuck@reddit

My mom had Eddie Murphy records. I remember a song about putting everything in your butt

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Dashcamkitty@reddit

Yes I was watching it aged about 7.

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5up3rj@reddit

That's my cousin, detective AssHole

My parents explicitly said I should not see Terminator 2. So I ended up going with a friend of mine and her father.

weeziefield1982@reddit

I think I was 12 and had never seen a slasher like that. I loved it but it scared the crap out of me. I have seen every Scream since including the short lived TV show. The first one is still the best.

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Linzcro@reddit (OP)

I saw the latest one from a couple years ago with my girl and was hiding my eyes in anticipation half the time lol

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Beck316@reddit

For the first year or so, my mother didn't want us watching the Simpsons because bart was disrespectful to his parents. I also was not allowed to watch 90210 but that might have been more of a "there's only 1 TV in the house and no one else is interested" situation.

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JiGoD@reddit

I watched The Devil's Advocate in a theater next to my mom.

Remember that scene where Charlize Theron is nude covered in cuts? My mom was staring at me staring at the screen until her laser eyes physically pained me. It still hurts.

I’m going to flip this on its head.

I was helping my parents move, packing stuff, donating stuff, or throwing stuff away. At the end of the day we ordered pizza and rented a video (this was ages ago). After we ate, we watched the movie – it was Bull Durham. When we got to the bathtub scene, oh my God, my Mom and Dad were laughing so hard they were roaring! And I was so totally embarrassed, maybe because I felt like Mom and Dad shouldn’t be watching sex scenes… I was in my thirties, I still felt I was too young to watch, in the presence of my parents. Mom loved to bring this up years later, and watch me squirm. To this day I laugh to myself about Bull Durham.

Common_Ad_7610@reddit

The Lost Boys. It became my favorite. I would watch it every chance I got. It's still a favorite. Best movie Joel Schumacher ever made.

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I was in college by that point so I got to go to that one LOL

I remember getting very nauseous with the camera movement.

My grown ass husband gets mad when I mention the ending of that film where the guy is standing in the corner. He's like "STOP IT STOP IT" while covering his ears.

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Psychedelicidal@reddit

Heavy Metal

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ShivvyMcFly@reddit

Child's Play 3

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grandma_millennial@reddit

I had the opposite experience. My parents used to drag me along to adult get-togethers where they would watch R rated movies thinking I wouldn’t remember. The one that freaked me out the most had to be The Wall. Nightmares about kids in meat grinders!

My parents were pretty open about what they allowed me to watch, but my mom flipped when I went to see Pulp Fiction. My mom: “That’s rated R. They shouldn’t have allowed you in without someone 17 or older.” Here’s the thing - and I pointed it out - I went with my boyfriend. He was 17

Iamoldsowhat@reddit

"nightmare on elm street". parents were right. I did not sleep for weeks. lol

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ModularMansion@reddit

When I was about nine my brother and I found our parents copy of porkys on vhs. They weren’t too happy when they found out

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TransportationOk657@reddit

My parents were very lax and non-traditional. They didn't really monitor what I watched nor prevented me from anything. They most likely wouldn't have allowed me to watch rated X movies. We never had any in the house anyway. We didn't have cable, either, so there was no chance for me to watch skin-a-max flicks or other soft core porn.

generalcanoli00@reddit

Basic instinct. Snuck the VHS tape up to my room when I was about 11 I think.

Aware_Policy_9174@reddit

I had a friend that had cable and we’d always get blankets and fall asleep watching movies on the living room floor. One time I woke up at some point and it was midway through alien and I was terrified but I couldn’t stop watching it. I was scared of being alone for a while after but I couldn’t tell my parents why and they were very concerned.

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Hossflex@reddit

Watched Aliens when I was 9 and thought the chest burst scene was “cool”. Watch again from 14-now and I’m grossed out.

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Linzcro@reddit (OP)

Scary!

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RachelPalmer79@reddit

My sister got busted for Single White Female. Between the two of us: Trainspotting and Queen Margot.

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Significant-Shoe4081@reddit

Natural Born Killers

My dad specifically told me not to watch the vhs he rented from blockbuster. At that point I had already watched a few R rated movies, so figured they were just overreacting and popped it in the vcr! They were not overreacting…

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Aquatichive@reddit

Dirty dancing

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Radiant-Mycologist72@reddit

I was about 12 years old and I watched Silence of the Lambs.

My dad worked nights and my mum would sleep in. I used to wake up early and watch tv. We had it on vhs, and I watched it before she woke up and my before my dad got home from work.

She wasn't angry at me for watching it, but she was surprised I wasn't terrified of it. She hadn't had the courage to watch it herself yet. I think a lot of it went over my head.

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ArcadesRed@reddit

UFC #1

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Chele11713@reddit

Hellraiser

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Hotspiceteahoneybee@reddit

Teehee. I was visiting my friend Matt at his house. He was 9 and I was 8 and his parents just got cable. They weren't around - yardwork maybe? So he was like "come in here - we can watch R RATED movies!" And he turned on Terminator. Omg. Violence, language, sex. It had it all and I was ENTRANCED!

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clayton_ogre@reddit

KellyAnn3106@reddit

I was 10 so my mom didn't want me to see it. So we watched it at a slumber party at someone else's house.

Well besides porn, I watched Carrie. And I regretted that. That movie was horrifying as a 9 year old. And what’s more, my friend’s folks (whose house we watched it at) told us naive, gullible dipshit kids it was a true story.

My friend and I laid in bed that night telling ourselves whatever we had to to get ourselves to sleep.

But I remember that last scene like I watched it yesterday. ☠️

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RamboJane@reddit

We didn’t have cable, so we would rent movies every weekend from the grocery store. I always picked r rated horror movies and they didn’t care.

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Public-Pound-7411@reddit

I was not allowed to watch Dirty Dancing at 10 but the same parents bought me a copy of Flowers in the Attic at 12 when I asked for it.

As one of my formative memories includes Mel Gibson's barenaked ass in Lethal Weapon I can safely say I wasn't banned from watching anything really

I didn't cope very well considering every sound that plane made freaked me out. My husband was no help because he was in the same situation. I did order a beer and that seemed to calm me down. What made it worse though is that we were eating before the flight and our tab came out to be $66.60 and the song "Tragedy" by the Bee Gees started playing right then. I know that's not what the song is about but who the hell puts that on an airport playlist?? LOL

Learned my lesson. I will just stick to getting a nice beer buzz before take off because then I stop caring much about what is happening at all haha

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McBernes@reddit

Told my dad I was going to see some.movie that I dont even remember the name of when I was 15. I went with an uncle and cousin to see Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome instead.

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mobtown_misanthrope@reddit

It was the 80s. My parents didn't give a single solitary shit what I watched.

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superthrust123@reddit

We grew up in the day of "hot" cable boxes.

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sator-2D-rotas@reddit

Basic Instinct. It was on Showtime. My mom saw me watching it in the living room when she came home and commented I might be too young for it.

I kust went and turned it on in my bedroom. I think I was 10-11 at the time.

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a_solid_6@reddit

Damn, you had movie channels in your bedroom back then? I had a little black and white TV that picked up basic vhf and uhf channels.

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sator-2D-rotas@reddit

We stole Showtime by removing some filter on the outer cable box. All the TVs in the house had it.

Murphy's death and Emil after the toxic waste totally traumatized me. And Kurtwood Smith's role in That 70s Show really helped to soften my fear of him.

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MapEmergency8907@reddit

Saw Arachnophobia at a sleep over when I was 8. Crippling fear of spiders still hasn’t left me at 45 and I still think of the shower scene whenever i go to shower in a new place…..

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LvlHeadThoroughbred@reddit

American Pie

burnsalot603@reddit

I didn't really have restrictions on what I was allowed to watch because I didnt watch much TV. Where I fucked up was going to a sleepover on a tyson fight night and nit understanding why they didnt get the channel the fight was on. His dad said they didnt order it and I said oh you just have to put it on channel 906 or whatever it was back then. Turns out we had a black box and my dad never explained to me I needed to keep that to myself. Luckily my friends dad was cool and ended up getting their own black box from my dad.

This was also when i finally understood what people were talking about when they said they caught a glimpse of a boob between the squiggly lines. My friend and I had quite an enterprise going in 7th and 8th grade selling 15 min tapes of the playboy channel to kids at school.

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liarsandfrogs@reddit

I watched Purple Rain and Poetic Justice at my neighbors house. At home I was pretty much allowed 3 Disney movies, and all the focus on the family and black and white Shirley temple I wanted.

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OlDirtyTriple@reddit

I saw uncensored R rated action movies at age 8. Commando, Predator, Rambo II and III. American Ninja.

In hindsight, they were cool and awesome and only made me cooler and more awesome in elementary school.

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sanedragon@reddit

Dirty Dancing. I was 6 or 7. Watched it with the neighbor, who was a kindergarten teacher and also my babysitter 😂. Most of it went right over my head, but I loved the dancing scenes

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Linzcro@reddit (OP)

Killer soundtrack

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Mountain-Fox-2123@reddit

I can't think of a movie, but i did watch the tv series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987-1996) in secret because my mother would not let me watch it, so i watched it at friends houses.

Smart kid!

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Conduit-Katie82@reddit

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Honestly, I cannot recall this being an issue. By the time I was old enough to be places without my parents, this wasn't an issue.

Neat_Guest_00@reddit

Basic Instinct

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SkyRadiant1879@reddit

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Linzcro@reddit (OP)

Which movie is that? I am not familiar :)

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SkyRadiant1879@reddit

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Total Recall!

I was always into Sci Fi and desperately wanted to see it but it was "bad". I did get to see once it came out on video at a friends house though.

My parents were your classic pearl clutching types. Bought into the whole witchcraft and demonic scare and held onto it until I sat them down and "educated" them on fantasy vs reality. Yea. I shouldn't have had to do that.

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mosfunky@reddit

We had HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax in the 90s and I saw some shit as a result. The only movie my mom said she didn’t want me to see was Pulp Fiction, so we ordered it on PPV that weekend and recorded it to VHS. We were little shits.

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Zealousideal_Ninja75@reddit

The Terminator

Alien

Friday the 13th

Nightmare on Elm St

Halloween

All before the age of 10.

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se-dc@reddit

Two Girls and a Guy

Boy, were we disappointed by that talky, shitty nudity-free drama

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squarebodynewb@reddit

Revenge of the nerds!

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sk3pt1c@reddit

Greek here. None, we didn’t have lame filters at my house, i could watch whatever i wanted, we watched lots of movies with my parents too.

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LordLaz1985@reddit

Terminator. my bro and I were about 5 and 7, and we found where my parents had taped it.

There was a lot of stuff in it that we weren’t quite ready for, but it didn’t exactly harm us.

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Linzcro@reddit (OP)

I think that's why it confused me that they were so strict on movies. It wouldn't cause permanent damage...as I get scared thinking about the Ghost demons at 44 damn years old. LOL

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canterberi@reddit

Misery

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Silence of the Lambs

The Lost Boys

Nightmare on Elm Street

Halloween

Fear (Mark Wahlberg)

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Linzcro@reddit (OP)

Silence of the Lambs was one that they let me watch for some reason and it still affects me when I think about it.

I actually watched Fear the other day with my 17 year old girl as a cautionary tale to get to know men before you date them. Gosh he was sexy back then, even for a bad guy!

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farfanseaweevil@reddit

Stand By Me

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AncientQueenOfIkana@reddit

My friend at the time and I were 12, and wanted to see this at the movies. My mom immediately said, "YALL AIN'T GONNA SEE NO NEW JACK CITY"! I watched it a few years later on HBO with my sister...😆😆😆

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mmoonbelly@reddit

Movie - Runaway. (The one with Tom Selleck and the robot spiders).

Don’t think my parents realised we’d recorded it and were watching it before school.

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Its_all_pretty_neat@reddit

Aliens and Bram Stokers Dracula come to kind. Young me may have rewatched certain parts of the dracula vhs more than others.

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RadioWavesHello@reddit

Crazy, you people talking about parents or permission.

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OvenFriendly1818@reddit

Interview with a vampire

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_buffy_summers@reddit

Probably The Craft? I saw it with some friends while I was staying the night at their house; we saw it in the theater. Anything else my parents didn't want me to watch, I didn't really watch. But they didn't put a lot of restrictions on me, in that regard. My lack of interest in horror, in my early teens, was because I had no privacy at all, and three little sisters who would have immediately tattled on me for breathing if they decided it bothered them.

Once we moved and I got my own room, tv, and VCR? I started building a horror movie collection. I still prefer horror from the 1970s to the early aughts; everything since seems to mostly be gorn. I've noticed a trend in directors going back to less gore and more psychological horror lately, and I'm so grateful for it.

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Linzcro@reddit (OP)

Oh I love The Craft. "We are the weirdos"

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ejrhonda79@reddit

Purple rain when it came out on vhs.

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a_solid_6@reddit

Besides the scrambled soft porn every Friday night on Cinemax? The People Under the Stairs. My mother was pissed when my friend's mom let us watch it during a sleepover.

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