Just a teeny weeny little rant...

Try being at a beach party with rampant nudity while little kids are swimming in the water.

Granted, having a child shouldn't necessarily mean you have to stay inside and do nothing but parent-stuff, but if you want the fucking kid, raise it right and keep it out of adults-only environments. People are idiots.

I'll never forget going to see Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation in a dingy Times Square theater and witnessing a plump little woman dragging her fuckin' five-year-old kid to the front row to watch the movie. They stuck it out for a while; further along into the movie the woman eventually hauled her frightened little rugrat out into the lobby.

People like this are brain fried. Selfish morons with lack of any responsibility on their part to be a good parent. No doubt some folks probably thought that of my father when he took me to see Cronenberg's The Fly. But still...

Bringing a small child to a horror movie is absolutely idiotic and disrespectful to the movie-going patrons (especially if the kid starts crying).

This happens all the time, Addix and it sucks, you're right. I manage a cpl of theatres and I'm always bewildered by the parent who will bring there 5 year old kid to movies like "From Hell" or "JVF" etc. And the sad thing is, besides sending ushers in every 15 minutes or so to quiet them or kick them out, we can't stop them from bringing their kids. However, on the East and West coast, some of the theatres in my chain have started a "No Child Tickets" sold for R rated movies. Some places that had real bad problems with this made it an all day-every day thing, some just an after 6pm. I personally have no problem with this, having to deal with this crap every day. Not letting any child tickets be bought for an R rated movie after 6pm disuades those parents who won't want to spend full price on their kids and so hopefully they'll leave them home (with a babysitter who will more than likely be murdered by a unkillable psychopath )
It also bothers me that these same parents who bring their kids to these films, also seem to come to late late shows. Don't kids sleep anymore?

As a loving father of a 12 year old girl I say:
ONE- It depends on the type of violence. Anything that blurs lines (like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) I would say no.
TWO- It all depends on the kid man. I saw Mark Of The Devil and The Exorcist first run and I'm...er...okay.

... perhaps this is indicative of the mentality for the typical FREDDY vs JASON fan ???

Sorry, just kiddin' ... However, in all honesty, FvsJ comes across very cartoonish and hokey, so perhaps this is just a result of uninformed poor judgement on the part of the parents ... Sure, it is rated R, and any parent who takes a 4-10 y/o to an R rated film is making a foolish decision, but when I saw WRONG TURN and 28 DAYS LATER there were NO kids .... Those films have a differnt tone ...

I don't have a problem with well behaved members of the younger crowd attending R rated movies with their parents, heck, I had planned to take my 8 year old nephew to see it until his dad decided to take him. My beef is with the kids AND adults that sit and talk through the entire movie, I'm guilty of making a few quiet comments occasionally but to sit and carry on a conversation while those around me are trying to watch the show NEVER. And I think the next time I go to a movie and somebody's cellphone rings, I'm going to do something very nasty to their person with said instrument.

I was (mostly accidentally) exposed to quite a few horror movies throughout my childhood. Especially at age 3-8 years..

So, as one of those kids, I hope those idiotic parents fall in a hole and rot. I like horror movies -now-, but back then, the things I saw are some of the worst memories I have. I saw Hellraiser 3 when I was somewhere between 4 and 5, and man.. That was just terrible. I had nightmares for months and months.

Trust me, it can screw a kid up. Even taking a kid through the horror section at a video store is a bad idea. I very vividly remember seeing Freddy's messed up face and wigging out right in the store when I was, uh.. 3? Yech.

The third time I saw House of 1,000 Corpses in a theatre, a rather large woman and her two young children were sitting a few rows in front of me.

They all seemed very shocked at what they were watching until Fishboy showed up. The boy starts screaming and the girl buries her face in her mom's massive forearm.

Then she grabbed her two children and stampeded out of the theatre, mumbling something about how Rob Zombie was a Satanist who would burn in Hell.

For a few days afterward, I was very confused.

I mean, she willingly walks into a movie called "House of 1,000 Corpses" with two young and impressionable children and leaves in disgust.

I guess it wasn't what she expected.

Or maybe she's just a big Rainn Wilson fan.

Taking kids to see House of 1,000 corpses is incredibly stupid, that woman is totally irresponsible. I was watching it yesterday and I kept thinking, this is a very sick movie. I wouldn't dream of letting my 16 year old sister watch it!! I'm shocked.

Come on Chucky's Girl, at 16 she is seeing more shit in real life than you can dream of. I truly find Britney Spears more dangerous to a young impressionable mind (overt Lolita sexuality being sold as a commodity to other youngsters) than some OBVIOUSLY fantasy violence/gore.

In an age when I have to tell my daughters fucking school principal playing "Its getting hot in here, so take off all your cloathes..." on a loop at a grammar school dance...well I'd rather her watch DAWN OF THE DEAD.

It's deplorable that any theater would let parents bring small kids to see a movie like that. The theater is within their rights to refuse admittance to kids but they won't because they don't want to lose the $$$. I know this first-hand from when I worked for a theater.

I've mentioned this before, but it's too funny/sad to not repeat. When I saw "28 Days Later" in the theater, some fat trailer trash woman brought a little girl who couldn't have been older than five, arriving just before the picture starts. She makes enough of an ordeal finding a seat that everyone in the packed theater is uncomfortably aware that there's a little kid getting ready to watch a movie that little kids shouldn't watch.

About six minutes into the flick, we see that long shot of Jim lying naked on the hospital bed, his cock flopping in the wind. The theater is silent. And then, in a painfully loud voice, the little girl said, "WOW. What's THAT?" Okay, that was kind of funny, and a lot of people laughed, but as the movie went on, it became more and more apparent that A) the kid had no idea what was going on in the movie, and B) that didn't stop her from being absolutely terrified. She wasn't crying or screaming...just whimpering. It was awful.

After the flick, I asked the woman what the hell was wrong with her after the movie, and she told me, exactly, "You shut the fuck up don't tell me how to raise my fucking baby motherfucker who do you fucking think you are?" I gave her a pleasant smile and explained that I worked for a foster care agency that makes sure braindead cows who aren't fit to raise their children get their children taken away, and could I please see her driver's license? This look of blank horror passed over her face, and she turned and SPRINTED out of the theater, dragging this screaming kid behind her.

Sure, I'm a baldfaced liar, but that's one more trailer trash momma who won't be bringing her five-year-old to horror movies.

My opinion about the things said in this thread is the following:

I live in Europe. Here, we DON'T think that seeing a naked person in non-sexual activities (beach party) will horribly scar children for life. Thank fucking God, or I'd have to move to some desert. A place where parents have more problems letting children see naked people than Freddy Vs Jason belongs in my nightmares.

Whenever I have children, I will have no problem letting them see horror movies at home or in the theater. Why? Because when they do, it's because they asked to see them. If they feel they are up t it, I will let them, and carefully monitor them to see if this is true or not. I have no problem leaving a theater or shutting down the TV if I see my kid getting adversely affected. I do plan on instilling in him a curiosity over the genre, but he will consume it at his leisure, like I did. I feel it can be a liberating experience, akin to confronting your own fears. In an odd way, it helped me.
I plan to do the same with books, RPGs, music, videogames, and any other cultural content.

Bringing an unwilling child to a theater and refusing to leave, OTOH, is purely fucked-up parenting.

Eh, but this wasn't "casual" naked - this was drunken debauchery; someone being naked on a nude beach is fine, but a kid running around while a bunch of drunken yahoos are hollering "show us your tits" and tossing those ubiquitous and moronic beads around is a COMPLETELY different environment.

I DO agree with this; still, I'm not going to show my kids TCM or Halloween or The Thing until THEY ask ME.

yeah, it's a different environment, but would it make you feel better to have your kid there if they were dressed? Not MW kid wink

Basically, I mentioned nudity in a sexual situation, if a kid get a boner watching National Geographic then that just means he'll get one looking at *every fucking poster, lingerie commercial, music video, etc* on the bloody TV. The *attitude* is the problem, not the nudity. Still, kids that age get boners. Trying to fight it and repress him will only mean a poorer quality nursing home for you when you're old enough to piss your pants. Me, I want my kid to put me in one of those FINE places with the pretty nurses. wink

My biggest complaint, and this is what mostly drives me to never want to go to a theater, is the idiotic, and very ignorant people there. Take for example my trip Saturday to go see Freddy vs. Jason. Obviously a crowd of people who never followed the franchise, but just knew the names of Freddy and Jason. In front of me, two grown adults, yes two grown adults, reclined back in there chairs, with their feet propped up on the seats in front of them, okay how freaking rude! Behind me to my left a group of kids who cant stop kicking my chair, and who’s vocabulary consist of uttering the F word every time somebody gets killed. Behind me to my right, a group of girls who felt it was necessary to sing as if performing for us all, ugh! In front of me to my left a couple who decided it was fine and dandy to walk up in the theater pushing a baby stroller, in which a child not even a year old was in! Seriously you got mental problems whoever you are! In front of me to my right, twenty something year old punk kids who think it's cool to crawl over seats because they are to damn lazy to walk to the end of the aisle. This viewing experience pisses me off so much, that I literally hate going to a theater. How can people honestly be this disrespectful? People playing with cell phones...*sigh* the whole viewing experience is ruined all because of a bunch of jerks, it sucks. I'd much rather stay home or go to a drive-in.

Well, in America, you RARELY see a "dude's dong swinging to and fro" unless it's a porno movie. That was about the only thing that shocked me about 28 Days Later.

This is one I feel pretty strongly about.

When my wife and I went to see "28 Days Later" we noticed a family with 2 kids between 6 & 10. My daughter is 6 and I wouldn't have dreamed of taking her to it. There were just too many situations that were too complex and/or frightening for her. I also don't think she is ready for "The Ring" and that was PG-13. However, I have let her watch "Pumpkinhead" and she enjoys it. It's a lot simpler and it's basically a supernatural/monster film without a whole lot of gore.

So, yeah, leave your kids at home for most of these R rated films. It's annoying and unfair to the rest of us, and you'll have a 'whole lot of 'splainin' to do to your kid.

I can't tell you how many films I haven't been able to see in the theater because my child is/was too young to be there. We got a babysitter for "Event Horizon" (which I liked very much) as well as the other few my wife and I got to see. There's always Disney/Pixar films to take your kid to. Or something like "irates of the Caribbean" (I'm assuming; I haven't seen it yet).

Enough of my psychobabble...

I kind of considered it no place for a child as it was - the nudity was just something that I figured would indicate to even the most LAX parent that it was time to go.

I figured wrong.

Yes the kid must WANT to see said film.
I was ready for the stuff at an extremely early age, but then I walked aropund with a FAMOUS MONSTERS issue in hand constantly and grew up around film students who took me to screenings of Harryhausen and Corman flix at the college. I very quickly graduated to the scarier stuff. Also, I knew about make-up FX and stuff like that so even then I was looking/watching with an eye most kids my age couldn't.
As for my very well adjusted daughter DITTO. She had a favorite movie when she was 10, it was called THE CROW. AT 12 she counted DAWN OF THE DEAD among her favorites right up there with BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and SELENA.
Straight up it depends on the kid and generalizing is a moot point.

Now, if a kid is scared and sais "I wanna go mommy and daddy I am scared" then that parent needs to listen and get their kid out of there.

Theres only a couple of films I wouldnt want my daughter seeing until she is 16 and that is THE EXORCIST and something like IRREVERSIBLE. And yes, I feel at 16 if she wants to give those a shot then I will be okay with that. But then my daughter isnt your normal kid, she was born smart and able to handle shit better than most adults.