Strollerderby

OMG!!

I saw The Lost Continent too as a kid and TOTALLY had nightmares....

Silent Running has scared me for life.

I don't take my kids to 'too old' movies but we have let them watch stuff at home.   After the Alien lives with Predator thing on YouTube they wanted to see the actual movie and were not phased at all.

My kids are the product of two sci fi geeks....but we have to watch what scare or upsets them.  Or bores them.  Star Wars was boring to them (gasp!)

Dr. Who is too scary for my son.

But when he was little he cheered for The Blob.

He has watched Jurassic Park over and over

I won't let him watch ET because he is so sensitive that that would just gut him.  It would be an emotional rollercoaster.

I tend to avoid things that look too 'real'..space and fantasy is more easily explained as 'safe' and 'far away' I feel.

Scarred for life by my very progressive parents who took me to see (amoung other things):

Tommy

Silent Running

The Omen

Freaks

At this point, scary Franklin episodes are too much, IMO, for my 3 year olds.

If you're going to try it, today's the day...  The theaters will be open but completely empty during the Superbowl.

hmmm... i'd say it depends on the kid. my mom still can't handle things that are harder than pg-13, so suffice to say, i didn't see much until well into adolescence.

my two girls, aged 4 & 6, love things most kids don't... dr. who is a huge favorite, star trek, star wars, indiana jones, and lots of classics monster films - frankenstein, dracula, etc. no complaints of nightmares, either. they find a lot of it just plain hokey.

I and everyone I know was scarred as a child by Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. Any time that movie is mentioned everyone shudders and rubs their ears. Personally Rambo: first blood did a number on me, and in no small part contributed to my phobia of rats.None of the many other adult films I saw as a child affected me though. With my daughter I plan on taking it on a film by film basis.

I was raised in a medical family (both my mother and father are nurses, and before that they went through a range of jobs from emergency medical technician to nursing assistant to cpr and first aid trainer). I rarely saw violent movies, but I did (and do, to this day) watch televised surgeries, emergency room reality shows, and things like "The Miracle of Life". The blood, guts, and obvious pain in some of these things did not upset me, because I could see that the medical professionals were doing their best to help out.

What ended up disturbing me, though, was almost every other type of violence. I cannot watch about 2/3 of the films made  in the U.S. because they are too violent for me. I'm not grossed out, just incredibly saddened and disturbed by this violence. I guess because of my medical upbringing, I can't see the fantasy in made-up violence. It seems real, and thus it sickens me that as a society we consider it to be entertaining.

All this leads me to feel very protective of my own children when it comes to violence. I read detailed movie reviews before taking my children to see anything (search for Kids In Mind to see my favorite). That way, I can assess whether the movie will disturb my kids based on what I know about their individual personalities.

Oh, and Darth Vader still gives me the shivers with the squeezing the neck thing.

depending on the age, i'm annoyed when parents bring young kids or babies to "adult" movies - i don't bring my kid b/c i don't want her yelling at the screen :)

i was totally scarred by the rape scene in "the color purple" as a kid  and "agnes of god", starring jane fonda... creepy creepy. but i loved alien and terminator as a "too young" kid.

I feel like an old lady here!  Haha!

The only think that ever scarred me was the Salem's Lot miniseries. Holy moly! The funny thing is that my mother wouldn't let me watch the first night, but the second night it was on I slept over at m Granny's house and she, Grampa and my uncle (four years older than me) were all watching it.

I actually shielded myself with the Sears catalogue! I would peer over it and watch until it got scary.  For years afterward, I would tuck the covers up around my neck and sleep on my left side in order to make it more difficult for a vampire to get to my aorta!

An American Werewolf in London was another one that sort of bothered me. I was afraid of looking into a fogged mirror for years because of that. But, while watching it I had a dandy time squealing!

When my night shift working dad couldn't sleep late at night on weekends and I, a lifelong insomniac, had problems staying asleep, my dad would cuddle up on the couch with me and we'd watch Elvira's b-movie show. I used to love those crazy old horror films from the 50's, 60's and 70's.

My son doesn't get censored from too much at home. He gets bored with a lot of stuff and wanders off to play. Some stuff he loves to pieces and has grown up watching lots of scifi with us nerdy parents. In fact, as a stall tactic, he asked me tonight if I wanted to watch a Gamera movie with him instead of putting him to bed. I almost fell for it, too!

I don't bring my daughter to anything but children's stuff because she can't not talk during a movie, and she struggles with whispering.  And the food critic in Ratatouille scared her, so it's just safer that way.

My youngest aunts, just 11 and 12 years older than I, let me watch Poltergeist when I was maybe 6, and I've been scarred for life since.  That movie to this day makes my skin crawl.

I wouldn't now.

I 'accidently' had Pirates of the Caribbean on with my daughter around. Then alligators and scary monster showed up in our house.

Watchign freakin' NIght Gallery ( just the theme music depresses me now)l, UFO and when my stupid parents took us to see "Three Mules For Ssister Sarah".  Good grief!  I thought all those people were really, really dead!  Kids have huge imaginations and cannot really distiguish between fiction and reality even when they say the can.  I can honestly say I was so frightened by those things it depressed me as a small child.  So there is more here than just a few screams and nightmares.  Stress, dread, helplessness and fear can trigger depression.