Yahoo Movies Staffers Remember Their First R-Rated Movies

While hosting a sleepover for his fifth-grade son and several of his pals, film critic and RogerEbert.com editor-in-chief Matt Zoller Seitz decided to liven the slumber party up with a screening of James Cameron’s 1986 sci-fi classic, Aliens. He live-tweeted as the movie unspooled and then posted an article on RogerEbert.com afterwards, saying that the nearly 30-year-old action flick thoroughly entertained a roomful of 11 year olds. The kids may have enjoyed watching Ripley kick alien butt, but a number of adult commentators questioned Seitz’s decision to show them an R-rated movie full of brutal human-on-alien (and alien-on-human) violence. The subsequent debate got the Yahoo Movies staff thinking back on our own youthful experiences breaking the rated-R barrier. Here are our memories of some of the R-rated movies we probably saw at too young an age. Still, we (mostly) turned out okay.

Stand By Me
It’s appropriate that the first R-rated movie I saw in theaters is kind of a kids’ movie…or, at least, a movie about kids. I was 8 years old when my family picked Stand By Me for our semi-regular matinee weekend at the multiplex. What seemed like a boys’ adventure quickly revealed itself to be something darker and more dramatic than almost anything I’d remembered seeing up to that point. It may not have an Aliens-level body count, but the violence (and, more potently, the threat of violence) that does occur in Stand By Me made a deep impression, whether it was the four kids scurrying to get out of the path of that oncoming train or the moment where Gordie reached into his tighty whities and pulled out a leech. (Even as an adult, that scene provokes an involuntary shudder.) Like almost every kid my age, I loved watching Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones leap into action over and over again, but never really felt as if those guys were in any danger. These boys — who weren’t that much older than me — were. Just like your first crush or first kiss, it’s hard to forget your first brush with mortality, and for me, it happened in that theater watching Stand By Me. —Ethan Alter

Caddyshack
Mine was Caddyshack when I was about 10. It was the second part of a double bill at our local drive-in, and my parents probably figured my brother and I would sleep through it. Curiously, none of the really salacious hijinks stuck with me: the innuendo, the language, the sex scenes, or the nudity. Aside from the dancing groundhog and that groovy Kenny Loggins tune, my big takeaway was how I thought it would be the most awesome thing in the world to get a bunch of friends together, drop some chocolate bars in the pool, yell “doodie!” and then eat them, Bill Murray (a.k.a. B.M.)-style. So began my Summer of Poopie Bars.

Now that I’m an adult with two elementary-school-aged children, I view my first brush with restricted movies as an object lesson: Having a bunch of pre-teens dumping Three Musketeers in the middle of every summer pool party is precisely the reason I won’t be taking my own pre-teens to R-rated flicks anytime soon. —Marcus Errico    

Psycho
[Editor’s note: 1960’s Psycho pre-dated the modern system, but it was later re-rated R for its home video release.] I must’ve been about 6 or 7 when my teenaged sister and one of her friends were babysitting me one night. They decided to show me Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. They promised to tell me at what points I should cover my eyes, but I’m pretty sure that was just a ruse, because I saw it all. That image of the blood circling the drain was etched in my mind for eternity, and I was terrified of showers for years to come. (Don’t even get me started on how Ghoulies made me afraid of toilets. Bathrooms, in general, are still horror huts for me). I’m sure I thought it was pretty mean at the time, showing a little kid Psycho with no warning. But looking back, I can now say it was a good prank. Well done, sis. —Kevin Polowy

Friday the 13th, Part II
I had seen snippets of R-rated films as a kid — growing up with cable, it would have been hard not to sneak a peek. But the very first R-rated film I watched in its entirety was Friday the 13th, Part II at a slumber party when I was 9 years old. It was at my new neighbor’s house with the ultra-cool parents who may or may not have also let me have my first sip of beer. The scene that stands out to me the most was the teenaged couple who were having sex (already shocking for my young eyes!) when they got skewered mid-way through the act. I am pretty sure I watched the rest of the movie from behind my pillow. I’m also fairly certain that that put me off horror movies for life. —Giana Mucci

Aliens
When my mother dropped me off in front of Pennsylvania’s Gateway Theater on a sunny afternoon in the summer of 1986, I knew what was waiting for me inside: Drool-dripping monsters, acid-soaked soldiers, and at least one exploding stomach. For weeks, I had been preparing myself to see Aliens, a process that involved two labor-intensive steps. The first was collecting plot intel from every other kid I knew — all of whom had either seen the movie or heard secondhand tales from their older siblings — so that I’d be ready for all the gory moments. The second was convincing my parents that, as a 10 year old, I was ready to see an R-rated movie sans parent. (Now that I have kids, I understand their logic for letting me go: “Wait, you want to give us two whole hours to ourselves? And on a weekend? Whoopee! Here’s 10 more bucks! Go see Platoon a few times, while you’re at it!”)

At that point, my exposure to big-screen scares was limited to the Skeksis’ death scene in The Dark Crystal, a few seconds of Jaws 3-D, and the closing-credits theme song from Howard the Duck. But Aliens promised to be an all-out gross-out like I’d never experienced, and I still remember my gut-gnarling fear as I walked into the lobby, bought my ticket and a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and walked into the darkened theater with some friends. Within a few minutes of the first trailer — a grody, slime-slicked horror movie called From Beyond — I was out the door, terrified.

I ran to the lobby, where I called my mom from the phone booth and pleaded to be picked up, blaming my sudden change-of-heart on bad concession-stand candy. The truth, though, was that I still wasn’t ready to move past the parameters of PG-13 — land of breakdancing Gremlins and a swashbuckling young Sherlock Holmes — and make it through an R movie.

Years later, the theater burned down, forever destroying the site of my public chickening-out. But when I drive by, I always remember what it was like to shudder inside that phone booth — a space, I hoped, where no one could hear me scream — and think of the awesome power that the movies have always held over me, even back then. — Brian Raftery

Blue Brothers
When I was in third grade, everyone in my class was obsessed with the comedy Coming to America, which I was not allowed to watch because it was rated R. For some reason, the one R-rated movie my parents deemed appropriate for my nine-year-old self to watch was The Blues Brothers. In retrospect, it seems strange that The Blues Brothers is even rated R, since it’s such a fundamentally goofy and good-hearted film. But man, do they say “s—-” a lot. Basically, my takeaway from Blues Brothers was a huge mental catalog of famous musicians saying “s—-.” Even now, when the word comes into my head, I often hear it in the voice of Aretha Franklin, cursing Matt “Guitar” Murphy for abandoning her after she sang “Think.” — Gwynne Watkins

There’s Something About Mary
The first time I can remember actively seeking out an R-rated movie was when I was 12 years old and There’s Something About Mary came out on video. My friend Matt and I biked downtown and went to our favorite indie rental place, Video Video (R.I.P.), and found the Farrelly brothers’ hit comedy just sitting there on the shelves. The guy at the counter had no problem renting it to us, but we were uncertain whether it would fly with Matt’s Catholic mother, so on the way out, we grabbed the box to some Brendan Fraser movie and swapped the tapes inside.

We thought we were pretty clever, and for a while, the whole charade worked: We were enjoying Ben Stiller’s goofy attempts to win Cameron Diaz’s heart, guffawing at her unfortunate hair-gel moment, and booing Brett Favre whenever he came on screen. Then Matt’s mom committed a cardinal sin: She came into his room without knocking. She made us turn the movie off, though I didn’t get in any trouble. I’m not so sure about Matt. —Jordan Zakarin

Pretty Woman
One of my first brushes with the R rating was also my first brush with video-on-demand. In 1991, my parents splurged on a vacation to Hawaii and a hotel near Waikiki Beach. While the pounding Pacific waves were a treat, my sister and I were particularly intrigued by the hotel’s pay-per-view movie channel and the prospect of watching the featured attraction Pretty Woman. After some investigating, we discovered that the channel was malfunctioning and instead of offering snippets before you paid up, it just played Pretty Woman in its entirety over and over again for free. So we watched it — over and over again.

Did I wonder then how anyone was able to make a fizzy, light-hearted romantic comedy about low-end L.A. prostitution? Not really. I only remember being shocked when Jason Alexander slugged Julia Roberts across the face and deeply uncomfortable during the piano-top sex scene the one time my mom and dad sat down to watch with us. That lesson stuck: Maybe R-rated movies weren’t for kids, but they definitely weren’t for parents either. —Kerrie Mitchell

Basic Instinct
For the record, Basic Instinct was not the first R-rated movie I ever saw. But it was the first one I saw in theaters, and thus, stands out in my memory. Looking back, I’m mostly flabbergasted that anyone would have sold me a ticket at age 13. I may have been hanging with a slightly older crowd, though none of them were anywhere near 17. To be honest, I don’t remember the film’s infamous leg-crossing scene. In my awe at how gorgeous and chic Sharon Stone was, I must’ve missed it. (Either that, or it traumatized me so much that I’ve completely blocked it from my memory.) And while the sex may have shocked me, I do recall being taken with the plot’s twists and turns. I also remember being surprised that an ice pick is a thing that exists. And pretty sure that I’d never, ever use one. —Breanne L. Heldman

Blazing Saddles
When I was around 9, my dad saw that our local revival house was playing Blazing Saddles. That night, he packed us all in the car: He had a deep love for any joke that involved a four-letter word, and he told us (with an implied wink I only decoded later) we all had to go because this was an “important” movie. (Later in my life, when critics would use the word “important” to describe movies like Schindler’s List and Malcolm X, I would always flash back to this moment and the reverential balloon would be popped.) So off we went, and I can personally guarantee that if a director includes a scene that is one long fart joke, he will make a 9 year old boy his fan for life. Can’t say I really grasped the racial satire at the time, but hey, a guy punched a horse! —Josh Wolk

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare
I was 11. The sun had set on the summer of 1991, during which I devoured the first few installments of R. L. Stine’s Fear Street book series. I was a budding horror fanatic, yet I had actually never seen an R-rated film, let alone a slasher. The school year had just begun, and on Friday, Sept. 13, I opted for Freddy Krueger over Jason Voorhees, marathoning the first five films in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise during an epic slumber party with my neighbor and fellow novice, Zach. By Dream Warriors (the third chapter), we were no longer cowering in our sleeping bags; we were actually rooting for the iconic villain over Heather Langenkamp’s protagonist, Nancy Thompson.

The following afternoon, we hopped on our BMX bikes and rode to Georgetown Square, a small shopping center in Bethesda, Maryland and the two-screen Cineplex Odeon theater that was playing Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, which had opened nationwide the previous day. The pimple-faced teenager at the counter had no qualms about selling tickets to two unaccompanied kids who were clearly under 17. Along with our stubs, he handed us 3-D glasses — which I still possess — because the flick’s final sequence was shot in “Freddy Vision.” I was beside myself with excitement…and terror. We inhaled Twizzlers (Twizzlers > Red Vines), laughed at Freddy’s ridiculous quotes (“I’ll get you my pretty, and your little soul, too!”), and screamed when his razor-adorned glove clawed at us through the big screen. Needless to say, it was an unforgettable 89 minutes and a milestone day in the life of a scaredy-cat-turned-horror junkie, who will always hold a special place in his heart for a certain demented mass murderer. —Matt Whitfield

The Hunger
My first brush with a rated-R movie came at a much younger age than most. My parents were in their early 20s when they had me, but, in spite of their youth, were generally responsible and protective. They claim to this day they didn’t realize how inappropriate the 1983 horror movie The Hunger was for my 5-year-old eyes. And truthfully, I didn’t pay much attention at all: Vampire David Bowie didn’t really speak to my Smurfs-loving mind. I do, however, remember the nude love scene between Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon — during which my mom told me to cover my eyes as we all hustled out of the theater.  —Meriah Doty

Your turn readers: What was your first rated-R movie? Let us know in the comments.

Photo credit: Columbia Pictures, Everett Collection, 20th Century Fox, Buena Vista