You can't tell what a show or movie will be like based on title alone. Sure, "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 15: The New Blood" probably won't make it through your parent filters, but what about those shows with confusing names? You know, the ones you hear in the back of your mind and don't even give a second thought to the mind-melting it's about to inflict on your child? Well, it happens, and we're all here for it.
Reddit user, u/Sylvizard, wanted to hear the saddest screenings you've had when they asked:
Parents of Reddit, when was your worst case of not checking a show before showing it to your kids?
Maybe Skip The First 15 Minutes For Younger Viewers...
Giphy
Shazam. For my 11 year old autistic son who is a big fan of superheroes. Everyone kept talk about how heartwarming and family oriented it was. I thought I was in the clear... until... a woman was incinerated and her flesh melted off and turned to charcoal dust... and then we were introduced to 7 demons which represented the 7 deadly sins. One of the demons bit the head off a man in a boardroom.
My son freaked the ever loving freak out.
You Grow And You Learn. Hopefully.
My Dad to me and my brother to see Wayne's World in the theater. I was 10, my brother was maybe 14.
Upon rewatch as an adult I actually understood the jokes. Not really appropriate for a 10 year old, IMO.
Edited to add: My husband totally thought it was fine to let the 5 year old and 3 year old watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, because "it's not that scary!" I then had to remind him of the part where THE NAZI DUDE'S FACE MELTS OFF.
And Then They Remade It!?
When I was a kid, it was Watership Down. I still remember the horror. Cute bunnies on the cover, but an absolute bloodbath filled with disturbing imagery awaits.
As a parent myself, YouTube! You really never know what you're getting on YouTube. There's plenty of great content for kids, but they're always just a few clicks away from a Holocaust documentary or true crime footage.
When You Can't Trust Anyone
I checked, but the response was misleading. A South American friend highly recommended this art film; the title was "Black God, White Devil". I asked if it were suitable for young children. She said that it was totally suitable; no problem. So I took my wife and kids, aged 5 and 6.
Just as they were preparing to hack a baby to death with a machete on screen, I yelled at my wife and kids and we ran out.
"How did anyone think that was appropriate for young kids?" I wondered. Still wondering.
Come On Now, It's Just...The Devil...
I have a much younger sister and let her watch "Rosemary's Baby" with me when she was five and I was old enough that I should have known to read the plot summary beforehand.
Emilio!
I played the Mighty Ducks to a group of first graders I was subbing for.
There's quite a few bad words I had forgotten about.
Freddy's Gonna Get You...
When I was about 6 or so my mom and dad had company over and were all sitting around the kitchen table drinking coffee and talking.
My sister and I kept running around and being loud and interrupting the adults, and after many repeated warnings to be quieter my dad escorted us into the living room, assigned us each a seat, and told us to be quiet and not to get up, and that the next time we interrupted them we'd get spanked. Then he turned on the TV and left.
We preceded to see some sort of sex scene where a woman pulled out a guy's tongue and used it to tie him to his bed. Then the BBEG appeared.... It was Freddy Krueger!
NSFW: The Scene.
We cried for him and he came in mad, but then saw what was on TV and apologized lol.
But, Chimichangas?
Giphy
My kids insisted I take them to Deadpool because their friends saw it.
Being the nice why not you're only a kid once kind of dad I am, I sat through too many awkward gratuitous sex scenes and made them promise we wouldn't say anything to mom but they were cool about the whole thing.
Watching Someone Else Goof Up
I worked at a movie theatre once upon a time. I was working as an usher this particular night, so once the run of showings started, things got quiet for me.
Until some dad came storming out of a theatre with his wife and kids in tow, ranting about how he thought they were seeing a cowboy movie.
Brokeback Mountain ain't for everyone.
You REALLY Messed Up There....
Happy Tree Friends
Was hoping for this comment, thank you for traumatising your children for our entertainment.
Oh this ain't SO bad...
Blazing Saddles.
Anything by Mel Brooks! Spaceballs is also not appropriate for children. Woops.
I adored spaceballs growing up but as a little kid i just would say "I wanna see balls". Lot of embaressment on my moms part
Roger is the best.
Well My friend told me once that his parents didn't know what American Dad was and they let him watch it downstairs while they were upstairs one time (He was About 7 years old at the time )and then about 3 days later his mom told him she was doing the dishes and he said: "Yeah you do that bitch." He didn't know what curse words were until he watched American Dad. His mom got pisssssed.
Oh God
Sausage Party.
That's the worst one possible in this situation.
Wurst?
Grisly
My parents let me watch Robocop when I was about 6.
Funny enough, it wasn't the massive gun fights, or the dude turning into toxic waste when hit by a car, or the blood, but when Robocop took off his mask thing. That freaked me out horribly and gave me nightmares.
I didn't know Robocop wasn't a family-friendly movie until about 2 years ago. I still haven't seen it, but when I was a toddler my slightly older cousins were obsessed with it.
Frank n beans, hair gel
When I was a kid, we were taken to watch Something about Mary. HAHA then quickly left to watch cats vs dogs.
I first saw parts of that movie (Something about Mary) when I was younger (around 10 y/o) and always wondered why her hair was standing up like that... only just realized a few years ago after re watching it as an adult what it was (0.0)
My list is too long to even try to narrow down. I'm just going to say that most of our political officials, on all sides, need a muzzle, a sedative, and a new career path. Start there...
Divorce Time
Real Housewives Goodbye GIFGiphy"Oh man I often think about the guy asking if he's an ahole for asking his pregnant wife to wear a diaper at night because she was disturbing his sleep whenever she got up to pee." ~ Morrigans
Psycho!
"I remember a girl in her late teens who thought her older sibling was faking their child's food allergy so she tried to catch her by not telling them about the ingredients before serving them a dish. Someone else had it first and recognized the ingredient and stopped the kid from eating it in time and called her out. She then tried to play it off saying her sibling was a drama queen and she was trying to trap her. Reddit tore into her, of course, since the child could've... well, died." ~ SylancerPrime
Glassware
"The guy who moved into his younger girlfriend's apartment, and threw away her fancy drinking jars that she loved from their shelf because they bothered him and he wanted her to just drink from normal cups. I think about this entitled jerk a lot. ~ SelfDiagnosedUnicorn
"get over it"
"Girlfriend of a widowed father of two, she moved in to his place. He was still struggling with letting go of his late wife. So the gf in her eternal wisdom decided to throw away all family pictures of his late wife one day when the dad was away because she felt it was time for him to "get over it". He did not get those pictures back, they were legit gone forever. When she posted this on AITA but didn't get the validation she wanted she just doubled-down instead." ~ YoungDiscord
Thief!
Angry Season 9 GIF by ShamelessGiphy"The girl who found a lost dog after someones house was destroyed then refused to give it back because they had "bonded." ~ dawsonsmythe
I dare you to try and keep any of my animals. What kind of lunatic does that?
"emotional support"
Steve Harvey Reaction GIF by Super DeluxeGiphy"The guy who was mad his GWB wouldn't give 10k usd because he provided her with "emotional support" by listening to her rant about her ex a couple of times." ~ Hopelessyhopeful
Vile
"The OP deleted it so I can't link. OP was the wife of a man whose first wife died. OP was jealous of wife #1 and destroyed all the photos and knick knacks from the first wife, including deleting all the digital photos. She burned everything physical. Her husband packed up his teenage daughter and left her. It was 3 or so years ago and I still feel rage thinking about that vile OP. I hope her husband divorced her. It's the least she deserved." ~ fluidentity
Cinderella
"OP wasn't the a**hole in this one, but her son was. Basically she found out that her son was using her daughter-in-law as a stay at home maid. They had two kids, I wanna say, and DIL did EVERYTHING - cooking, cleaning, childcare, EVERYTHING. OP gave DIL some money for a girls' weekend and her son forced her to cancel it because he wanted to go out with his friends that weekend, leaving her to watch the children."
"DIL called OP in tears and OP loses it - tells her to drop the kids at her house and go take her weekend. OP takes the kids to her sister's (with DIL's permission) and goes to the bar where her son is and tears him a new one to the point she gets kicked out of the bar. First thing she does after that is call her other two DILs up to make sure her other son's aren't pieces of crap." ~ SpidersMcGee
Awful Dad
"'ll never forget the one guy. He'd just turned 18 and was getting ready for college when his dad walked in, said "your mom cheated on me. I'm not your real dad. I'm not paying for your college. Move out after you graduate high school."
"The dad had known for the son's entire life but didn't say anything until that moment because he thought it was the mom's job to do it. And the kid assumed his family would pay for his college like they did with the others so he didn't save any money or look for scholarships." ~ justking1414
Call John
John Cena Mind Blown GIFGiphy"The kid that ruined his little brother's signed John Cena poster. The little brother had gotten it signed when he met John Cena during a Make-A-Wish event that was held for him." ~ nsa_k
That little kid is a psycho in training. Those parents need to sleep with BOTH eyes open. I hope John Cena sent another poster.
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Most of my minor, well major miracles when you think about it, have been in cars. I've lost track of the amount of vehicle disasters I've averted, by the skin of my teeth.
Out Damn Spot!
GIF by Warner ArchiveGiphy"My wife dragged my butt to the dermatologist for a cyst I have had for years. While there, the doc noticed a mole on my ankle that he didn't like. Turned out to be melanoma. Would have never gone if my wife didn't force me." ~ TheDistric
Say "AHHHH!"
"24 years old, had a pesky sore on my tongue that was really bothering me. My boyfriend's dad was a dentist so when I was over at his house one night I asked him to take a look. He recommended I go see an oral surgeon the next day for him to check it out."
"The next day I decided it was feeling better so I tried to cancel my appt but my boyfriend's dad insisted I go. I went, and the oral surgeon pretty much diagnosed it as cancer on the spot. It was aggressive and by the time of my surgery to remove it it had already spread to multiple lymph nodes."
"They ended up removing over half my tongue followed by chemo and radiation. Given how aggressive it was, I often think that if I had put off the doctors visit any longer I probably wouldn't have survived. I'm coming up on my 10 year anniversary in January." ~ bobear2017
Flip Out!
"When driving in the upper peninsula in Michigan last summer a truck full of logs flipped and barrelled straight into my car. Completely demolished the car, someone else had to come open the door for me after the fact because they were all pinned shut by logs. I walked out of there without a scratch on my body." ~ Tman2588
Pit Stop
"On a road trip in college with 4 friends. We stopped halfway for a pit stop because I had explosive diarrhea and was getting more sick by the minute. Friends carried on to Vegas and left me with one of the guys who rented us a car to return home. The friends that carried on got into a roll over: 1 died, 2 will be injured for life." ~ 4fingertakedown
Stay Single
Samuel L Jackson Reaction GIF by Coming to AmericaGiphy"I was engaged to someone, but then came to my senses and broke it off. Nine months later I found out she got married to someone else, then about 1 year after that she killed her husband." ~ Green-Boysenberry396
Life is a minefield when you think about it. Sometimes the heartbreak of love is worth it in hindsight. You look back and realize you loved a psycho and just say... "thanks for looking out God."
Leaks
relief GIFGiphy"The second floor of the house I was renting collapsed a month after I moved out. ETA: apparently a water pipe sprung a leak shortly after we left. We weren't in any trouble." ~ RenaKunisaki
On Impact
"I was driving home from visiting my brother in Vermont when a snow storm started. I didn't have much experience driving in serious snow and I completely lost control. Car careened off the road and I was heading for a giant boulder at around 50 or 60 mph. I felt time slow down and I reflected on my life for a moment and then said goodbye to my body. Suddenly, I was jolted out of it by an abrupt impact, but I could see that the boulder was still 20 or 30 feet away."
"When I got out of the car, I saw that I had hit a little skinny tree that I could have easily grabbed with one hand. However, it had a giant root system that lifted the car off the ground and stopped me. Car was totaled, but I was completely fine because of that little tree. There is no way I would have survived the other impact." ~ senatorbolton
Winter Days
"Walking to work in the winter. Half way through a step forward under a skybridge when an icicle taller than me (6') and probably 2' around at the base crashes down right in front of my nose. If my bus had been a half second earlier, if I had walked even a tiny bit faster pace."
"I would have been impaled from brains to testicles. I was frozen in place for a minute, quietly surveying my near-death. There was another pedestrian nearby who witnessed it and the wide-eyed, ashen look on his face as he stared at me confirmed just how narrowly fortunate I was that day." ~ MoridinXP
where I had just been...
"This happened before cellphones existed. I had a long commute home and on a rare occasion my husband drove into the city to meet me. I started for home about fifteen minutes before he did. On the stretch of Highway 101 that I needed to be on for about twenty miles, there was a big rig in front of me that seemed to be driving erratically."
"I got this weird feeling and just moved over to the next lane and accelerated past him. In my rear view mirror, I saw the big rig run over the car in front of him, flip to its side crushing the cars in the next lane (where I had just been). My husband was behind the accident and as the police were letting cars file past in single file."
"He saw one of the crushed cars had a red bumper. He got home a couple of hours after me and said he'd never been so happy to see my red car in the driveway. That he'd been holding his breath as he turned down our street because he really expected me to be under the big rig." ~ susgrigs
The Rising
Water Douse GIFGiphy"My wife and I were prepared to buy a nice riverfront property in 2019, but the owners ( her dad and uncle) were dragging their feet. We had our down payment, we were approved for the mortgage, and we had even been living there paying rent."
"Then the river rose 30ft/10m and we had to evacuate. The water kept rising. The house was destroyed before we bought it. So we didn't buy it." ~ Idiot_Savant_Tinker
And these are just the disasters we know about. The truth is, we probably survive near-death experiences with every breath we take. God speed everyone.
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Reddit user UWigsOfficial asked:
"What historical facts sound fake but aren't?"
Guess It Wasn't Meant To Happen
"The fact that two times the Mongols attempted to invade Japan and both times a storm sunk the invasion fleet."
"Same happened both times caesar went to Britain."
Even Kings Draw Phalluses, Apparently
"King Karl XIII of Sweden doodled penises all over his private diaries in 1785, when he was 37 years old."
"Clearly he was the inspiration for Superbad."
Christmas Spirit
"The Christmas Truce of WW1."
"It honestly sounds to good to be true, so I'm glad that it was real. It just goes to show you that deep down none of them were the 'bad guys' in the war, no matter what flag or country they fought for. They were all just soldier's that had to follow orders from their COs. It really sucks that it only lasted once & has become banned ever since."
Prime Ministers Don't Just Disappear, Do They?
"An Australian Prime Minister went missing while swimming at a beach."
"In his honour the US named a warship after him while in Australia his local electorate named a swim centre after him."
"There's a few Harold Holt memorial swimming pools around. I laugh every time I see one."
Operation Acoustic Kitty
Game Forum GIFGiphy"Operation Acoustic Kitty. A $20 million CIA project in the 1960s which implanted a microphone, radio transmitter, and wire into a cat, for the purpose of spying."
"The first mission involved releasing the cat near a Soviet compound in Washington to spy on two men. The cat was released and hit by a taxi almost immediately, and the project was discontinued."
"Sounds about right for a government project"
Wojtek
"There was a corporal in the Polish army during world war 2 who was a beer drinking, cigarette smoking bear."
"He didn't smoke he ate the damn lit cigarettes."
Who Needs An Enemy?
"Legend has it that the army of the Habsburg Empire lost about 10,000 people in the battle of Karánsebes in 1788 before the enemy (the Ottomans) even arrived. Basically they were drunk and thought the enemy had arrived and started fighting between themselves."
"The legend part is just the casualties. The event itself did actually happen, it's just debated whether it was anywhere close to 10,000 people lost or just a few hundreds killed and thousands injured."
But How Did They Open Them?
Hungry Lets Eat GIFGiphy"The can opener (1858) was patented 48 years after the tin can (1810)"
"Did they just squeeze em til the tops popped open before that?"
"Cans used to be thicker. They were opened using a chisel and hammer"
"Also cans were significantly less common than jarring"
"Australian troops during ww1 went into no-man's land and dug out/recovered an abandoned german tank that was stuck in mud, pretty much because they were bored and the tank was there."
"The A7V Mephisto. Went and visited it a few months ago."
"As of 2020 at least, President John Tyler's grandson was still alive. That's 10th President if the US, John Tyler, who was born in 1790."
"I haven't seen any stories about his grandson dying so I assume he's still alive. It would be an interesting enough story that it'd be one of the top stories for a day or two."
It's commonly said that studying history will sometimes make you upset or uncomfortable, but most folks probably don't expect it to make them incredulous. Sometimes, though, fact really is stranger than fiction.
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