5 Movies You Should Never Watch With Your Parents

Let’s face it – we’ve all been there. You’re sitting on the couch, enjoying family night with your parents and you channel surf to find a film you can share together. You find something that seems funny or has an actor you like, and within a few moments…it becomes very clear this was probably a bad choice, considering the shades of red you’re turning.

So let us save you the trouble of that awkward conversation or red face of embarrassment and suggest 5 movies that are probably better off being viewed with a good friend, or just by yourself – but definitely not with an adult figure.

Judd Aptow’s hit film Knocked Up about Allison Scott, a straight-laced entertainment reporter who has a drunken one-night stand with dorky loser Ben Stone and ends up accidentally pregnant, has all the classic makings of an Aptow film: witty banter, fun characters, dry humor. Yet most of its classic scenes are probably ones you don’t want to answer to your parents about.

In addition to the showing of lots of sex in a rather graphic way, there are numerous instances of characters getting high, as well as parts of the film where characters come up completely naked – and did we really need to see the entire (and I mean ENTIRE) birthday process when Allison’s baby is finally born?

You can argue that maybe your parents would find Knocked Up funny, but just to be safe, you’re probably better off just waiting until they leave the room to watch this one.

“This one time…at band camp…” At the time that American Pie came out, no one knew how immortal those words would become. Band camp, indeed.

At a high school party, four friends make a pact to lose their virginity before college, and figure their best chance to do so is senior prom. The result? Lots (and do I mean LOTS) of sex talk (even if some of it is misguided), plenty of nude occurrences, and even a few masturbation scenes that are pretty graphic when you consider the fact this movie was primarily geared for high school students.

Trust me, unless you want to answer to your parents about the virtues of a warm apple pie, let’s just say you should probably avoid this one with the grown-ups.

Let me sum up why this movie isn’t exactly worthy of parental viewing with a brief personal anecdote – when I was in college, my roommate loved Ewan McGregor and had a poster of this film above her bed. When my parents came to move me in, my father, who had a love of trains, looked at it and got very excited. Unfortunately, it fell on my roommate to awkwardly explain to him that the poster wasn’t exactly talking about THAT type of trainspotting.

Based on the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting follows a group of heroin addicts in 1980’s Edinburgh. Turning to drugs because they think it will make their lives better, they soon learn that not only are they destroying relationships with people they love, but they are also destroying their relationships with each other.

The storyline of drug addiction is extremely prevalent, in addition to male and female full frontal nudity and graphic sex scenes. There is also a fair share of violence, mostly relating to withdrawal-type behavior from the main characters as they struggle to kick their habit throughout the film.

Overall advice: if you want to brave the awkwardness of watching this one, you’d better be ready to explain to your parents why it’s enjoyable to watch a movie about Scottish heroin addicts.

I debated on this one, feeling it could go either way (and because I personally know many people whose parents have watched this with them and enjoyed it.) However, in the grand scheme of things, I decided it should be included in this list. Because when you think about it, most people probably are not that comfortable sitting on the couch next to their parents and watching half-naked people molest each other.

Janet and Brad, two newlyweds who become stranded after their car dies on a rainy night, find themselves taking shelter in the mansion of Dr. Frank-N-Furter – a transvestite who happens to be having a party to unveil his newest creation, Rocky. And Rocky is…well, let’s just say Rocky’s “special” – you know, in a really sexual way.

Rocky Horror is a really good film – a cult classic, even. But with implied sex, cross-dressing, transsexuals, and a little bit of gore, your parents – especially if they’re of the conservative mind – probably won’t understand why you love it. But hey, look on the bright side. There are perks watching Rocky Horror alone – no one’s going to tell you to shut up when you interact with the film by yelling out dialogue.

On first glance, it seems like you can’t go wrong with this movie. David Cronenberg, Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello…awesome actors and a well-known director. The movie even starts out quite deceptively, showing us the quiet life Tom Stall, a bartender who lives peacefully with his lawyer wife and their two children. So how bad can the film really be?

Well, Tom’s docile life is basically torn apart when he murders two killers in cold blood to protect the people in his bar. After the murders, a mobster named Carl Fogarty comes to town, seeking him out and threatening the death of Tom’s loved ones. When Tom defends them, it sets off a chain of violence that becomes pretty brutal to watch.

The title doesn’t lie – A History of Violence is filled with showings of gruesome shootings and rather shocking instances of bloodshed (the film is, after all, based on a graphic novel, and Cronenberg definitely takes advantage of that fact.) There are also two graphic sex scenes in this film, both of which have an intensity to them that’s sure to make you squirm should you happen to be in the company of the parentals.

Personally, I’m all for watching Viggo Mortensen in anything he’s ever done, but I would avoid bringing this one around on family night…unless your family is really into gore and graphic novels.

Is there a film I didn’t mention that you think should be on the list? Or have you have a bad experience that you want to share? I’d love to hear your thoughts!