Entertainment Weekly recently ran a bit where people wrote in listing movies they were too young to see but somehow saw anyway. Here's my top-five.

See if you can catch a common theme running through these...

1. Alien/Aliens - My dear mother showed this movie to my siblings and me. If I'm remembering it correctly, she rented it for us while we lived in the house on Reagan street, which puts the age of me watching this at about 8 or 9 years old. Aliens that suck your face? Check. Aliens that have acid for blood? Check. Aliens that burst out of your chest? Check. 95% of characters die? Check. Nightmares? Check.

2. Porky's/Revenge of the Nerds - My dear father let my brother and I rent these movies while we lived in the house on Mildred Street, which puts my viewing age at about 9 or 10 years old. For those of you who haven't seen these movies, they're chock full of full frontal nudity (both male and female) and more boobs than anyone should ever see, let alone a mind-blown 10 year old.

3. Poltergeist - My dear mother and dear father somehow let my siblings and me watch this movie. This movie is the stuff nightmares are made of. True story: to this day, I can't hang my hand over the side of the bed without a burning anxiety taking over my body, forcing me to quickly pull my hand up and move to the center most point of the bed. I'm sure the fact that we owned clowns eerily reminiscent to the clowns from this movie only made this worse.

Thanks, Mom and Dad.


4. The Last Emperor - My dear father and dear stepmother dragged me to this movie when it came out. There's plenty of wild stuff in this movie, including all kinds of toe sucking and war-like violence. But I was too young to see this movie because it's just too long and boring for any 10 year old to be able to take. God, this movie was worse than church for me. At least church was over in an hour. This thing pushes 3 hours in length. And you'd think that a movie set in China would have at least one cool Kung Fu scene. Nada.

5. The Exorcist - Sigh. I saw this movie when my dear father and dear stepmother entrusted our care to a coworker and her evil 16 year old son. This movie scared the ever living shit out of me. It scared the ever living shit out of me for the better part of a decade. It's a crazy intense movie. It doesn't do much to me anymore, but man...11 years old is way too young for this...

I had "Robocop" and the "Friday the 13/Nightmare on Elm Street" movies on here as well, but, although intensely violent, watching these movies is a rite of passage for adolescents in this country. I'm glad I passed with flying, vibrant red colors.

- Matt