10 Movies You Won't Believe Were Rated PG
Some movies may be suitable for kids, but they are anything but family-friendly.
Rating movies used to be a simple process. If it was a kids movie, it received a G (General) or PG (Parental Guidance). If the movie had an abundance of swearing, sex, or gore, it was R-rated or X-rated.
But in 1984, cinema changed forever upon the release of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Because the previous film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, was criticised for its violence and gore, you'd assume the director, Steven Spielberg, would tone it down for the follow-up. Instead, Spielberg filled Temple of Doom with scenes deemed highly inappropriate for a younger audience. Hearts being ripped out of bodies. Crocodiles eating people. Monkey brains.... ohhhh the monkey brains.
Only six months later, Spielberg produced ANOTHER overly violent kids movie called Gremlins. And with that, the MPAA decided to crack down on any film that could be potentially unsuitable for younger viewers. The censor board became more procedural and methodical, analysing every frame of a movie with the utmost scrutiny.
But even after the MPAA buckled down with their restrictions, there were a few movies moments here and there that slipped through the cracks. W
Just to clarify before jumping in: due to the movies coming out in different times with different MPAA classifications, this article will be discussing both PG and PG-13 movies. Either way though, they were all questionably deemed suitable for kids...
10. Shazam
Shazam is the funniest film in the DCEU. Ironically, it is also the scariest. The scenes with The Seven Deadly Sins are so genuinely unsettling, you can tell this "comedy" was made by a horror director.
When Sivana interrupts his father's board meeting, he orders The Seven Deadly Sins to kill everyone in the room. Now, because this is a kids movie, this scene has no blood in it whatsoever, but it still pushes the PG-13 rating to the absolute max. When we see one of the Sin's preparing to rip an employee's head off, the camera cuts away while we hear the sickening crunch of his skull.
However, this sort of editing actually makes the scene more horrifying since your imagination pictures something far more gruesome than anything depicted in the film. Interestingly, this technique is very common in horror movies to highlight gore and was popularised by the slasher classic, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The difference is that was a horror flick; this is a PG-rated movie!
What makes this scene even more gruesome and jarring is how we were watching the World's Mightiest Mortal joking around and flossing five minutes earlier.