Because these flicks scare the bejeebus outta me, so I can't imagine someone younger than 37-and-51-weeks sitting through them.

They've seen Spider Man 3 & WILL see the Transformers.

But they're Hell-spawn age, right?

We took our 14 month old to see Spiderman at the drive-in (Yes we have one!) and he liked being there, but he fell asleep pretty quickly. I want to take him to see the Simpsons movie, but the wife keeps putting the kaibash on that for now. We'll see!

They haven't seen them, I'm with you hausfrau. You may recall that Pollack and Coloma have alterna-viewpoints on this.

I am taking my 29 year old self to Transformers, and I will be wearing my Transformers underroos and carrying an Optimus Prime talking action figure. Does that count as taking a kid?

I'm planning on taking him to see Hostel 2. He's three, but I think he'll be able to figure out the plot points.

Don't laugh, JasonA. Two nights ago on the news, a reporter did a story about a family that brought two very young children to see that film -- they were toddlers, I believe. The reason the reporter did the story? He was one of the other patrons in the theatre and he couldn't believe anyone would bring their small kids to such a film.

I have to believe that at least some of the parents that take their small children to R rated movies honestly don't know all of the content in the movie. I would never watch Hostel or Saw (esp in a theater), but when I saw Saving Private Ryan several years ago there was a family sitting behind my group with some seriously upset little kids. I would say between 5 & 7 year old. The first 20 minutes of that movie are just insane violence and the kids were really upset.

My parents were pretty lenient with us about movies that we rented and we were able to watch Nightmare on Elm Street and the like by the time we were around 12. But when we were older we had friends who had never seen a rated R movie at the age of 18. I think its an individual thing. My dad always pushed that he knew we knew the difference between fantasy and reality, but I think you also have to think about your kid not having nightmares or developing fears of the ocean, cars, scientists, etc.