7) Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
The MPAA is notoriously prudish when it comes to portraying sex on screen, so it’s baffling then that this Austin Powers sequel only received a PG-13 rating. While we don’t actually see the beast with two backs explicitly at any point throughout the movie, the ENTIRE franchise is about sex. Literally every line is a double entendre for intercourse and at one point, a character even drinks a cup of excrement.
Admittedly, excluding teenagers from cinema screenings of Austin Powers would have resulted in zero ticket sales, but it’s frustrating that movies which only touch upon the concept of sex briefly, but in a more obvious form are banished to R-rated hell, while a film featuring a character called Felicity Shagwell sails past the censors, smiling smugly to itself as other less crude movies make less money.
6) Taken (2008)
Playing a former CIA operative in the Taken franchise redefined Liam Neeson’s career, transforming him into a bona fide action star, but the series is far from child-friendly. As Bryan Mills, Neeson goes on the hunt for human traffickers who kidnapped his daughter, intending to use her for sexual slavery. Sexual slavery. Try explaining that one to the kiddies at home.
As you would expect, people also die left, right and center and at one point, Neeson even straps electrodes to a man’s testicles. Ouch. The message here? Don’t leave America EVER, or your kid will get taken… again… and again… and again.
5) Drag Me To Hell (2009)
Drag Me To Hell was a return to form for Sam Raimi, whose ability to combine horror and comedy in the classic Evil Dead franchise came to the fore with this tale of a woman plagued by a gypsy curse.
By its very definition, the horror genre explores mature themes and although there are plenty of laugh out loud moments in Drag Me To Hell, gruesome scenes of body horror and genuinely scary sequences involving demonic manifestations should have guaranteed this movie a rating higher than PG-13.
Also, the gypsy woman is uber gross.