How an audience ruined my film experience
This past weekend I went to a screening of Obsessed for the latest episode of The Spoiler Warning. When I first walked into the theater, I was surprise by how many people had brought their children (around 5 to 8 years old) with them. As I sat waiting for it to begin, more and more kids piled into the theater. As the show time drew nearer, I got the sinking feeling that I was about to have the worst film watching experience of my life. Little did I know, it was going to be far worse than I could ever have imagined.
For those unfamiliar with the plot of the film, Obsessed is about an insane woman who fabricates an intense relationship with the main character and consequently places his perfect life and everything he worked for in jeopardy. Clearly, the story of the film requires some level of maturity. Unfortunately, the film makers opted to shoot for a PG-13 rating and my theater was filled with people who just couldn’t quite handle it.
Instead of see the film for what it is, a tragic story of a man who could lose everything he holds dear because of a psychotic [delete expletive], the audience somehow saw the film as a comedy. Laughing at the things the antagonist would say, cheering on characters as if this were a slasher film, and just generally being inappropriate towards the mood I believed the film was supposed to convey.
Any time you go to a public theater, you risk annoyances like people talking, texting, getting phone calls, breathing too loud, or just being rowdy, but I felt this was far worse. Usually I can just tune people out, but this audience (as a whole) just killed the mood of the film so much that it took me completely out of the story to a point that was beyond frustration.
It was so bad that when it came time to review the film for the podcast, I just didn’t have much to say besides a rant about the audience in the theater. This was the first time that I couldn’t separate the experience of watching a film from my thoughts on it. I truly hope that I never have to experience something like this again.
My name is Christopher Schnese
and this has been my reel perspective
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A similar thing happened to me when I saw Vicky, Christina, Barcelona (the Woody Allen movie). Not that it's not supposed to be a comedy (like most of his movies, it's funny-sad), but the audience was terrible. It was obviously made up of older people who were familiar with Woody Allen when they were younger, and just ready to laugh and laugh and laugh. So every line, even the most serious, devastating, or completely unimportant line, was met with howls of laughter which would drown out the next three lines. I have no idea if I liked the movie or not.
That's absolutely horrendous! I am appalled that so many parents would take their children to see that film anyhow…talk about a complete decay in decency in the general public. I really hope you (and the rest of us) never experience anything like that in the future!
It's so weird how sometimes the audience experience can make the film just that much better, but other times it just kills it.
When I saw Coraline (and even Monsters vs Aliens), the reaction of the kids amazement made it just that much more cool because I could feel their awe at what they were seeing.
This just sucked!
Yeah, I could tell with some of the parents there that Obsessed was probably not the worst film they were taking their kids to…
As I mentioned to you the other day…THIS is exactly why I tend to wait and view films via Netflix. Don't get me wrong…I'll still go for the midnight show of the new Harry Potter, because the audience really becomes part of the movie experience. For the most part, though…I'll just stick with watching movies in the comfort (and quiet) of my own home.
there was a guy with a similarly aged child at the showing of Underworld: Rise of the Lycans that I went to… it was really retarded
i've had worse… we went to see valkyrie back around christmas time and there was two high schoolers behind us marking out the whole time… and then she started giving him a hand job under his gym shorts and he had his hand up her shirt. pg-13 in front of us, nc-17 behind us.
now i won't go to a movie that is not rated R unless it is like a 10 oclock showing.
haha, I can see how that could make things… less than enjoyable. But in theory, you could have moved to another seat and (provided there wasn't another couple in that area) changed the experience.
In my case, it was the theater as a whole, not small groups of people, that screwed up the experience. It also wasn't them being annoying, obscene, or disruptive. It was then just not getting the film and projecting that out like some strange "point-missed" hive mind.
There was no seat in that theater I could have moved to that would have made the experience any better.