Horror Roundtable - Week Eighty-Two
Describe a great horror movie-going experience you have had.
To be honest, I’ve had such bad luck with crowds, that it’s kind of hard to think of one. There was one experience though, this past November at Horror Hound weekend, when I got to see an uncut version of “Hatchet” before it was released on DVD with an extremely rowdy crowd. The cool thing was, everyone was so amped up to see the film that it created an electric atmosphere. At the end of the day, I’m not even sure how good it is. I do know though that if you’re gong to see it, in a room full of amped up horror fans is definitely the place. Oh, and the fact that Tony Todd and Kane Hodder introduced the film certainly didn’t hurt. So ya, that would have to be it for me.
Jeff
The first time I went to an R rated movie… it was Alien and my Dad took me. Thought I was king of the world, that was the coolest thing ever.
I remember when I was 17 and saw DAWN OF THE DEAD for the first time. Growing up in rural SC, we didn’t have theaters that played “midnight movies”, and so I and my fellow horror fans were forced to get in the car and drive across the state line to Augusta, GA (home of the Masters golf tournament). This was also a good thing because we could drink in GA, but weren’t of age in SC.
We piled into the car - there were six of us total - and we went to the theater where we had also seen NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, FANTASTIC ANIMATION FESTIVAL, MIDWAY (in Sensurround! Great when you’ve had a few), GLEN OR GLENDA, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE and STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE. We were all stoked to see a Romero zombie movie in color and thrilled to the idea we were going to an “unrated movie” and wouldn’t be home until about 4 in the morning.
The movie started and the crowd went wild. Then the zombie husband took the bite out of the wife’s neck and the screen was splattered with blood. Then the SWAT team blew open some heads. Nobody, and I mean nobody had ever seen anything like this. I can remember the palpable zeitgeist of the crowd, “Are we going to get in trouble for this? Oh Jeebus. This is… intense.”
Dead. Freaking. Silence.
Just like the moment right after somebody farts in class. That long interminable void that waits for the first sound to issue forth. then…
A voice from midway through the crowd piped up:
“What’s the matter? He’s eaten you before!”
The place exploded with laughter and shrieks, and we went back to drinking and yelling at the screen.
When the movie is right, a rowdy crowd can be awesome. When I saw Scream the first time, it was in an…err, urban theatre and the crowd was insane. Yelling and screaming at the screen- in a good way. You know, “Don’t go in there!” and all that. Everyone was shrieking at all the right times, and it was probably the most fun I’ve had at a movie.
A close second would be a recent Friday the 13th Part 3 anniversary showing I…in 3D! Fantastic audience, screaming and laughing…and wearing those dumb glasses. What’s better than that?
Take my advice on this: There aren’t a whole lot of things more fun than going to an indy horror movie premiere at a real theater, even if you weren’t involved in the production. A few that I’ve attended here in Baltimore are “Deadlands: The Rising” (which I worked on) and “Livelihood” and “Holler Creek Canyon” (which I didn’t). Even if the movie isn’t so great, you’re surrounded by people who really care, and the atmosphere is just electric. Grab the opportunity if it ever comes your way.
Curt - Beyond The Groovy Age of Horror
My brother and I frequently indulge in major viewing experiences. We watched the entirety of NEON GENESIS EVANELION together. He rode up with me to watch VAMPIRE HUNTER D: BLOODLUST in Atlanta. Most recently, after watching GRINDHOUSE, we staged our own private grindhouse. He brought VANISHING POINT, and I brought ZOMBIE, and we both watched STRAW DOGS, and all three flicks were featured in the book TRASH which DaveZ gave me the last time we met face-to face.
Retropoliltan - Tales To Astonish
I tend to wait for horror movies to hit DVD (since New York theater crowds can get a little “rambunctious”) but the best movie-going experience I had was probably the release of 2004’s “Dawn of the Dead,” since its opening day coincided with an anniversary of the relationship I was in at the time. It says a lot about the girl you’re dating if she’ll agree to skip work and go see dead people eating alive people. Because of this sweet memory, my heart grows two sizes too big every time I see zombie Andy getting his head blown off.
Dave - Rue Morgue’s The Abbatoir
Watching a 35mm print of Monster Squad at the Bloor theatre a couple years ago with a packed house full of cheering fans, many of them seeing the film for the first time in years. It was great shared viewing experience, especially during the — you guessed it — “Wolfman’s got nards?” scene.
I’ve had a lot of them, but one experience that’s been on my mind lately was seeing Jacques Tourneur’s fantastic Night of the Demon at a local revival theater on Halloween night in the late ’90s with friends. It was an amazing film to see on the big screen and I had a blast watching it.
ALIEN hits the theatres. My craftier friends, or those with older brothers have seen it or have had enough of it related to them second-hand that they can sound authoritative. It does indeed sound like the best thing ever. “THE THING RIPPED RIGHT OUT OF HIS CHEST!” I was in shock. This was inconceivable, unthinkable. An outer space movie that Scared The Hell Out Of You.
Around that time, you could find ALIEN: THE ILLUSTRATED SCREENPLAY in bookstores. Same with the Marvel/Epic Comics adaptation of the film (which comes recommended). I saw the pictures for myself. Sure enough. The thing ripped right out of his chest. And what a thing it was. I’d never seen anything like it. Nobody had. Geiger was a nobody in the US.
And then finally, due to the miracle of cable, I was able to watch the movie in the safety of my own home. A family friend stayed over to watch my sister and myself (yes, we were that young). We made pizza. I can still smell the combination of mozzarella and cheddar and red onion in my mouth as it swung open agape for the entirety of the film. I didn’t scream. ‘Cause if I had, the things under the couch would have heard me and known that I was easy prey. That pinging sound still haunts the edges of my consciousness sometimes. Glisten of alien mucus and the guttering light of homemade flamethrowers illuminating something that we were never meant to see.
My parents came home and found us all huddled on the fold-out couch. Nobody could sleep that night.
Well, this one was fun for me, but not for the poor girl it happened to.
When POLTERGEIST was released, a friend and I went to the Friday night showing. It was packed… we had to sit a few aisles from the very front. In the row in front of us were a gaggle of chatty girls all sitting together. They screamed, hid their eyes and seemed horrified at all the right moments. Towards the end, during the “clown doll attacks the kid” sequence after he looks under the bed, one of the girls in front of us screamed SO loud and seemed to jump about 10 feet out of her seat. Of course, my friend and I laughed at her… and then it hit us. The foul stench of urine. The girl had been scared SO badly at the clown doll shocker that she peed her pants. She peed a lot, too. The aisle, the seat, the air… all permeated with the foul smell of urine. She was so embarrassed that she went running up the aisle to the exit and, soon, her friends followed, leaving my friend and I suffering to the end (with others in the seats/aisles nearby, too) to watch the remainder of the film with the urine smell in the air.
I guess that’s a testament to the scares, though… POLTERGEIST made someone actually pee their pants!
Another week, another Roundtable devoted to oral sex and urination. Thanks once again to all the contributors for their fine observations, and if you’d like to share your own memorable theatrical excursions, please do so below.
January 20th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
What a joy it must’ve been to have seen Dawn of the Dead on the big screen back then. I envy you!
January 21st, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Wow.
What a joy it was indeed!
And what a joy it was to read Bill’s account of his experience because it SO nearly mirrors my own with my first exposure to DAWN at the same exact age. Substitute Buffalo, NY with the rural south & his group encounter with my lone one & our’s were VERY similar experiences.
Though, my own was actually an early spring of ‘79 pre-release screening that I got a free ticket for from the proprietor of my favorite local comic shop.
At 17, I was a lifelong genre film fan who considered himself to be pretty “worldly” when it came to horror, having seen countless exploitation films at the drive in with my parents who were genre film fans as well. But, nothing that I’d seen previously quite prepared me ( or the packed house that I shared that screening with that night ) for the shock of those opening scenes in the apartment complex. Scenes that were seminal to cinema & that everyone in the audience collectively knew right away were groundbreaking stuff.
It was a one of a kind night at the movies, that’s for sure.
- Jim
January 21st, 2008 at 11:14 pm
I think Don May’s story is now going to be one of my most memorable movie-going experiences, because I cannot seem to get the horror of the Poltergeist pisser out of my mind.
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:44 pm
“The Poltergeist Pisser”
Shouldn’t that be a name of a Horror movie award? The movie so scary good that it makes you loose control of your urinary tract….
January 22nd, 2008 at 8:11 pm
I remember as a kid about to become a teenager seeing the trailers for MONDO CANE,CANNIBAL FEROX and CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. I didnt know what was happening on the screen was faked so it really blew my mind when the commentator said,”WATCH A WOMAN DRAWN AND QUARTERED” as they showed some naked woman tied to a post. Those New York City Times Square flicks and trailers were pretty crazy back then.
Another great moment was like three years later when THE EVIL DEAD came to my local theater. Here I was on a friday afternoon leaving a high school which had a graveyard built around it and whose address was 999 in queens to see this movie. Lets just say after seeing it I was never the same again. The effects and atmosphere were so brutal I was wondering with my somewhat religious upbringing if I had just seen something truly evil and perhaps even..real.
When I left the theater it was already dark so the walk home past my high school and the graveyard was creepy to say the least.
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Ah! Totally forgot about seeing Cabinet of Doc Caligari with a live Theremin score. That ruled too. And, not a single pair of pants were soiled in the audience. (Awesome story, Don.)
January 26th, 2008 at 1:02 am
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