Your Worst Cinema Experiences

[non capisco]

I once had a similar situation but a woman sat in the seat directly next to mine. That was extremely uncomfortable and I felt it would be too much of a social faux pas for me to get up and move. Couldn't enjoy any of the film as a result as I felt so awkward. A huge bloody cinema empty except for two strangers sat next to each other. Never exchanged a word. Argh.

I had this experience but with a bloke. He sat right next to me in a virtually empty cinema and immediately started tucking into cans of Stella, "disguising" the sound of each ring pull with a theatrical cough. Hardly Clarence and Alabama at the start of 'True Romance', this. I finally changed seats after two "COUGHHHH hisssssss" cycles when he started reading a copy of the Evening Standard by the light of his phone. I really should have not just changed seats but had it on my toes completely as the film in question was the dubious "bladdy well kill all dem bladdy hoodies" Michael Caine vehicle 'Harry Brown', a film that plays out like a dream Anne Widdecombe might have after falling asleep whilst watching Death Wish.

And d'joo know...IT'S ONLY A BLADDY NEW PAGE!

[studpuppet]

My girlfriend and I once took my parents to see Gosford Park at the cinema. In the middle of a very quiet scene of dialogue, my mother woke herself up with her own snoring.

[Josef K]

1. The group next to us at Stratford Picturehouse who, when we kept asking them to turn off their phones, were genuinely shocked, shouting back "It's a public place, you can't ask people to not use their phones in a public place!"
2. At a screening of an Iranian film at Berlinale where the director was in the audience, a group of Iranians nattering away and one even took out her phone to play a fucking game within 5 minutes of the film starting.
3. Also at Berlinale, nearly every screening had some twat in the audience filming the festival ident before the film started. Presumably nobody would believe they were there unless they put it on their Instagram story.
4. The larger, sweaty woman who spent the entire screening of The Villainess fanning herself in a way that I was constantly getting a wave of second hand sweaty air in my face,
5. The guy behind me loudly chomping on popcorn during Taxi Tehran. The only thing keeping me from a stress related aneurysm was the knowledge he'd finish the popcorn soon. He did, and dutifully got out of his seat to go and buy another portion.
6. Went to see a film with my girlfriend and some friends. Asked the (muscly chav)  in front to put his phone away and he turned round, looked pissed off and surprised at the audacity, and said "I'm busy! You watch the film and I'll do what I need to do". Hadn't planned this far ahead and had a moment of panic deciding whether to retreat like a coward or press the matter, and I automatically blurted out "Shut the fuck up!" at him. Looked like he was about to get up and deck me until the older woman next to him intervened. Spent the rest of the film worrying about whether he'd punch my face in afterwards and planning my escape.
7. Bonus experience as it was actually quite funny - a large family occupied the front row for Into the Spiderverse. The grandmother was in a large mobility scooter, which took her ages to get in and park, then be helped out and into her seat. One of the moronic imbecile children got scared and started crying 30 minutes in and the mum got fed up and decided to take everyone home - cue a protracted struggle to get the grandmum out of her seat, into the scooter, at which point she started a long, drawn out, 3 point turn complete with a bright red light on the back that lit up when she reversed, with a child crying and the rest complaining because they didn't want to leave. It took her multiple tries to manoeuvre the thing and it was so over the top I forgot about the kids and tried to stifle my massive laughs.

I'm constantly amazed that so many of the things that drive me insane with rage in the cinema don't seem to bother a majority of people. Are we just hyper-sensitive?
It's been a long-running fantasy of mine to open up a cinema for fussy pricks like me - no food, no noise, no phones, no light-up watches, no turning up late, nobody under 21, no talking the second the credits roll and thus destroying the emotional impact of the ending -anyone that breaks the rules gets banned/murdered

[kngen]

That is genuinely one of the worst cinemas in the world. I hate it. Who would have thought that putting a cinema at the dead centre of about 50 bars and restaurants would result in a bad audience? Didn't someone get glassed at a screening a couple of years back?

You can add to that the fact that the screens are/were angled so it was like looking at a trapezium and their decision to have an interval in anything over about 100 minutes which literally involved cutting mid-scene no matter what was happening.

I remember there was some outrage once at the prospect that it was going to be turned into a bar. Now I am as precious a protector of independent cinema as anyone but I would have driven the bulldozer myself.

Ah, it was a nice wee (two-screen) cinema back in the day, before Ashton Lane turned into epicentre of wanky West End bollockry. I think they turned one of the screens into the pub/restaurant area, and then divided the other auditorium into two, hence the ridiculous viewing angles you mentioned.

But I have very fond memories of Jacques Tati double-bills and the like when I was a kid. And they used to have an original Evil Dead poster signed by Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell in the foyer, because it was one of a handful of cinemas that showed the film in the UK when it first came out. I hope that went to a good home when they sold their birthright for a mess of potage.

Should I be happy that it's still a cinema, even though it sounds really shit? I dunno. I do know that I was gutted when the Salon around the corner closed - it was the oldest functioning cinema in Europe when it shut down, and now it's a fucking awful hipster-infested shithole that has ping-pong tables and stupid marshmallow cocktails. Cunts. I saw Time Bandits there, you bastards!

[Dr Sanchez]

I'm constantly amazed that so many of the things that drive me insane with rage in the cinema don't seem to bother a majority of people. Are we just hyper-sensitive?
It's been a long-running fantasy of mine to open up a cinema for fussy pricks like me - no food, no noise, no phones, no light-up watches, no turning up late, nobody under 21, no talking the second the credits roll and thus destroying the emotional impact of the ending -anyone that breaks the rules gets banned/murdered

It's definitely something that I can't just switch off and I truly wish I could. I'll be sitting next to a friend watching a film and they'll notice me squirming in my seat and becoming irritable and they'll be totally oblivious to the loud crunching or talking etc that is making my mind melt and this more often than not will make them annoyed at me for being petty which in turn will make me annoyed at them which adds to the whole shit show of going to the cinema.

Never fear though, it just means your a genius innit. 

https://www.canva.com/learn/distractions-and-creativity/

[EOLAN]

I'm constantly amazed that so many of the things that drive me insane with rage in the cinema don't seem to bother a majority of people. Are we just hyper-sensitive?
It's been a long-running fantasy of mine to open up a cinema for fussy pricks like me - no food, no noise, no phones, no light-up watches, no turning up late, nobody under 21, no talking the second the credits roll and thus destroying the emotional impact of the ending -anyone that breaks the rules gets banned/murdered

Also can we add that it is mandatory for couples to be separated, so I don't have to spend the whole film thinking is my wife enjoying this part, does she like the film I may have chosen; has that shift I made with my elbow slightly over the arm-rest completely ruined her experience and our marriage as a result? Yep, so my worst cinema experiences are probably just worrying too much about my partner's reactions.

[kalowski]

Was awhile ago, but I think it went a bit like:

Police: "Who's the one responsible here?"

The entire audience and manager: "Him."

[Timothy]

Four build like a shit brick house guys at Shazam talking about one of their bloody hospital visits while the film was playing,  loudly telling each other that they didn't like the jokes after the jokes and one of them taking out his mobile to scroll Tinder during the end scenes.

[Johnboy]

A couple of incidents I remember:

Early 90s, Adelphi in Dublin, watching Dead Again, that thing with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson.
Towards the end of the movie a small group, two men and a woman start laughing at the unfolding plot/reveal, hooting away, taking the piss.
A guy sitting alone in front of them can't take anymore and stands up and gives them a piece of his mind, they didn't really quieten down though.
I watched the whole scene in bemusement, I could understand why they were piss taking the film but I could also understand the guy not appreciating their smart arsedness - I mean suspension of disbelief is just a given innit.

Another time I was at The Straight Story and it was just at the last scene, all coming to a final long awaited outcome and a young woman gets out of her seat behind me and starts leaving and in the process trips up and falls somewhat on the steps near me, disturbing the whole ambience and in my mind ruining the whole thing. I just thought could she not wait another two bloody minutes. It took me a few years to realise I should have been more concerned about her well being than whether I had enjoyed the end of a poxy film... (good flick though, I even bought the soundtrack)

[Dr Syntax Head]

Date. Twilight. I don't really need to expand on that do I

[AsparagusTrevor]

Date. Twilight. I don't really need to expand on that do I

I'll see your 'Twilight' date and raise you a 'Spiceworld' date.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I see your Spiceworld (which I quite like as it goes) and raise you Blackball. Fucking awful film, but I'd seen everything else which was suitable for a date and thought it might be watchable. I was very, very wrong and a film about lawn bowls does not lead to sex.

Edit: Just remembered another incident which was probably the oddest - I went to see the rerelease of The Draughtsman's Contract in the early nineties, where the audience were completely silent apart from the person sat next to me who was translating the film in to French for her friend. Well, for five minutes before I killed them both at least.

[JesusAndYourBush]

I see your Spiceworld (which I quite like as it goes)

I saw it on TV a few months ago and it's a truly appalling film, but one that's worth watching.  I recommend it to anyone who's not seen it.  You won't regret it.  It's appalling on so many levels it has to be experienced by everyone at least once.  Also, I was surprised they'd left any of the Gary Glitter bit in as I'd been under the impression those scenes had been cut.  (There's a longer unseen scene on youtube, but I was surprised they'd used any of it.)

[DukeDeMondo]

I've been lucky enough in Norn Iron, audiences have tended to be respectful and there's been little bother, really. Can't think of a single souring of a single screening of anything I've seen over the past year or so, be it Halloween (2018) or Ghost Stories (2018) or Suspiria (2018) or The Equalizer 2 (2018) or Hereditary (2018) or The Lego Movie 2 (2019) or whatever. Maybe I've just been lucky. I've certainly learned, mostly on the back of some hideous experiences in London, that there are certain times when going to see anything is just a fucking stupid idea. Particular hours of the day, particular times of the night.

Going away back to the The Exorcist a few pages ago, the cinema I saw it in during that initial re-release decided that a scary thing to do would be to start turning the lights on and off during the head spinning scenes and the like, which caused few geese to bump nor tongues to wither but did cause enough eye rolling for folk on the back row to be near looking out the heads of folk at the front.

I hated going to see horror films in London. Plenty of films I was really enjoying were ruined, usually by gangs of titted-stinking teenagers clamouring into performances halfway through. I remember one gentleman, during a screening of the really pretty good Paranormal Activity 3, asking a very inebriated young girl who'd clattered in towards the final act of the film - initially to slap someone on the back of the head but then when that person slapped them back they decided to sit on their knee pulling at their ear for a while - to please be quiet. "Be quiet yourself you cunt" was her response.

Anyway, my worst experience, the one that still causes lumps to come up on bits of my face, was a screening in the back of a pub of Todd Haynes' Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. I find the Karen Carpenter story unbearably affecting anyway, and although I know there's a huge element of camp in Haynes' film, there's also a huge amount of heart and pathos and anger. It's not a fucking comedy, it's not Team America, and this crowd of wankers were absolutely howling from scene one. The further the Karen doll deteriorated, the louder they laughed. So I told my partner I couldn't stand it and I left, and as I pushed past one chortling prannock I announced that they were a "shower of absolute fucking idiots and shits and cunts and fucking cretins." I doubt any of them were all that perturbed. "Fucking boaking Barbies, but! Hahahaha!"

I wanted to go through them with a buzzsaw. 

[St_Eddie]

Going away back to the The Exorcist a few pages ago, the cinema I saw it in during that initial re-release decided that a scary thing to do would be to start turning the lights on and off during the head spinning scenes and the like...

That's one of the stupidest things that I've ever heard of and I've heard a lot of stupid things.  Who'd the person in charge of that cinema think that they were exactly?  A Poundland William Castle?

[Glebe]

Going away back to the The Exorcist a few pages ago, the cinema I saw it in during that initial re-release decided that a scary thing to do would be to start turning the lights on and off during the head spinning scenes and the like, which caused few geese to bump nor tongues to wither but did cause enough eye rolling for folk on the back row to be near looking out the heads of folk at the front.

Not a worst experience or anything but when I went to see the director's cut re-release of this a few years back with a mate, a girl got hysterical and ran out shouting during the scene where Regan is getting the brain scan thing in the hospital.

[Sin Agog]

Not a worst experience or anything but when I went to see the director's cut re-release of this a few years back with a mate, a girl got hysterical and ran out shouting during the scene where Regan is getting the brain scan thing in the hospital.

She might have been even more spooked if she'd known that the assistant doctor in that scene turned out to be a serial killer who later inspired Friedkin to make Cruising.  Something like that.  This article explains it better: https://the-line-up.com/paul-bateson

[Small Man Big Horse]

Just remembered another one though it's not due to audience members being shit for once, as it was while I was watching The Eye at the now demolished Odeon Swiss Centre. I was enjoying it a lot and occasionally freaked out by the odd scene when out of the corner of my eye I saw a rat fucking about at the front, dashing around and looking like a mad bastard, and so spent the rest of the film clutching my knees and trying to keep my feet off the ground, which is not a fun way to watch a film.

[jobotic]

I'll see your 'Twilight' date and raise you a 'Spiceworld' date.

'Who's That Girl?'

[Lordofthefiles]

Not a worst experience or anything but when I went to see the director's cut re-release of this a few years back with a mate, a girl got hysterical and ran out shouting during the scene where Regan is getting the brain scan thing in the hospital.

That's weird, I always get a massive sense of dread / impending doom at that exact point in The Exorcist.
There must be something going on in the low level ambient noise I reckon.