Inappropriate audience reactions at the cinema

[Serge]

I've mentioned on here before that when I saw the 2001 reissue of, er, '2001' at the Curzon Mayfair, during the intermission, a woman sitting behind me turned to her boyfriend and claimed that she hadn't understood any of it so far, and I felt like turning around and telling her to leave now, because she'd have no chance with the last 40 minutes.

There's a scene in the not-very-good Coen Brothers remake of 'The Ladykillers' which involves a dog dying because it's wearing a gasmask, which struck me as hilarious, but no-one else in the cinema was laughing, so I tried to keep it in.....which meant that when I did break out laughing, it was twice as loud  as it would have been otherwise, and I was the only person laughing at a dog dying, as my friend pointed out to me afterwards.

[QDRPHNC]

Oh, actually whenever there's a really violent scene in a Tarantino film. I've just remembered. Loud guffaws at the shooting in the car park, or when the fella in the back of the car gets blasted. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!". Like, I get this. It's post-modern. It pisses me off.

That scene is played for laughs though, to be fair.

[the science eel]

That scene is played for laughs though, to be fair.

but ANY violent scene of his.

It's his whole schtick. It's all up for grabs in this post-modern world. Take what you want from the past, mix it up, don't take any of it seriously. It's all fun.

[hewantstolurkatad]

I don't hate all his films, but I do kind of feel a dismissive laughter is the correct way to react to a lot of Kubrick's seriousness. He's so fucking cold and deliberate that when something doesn't work, it is just ridiculous.
There's definitely parts of 2001 that're dated as all fuck.

Don't really get laughing at the Shining so much cos horror suits him so much, but a lot of people seem to think all horrors have comedy aspects in them and if you head in with that mindset you'll find something to laugh at.




The big lesbian sex scene in Blue is the Warmest Colour got one person giggling like mad during my viewing. Can totally understand why but seeing as how enduring the outright awkwardness of it all seemed to be the point, it definitely ruined the moment a bit.

[thecuriousorange]

The big lesbian sex scene in Blue is the Warmest Colour.

I watched it with my parents and grandparents and did the usual "offer to make a cup of tea so I can leave the room and escape the awkwardness" thing at that bit.

[hewantstolurkatad]

I watched it with my parents and grandparents and did the usual "offer to make a cup of tea so I can leave the room and escape the awkwardness" thing at that bit.

Was anyone annoyed when you didn't return with the tea for about 20 minutes?



Edit: tag #1 made me laugh, as did a few posts in this thread so far

[Bobby Treetops]

I remember being sat behind a couple during Brokeback Mountain. What soon became apparent was the bloke had gone along to see it under the impression that it was just a classic Western genre movie. During the first sex scene he starting muttering away to himself and said suddenly said old loud 'I'm not 'avin' that!' and stormed out the cinema, with his girlfriend following reluctantly a few minutes later. The problem was I keep thinking about the man's reaction and found myself giggling my way through the rest of the film.

[Custard]

But aren't they holding each other on the poster? And the trailers made it very clear what it was about

I believe your story, as people are thickos, but what a thicko he must have been

[Bobby Treetops]

I've seen people walk out of foreign language films as soon as the subtitles come up. So I'm guessing people just turn up to the cinema and see what ever they're showing at the time, knowing nothing about what they're going to see. As he clearly did.

And yeah, clearly thick as shit.

[Dannyhood91]

I remember going to see Sam Ramis Spiderman back in the day and there was a woman in the audience who was absolutely pissing herself with laughter when Uncle Ben died and when that robber died which I remember making me distinctly uncomfortable at the time.

[worldsgreatestsinner]

I remember a woman I knew at the time through work telling me she wanted to see Brokeback Mountain and was really excited about it. I was really surprised because she was very religious and I asked why she would be interested in a gay love story given some of her religious views and she had absolutely no idea that the film was a gay love story. She pointed to the fact that the only real intimacy in the trailer was between Ledger/Williams and Gyllenhaal/Hathaway and when I asked her what she thought all the stuff in the trailer about a secret they can't reveal meant she said she thought it was going to be a bit of a mystery film. And she wasn't an older woman, we were both in our early 20s so you'd expect her to be a bit more clued up. I think some people just looked at Ledger and Gyllenhaal, who were both kind of rising stars at the time, and decided they wanted to see it on that basis. But she was genuinely shocked and refused to see the film as a result.

[SteveDave]

I've seen people walk out of foreign language films as soon as the subtitles come up. So I'm guessing people just turn up to the cinema and see what ever they're showing at the time, knowing nothing about what they're going to see. As he clearly did.

And yeah, clearly thick as shit.

I saw a couple walk out of March Of The Penguins. I still wonder if they thought it'd be a CGI cartoon with Morgan Freeman as the voice of the King. Adults.

[Brundle-Fly]

Cillian Murphy in the nip at the beginning of 28 Days Later (2002) caused a break out of hysterics from a group of teenagers who'd obviously never seen an Irish post-apocalyptic flaccid nob on the big screen before.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I've seen people walk out of foreign language films as soon as the subtitles come up. So I'm guessing people just turn up to the cinema and see what ever they're showing at the time, knowing nothing about what they're going to see. As he clearly did.

And yeah, clearly thick as shit.

When I was 18 a friend and I tricked his brother in to seeing a subtitled film (Toto Les Heros) and as soon as the BBFC rating thing came up with the title of the film and then the word "Subtitled" he shouted out "Oh for fuck's sake".

On the flip side when I went to see The Draughtsman's Contract a woman thought it'd be perfectly fine to translate the film in to french for her friend sat beside her. I quickly made it clear that it wasn't the case. I was all kinds of arsey back then.

[Paaaaul]

I saw Clerks 2 at the Cineworld in Cheltenham.
At least four people in there were giggling all the way through it, which seemed really inappropriate.

[McChesney Duntz]

The 2001 citations throughout the thread can't help but remind me of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T35ShNKVlSw

[Wet Blanket]

When Clockwork Orange was re-released in the late nineties I saw it at the Hull Odeon in an audience of me and one other couple a few rows in front[nb]I've never got over how subdued the reaction in general was to this film finally resurfacing[/nb]. At the scene where Alex returns home after his treatment, and starts burping and claiming he wants to be sick, the woman let out a laugh of such utter disdain that I've never been able to watch that scene without recalling it.

[Billy]

At a morning screening of one of the Harry Potter films about a decade ago, a group of obviously drunk teens still plastered from the all-night house party they'd just attended stumbled in during the opening trailers. One of them had the faded remains of a cock drawn onto his forehead, presumably acquired while passing out at the party earlier on, and kept inappropriately exclaiming "HAHA WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT" and the like during various trailers and scenes, in a room full of kids with their parents. Half of them had fallen asleep halfway through the film, a couple of them snoring...

...fuck it, this was me and my mates in my dickhead (literally in this case) young-alcoholic days, and I wish to apologise to the Cineworld in Wandsworth for any inconvenience me and my then-friends caused that morning. Alright, just me. What a cunt.

[machotrouts]

I remember being sat behind a couple during Brokeback Mountain. What soon became apparent was the bloke had gone along to see it under the impression that it was just a classic Western genre movie. During the first sex scene he starting muttering away to himself and said suddenly said old loud 'I'm not 'avin' that!' and stormed out the cinema, with his girlfriend following reluctantly a few minutes later. The problem was I keep thinking about the man's reaction and found myself giggling my way through the rest of the film.

My friend's dad went to see that and apparently chortled throughout, because of all the hilarious gay sex.

The second was a little more charming. Can't remember the film, but during the pre trailer bit, they showed that old public info film where the LADS drink one pint over the limit and and the pub does a kind of weird crash effect¹. Pretty grisly stuff on a big screen, were it not for the little boy asking us "But how does the pub drive? Fucking stupid".

My friend's senile grandmother's reaction to that advert was "ha ha ha! She fell over!".


My friends' relatives all have a lot of fun

[Icehaven]

Don't watch The Shining in a cinema, unless you want a room full of people roaring with laughter the whole way through.

I got a free last minute ticket to see a live stage version of The Excorcist last year, and we usually only get freebies when they want to make the auditorium look a little bit more full because ticket sales have been poor, but this was completely packed. I'm not great fan of the film, or horror in general, but it was an impressive looking production, really clever set design, and very faithful to the film. And the audience (including me, usually) pissed themselves laughing through most of the famous/gruesome scenes, the crucifix bit, the bed rattling, when she kills the gay actor friend. It reminded me of that line in Beetlejuice where he says ''I've seen The Exorcist 167 times and it keeps getting funnier every time I see it!'' Of course it was that kind of burst of involuntary (almost nervous) laughter at the absurd extremity and sudden horribleness of something, rather than because it was actually funny. I think because it was a live stage show, and most of the audience are probably not used to seeing horror type scenes in the flesh, as it were (and particularly not in the same place they'll be watching a Panto in a few months) it was more kind of  weird cathartic tension release laughter, because it's difficult to know what an appropriate response would be when you're in a room full of a few thousand other supposedly normal adults and you've all (well mostly) paid to watch a child* sticking a crucifix into her genitals live on stage.
I genuinely have no idea if the company anticipated that that'd be the reaction. As I said it was quite faithful to the film and not some kind of played-for-laughs spoofy version or anything. But it got a standing ovation at the end of the performance, and rave reviews too so, who knows.

*The actress was actually about 20 I think, but it's still, slightly queasy.

[Brundle-Fly]

I got a free last minute ticket to see a live stage version of The Excorcist last year, and we usually only get freebies when they want to make the auditorium look a little bit more full because ticket sales have been poor, but this was completely packed. I'm not great fan of the film, or horror in general, but it was an impressive looking production, really clever set design, and very faithful to the film. And the audience (including me, usually) pissed themselves laughing through most of the famous/gruesome scenes, the crucifix bit, the bed rattling, when she kills the gay actor friend. It reminded me of that line in Beetlejuice where he says ''I've seen The Exorcist 167 times and it keeps getting funnier every time I see it!'' Of course it was that kind of burst of involuntary (almost nervous) laughter at the absurd extremity and sudden horribleness of something, rather than because it was actually funny. I think because it was a live stage show, and most of the audience are probably not used to seeing horror type scenes in the flesh, as it were (and particularly not in the same place they'll be watching a Panto in a few months) it was more kind of  weird cathartic tension release laughter, because it's difficult to know what an appropriate response would be when you're in a room full of a few thousand other supposedly normal adults and you've all (well mostly) paid to watch a child* sticking a crucifix into her genitals live on stage.
I genuinely have no idea if the company anticipated that that'd be the reaction. As I said it was quite faithful to the film and not some kind of played-for-laughs spoofy version or anything. But it got a standing ovation at the end of the performance, and rave reviews too so, who knows.

*The actress was actually about 20 I think, but it's still, slightly queasy.

I wonder if it will tour?  Would love to see that.

[Serge]

When 'The Exorcist' was re-released at the cinema in 1998, I went to see it, and practically everybody in the audience but me was finding it to be the most hilarious thing they'd ever seen. I don't know if it was the '70s attitudes and fashions or what, but everybody was pissing themselves nearly all the way through. I admit that I finally cracked when Lee J Cobb turned up mid-exorcism towards the end, as he looked like such a stereotypical hard-ass '70s cop with his raincoat and moustache and stern expression on his face.

[Custard]

Has anyone seen The Omen in the cinema?

If anyone laughed during that, I'd probably kick them up the bum

[Replies From View]

I wonder whether anyone has inappropriately died during a screening of 'When Harry Met Sally'.

[madhair60]

I wonder whether anyone has inappropriately died during a screening of 'When Harry Met Sally'.

I did yeah.

[Replies From View]

When I was a child - I don't know what age I was but I'm guessing (hoping) under ten - I saw 'Young Frankenstein' for the first time.  It's while my Dad was out for the evening; I remember I was watching it with just my mum in the room.

When Gene Wilder's character starts suddenly doing that groaning sound at the end, I screamed in terror.  A properly loud scream as if an intruder had burst into the room.  I thought he had the mind of the monster forever and that was the end of the story, and this flooded me with inexplicable horror.

My mum thought I was joking, I think.  She just impatiently went "Yeah alright".

[mjwilson]

During Inland Empire, about half an hour from the end, someone behind me leant over to the person they were with, and whispered, "I don't think I can take much more of this".

On second thoughts, maybe that is the appropriate reaction to that film.

[bushwick]

I laughed throughout Only God Forgives at the pictures,  ridiculous troll of a film.

To be fair I always tend to laugh if someone gets beaten up or killed in a film, especially if I'm not meant to and you're meant to care about the character, I can't help it I find it incredibly liberating haha

[bushwick]

Oh yeah,  I remember meeting someone who said he tried to have a wank over Last House On The Left as there was tits in it.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

The Full Monty: When two of the characters realise they're both gay, some Jeremy Clarkson type in the audience emitted a derisive "Oh no!" Apparently some implied homoeroticism in this film about men taking their clothes off together was a step too far for him.

Spider-Man 2: Harry, drunk and angry, slaps his best friend Peter in the face because of what he perceives as Peter's disloyalty in the matter of Harry's father's murder. Tense stuff! Unless you were the noisy little scrotes sitting a few seats away from us, who piped up, "Haha! He got bitch slapped!"

To be fair, Tobey Maguire does have quite a slappable face.