The 8 oddest experiences I've had in a movie theatre

Going to the movies now after so much lockdown may seem like a foreign experience in and of itself, but beforehand, I’ve had many odd experiences in a cinema. Everyone has their annoyances and their traumatic memories of morons and stupidity in a theatre, and I’ve decided to compile some the more memorable ones in my experience, so I can satiate the feeling of being in a cinema once more.

8. When the drive-thru played the nudity-filled Disaster Artist across the parking lot from Pixar’s Coco

The Disaster Artist is a great film about friendship and the power/agony of moviemaking. It is also definitely not a children’s film, full of sexual references, swearing and dark themes that children would either not understand or cry over, Fight Club-style.

But the dear old Coburg drive-in isn’t too concerned with your child accidentally catching a nice view of James Franco’s enormous prosthetic dong, as when I went to see The Disaster Artist there, Pixar’s Coco was playing on the screen directly behind us. I hope that the children weren’t bored enough with Coco that they turned around and saw the sheer terror of Dave Franco with a lumberjack beard.

Funnily enough, despite being about death and the afterlife, Coco’s characters look a lot more alive than the ones in The Disaster Artist.

7. When the cinema screwed up Tenet so badly that we got free tickets

Free stuff is great. There is no real qualification needed for that sentence. Which is why it was awesome that the staff at Hoyts showed up at the end of Tenet with free movie tickets and an apology.

After over-running the ads as they were unable to get the projector working, me and my dad sat there for half-an-hour staring at a blank screen, before the movie started without any sound and then had to re-start. At least Tenet was good enough that the delay was justified (and I’m sticking to that opinion, even when the internet wants to tear this film down).

And I got free tickets to use for The Dry (yay!) and Shadow in the Cloud (boo!).

6. My friend lost his tooth while watching Finding Dory (because my sister was making out behind me)

I don’t know how a Pixar movie is supposed to rile you up to the point of your teeth falling out, but for my dear friend Jack, it certainly did the job.

Yeah, he looked exactly like this.

It was about 45 minutes into the movie. We’d come along with my sister and her (now ex) boyfriend Karl, and the two chose seats behind us so they didn’t distract us as much while they were making out. So the two were thumping along behind us when suddenly Jack tapped me on the shoulder, produced a blood-soaked tooth, and popped it in his cup holder.

He forgot it on the way out – sorry to cinema cleaners, who already get the shittiest job.

5. When 3 couples had to lead out their screaming children during Kong: Skull Island

Considering I just saw the rape-filled, brutally violent The Last Duel in a theatre with 2 12-year-olds (who didn't seem all that perturbed), this seems fitting.

Parents have a responsibility to judge movies and research them before they take their baby-carriage younglings off to a cinema. That’s just common sense. There’s no blaming the movie if it’s been clearly telling you “violence, coarse language, themes” etc.

So hats off to the multiple couples who had to lead their bawling 4-year-olds out of Kong: Skull Island as a giant gorilla and multiple lizard creatures duked it out in appropriately gory fashion (although they left before Kong pulled the lizard king inside out). Thanks for annoying us all and traumatising your children.

This also happened when I watched Rampage, but I don’t like to remember Rampage, so we’ll go with Kong for now.

4. When a 50-year-old woman started bawling for no reason at the end of Batman vs. Superman

Batman vs. Superman was a garbage superhero film, with one of its larger failings being that the audience was unable to connect with the protagonists or the villains, as they were respectively underacted and overacted. But it got through to some people…somehow.

When Superman gets impaled by Doomsday and dies (spoilers), there follows a long, protracted funeral sequence where it’s obvious that Superman isn’t entirely dead. But for one poor woman in the front row, it must have been too much, because she started wailing at the screen as though she was watching Manchester by the Sea.

Of all the terribleness of Batman vs. Superman, this was the point that really stuck with me when I left the theatrer.

3. When a 20-year-old man started fondling his mother’s breasts during Shadow in the Cloud

Shadow in the Cloud is an attempt at a B-movie that ended up in a D-movie position, with terrible CGI, non-existent tone and a second act that completely broke whatever sense the film was going with. I managed to catch it in a theatre, but of course, one of the patrons around me…got weird.

A small family sat in front of me during the movie, including a 20-year-old man and his mother, the former of whom was twitching and being obnoxious throughout the movie. In the plot of the movie, Chloe Grace Moretz frees her baby from a case and starts breastfeeding it, at which point the man went ot the seat next to his mum and started pawing at her creepily.

If I had anything on me, I would have thrown something at them. I’m trying to watch a shit movie here, people – I need the concentration!

2. When the cinema played the wrong movie entirely

Yes. This actually happened. And we didn’t even get free tickets from it like we did in Tenet.

These "bruh" expressions sum it up perfectly.

So Mum had taken us to see American Made at Northland, because she’s had a decades-long obsession with Tom Cruise (leading to multiple debates with her anti-Cruise friends). We popped in, sat in our seats, expecting to see a cool crime thriller about international espionage…and Northland played Logan Lucky instead, which was an intentionally uncool crime thriller about rednecks in debt.

Funnily enough, when we saw American Made later, it turned out to be worse than Logan Lucky in almost every way. So, some serendipity, then.

And now for the big event…

1. I saw both Godzilla vs. Kong and Birds of Prey in a completely empty theatre

Of all the movies I’ve seen in cinemas, it was these two blockbusters that I saw isolated, alone in the darkness, alone with my thoughts and my own opinions not motivated by the laughter of others. I saw Nomadland and Minari with at least 5 other people, and the Nicolas Cage-starring Pig with 4, but these? Zip.

Godzilla vs. Kong I saw on Easter Sunday at midday, so at least there’s an explanation of inconvenient time for that. But Birds of Prey me and my dad saw at 7:00 PM on a Saturday night, and nobody was there. Notably, Birds of Prey bombed at the box office because of its terrible marketing campaign, so that might explain it. But it should at least draw more people than goddamn Nomadland (not a dig – Nomadland’s great).

Either way, it allowed me to appreciate and analyse the contents of both films better. In Godzilla vs. Kong, the silence allowed me to really take note of how terrible the sound mixing was but how good the music was, and in Birds of Prey, I could hear how bad the comedy and dialogue were without begin interrupted by crunching popcorn or a rando on their phone. So, thanks, non-commiters. I appreciate it.

What were your weird experiences in theatres? Leave your answers in the comments below.