By George Haerle
Remember when people used to go to the theater to actually watch the movies?
A couple weeks ago, I ended up absolutely loving Andy Muschietti’s “It,” and I will nominate it as one of my top film picks of the year. However, the experience I had at Riverside Cinemas in Aberdeen was shared with one of the worst audiences I have ever seen.
In a theater full of several dozen 20-something males seeing the film with friends or dates, the two families with children 10 or younger (who shouldn’t have been subjected to this horror film in the first place) were the best behaved, which is saying something.
My screaming was directed not at the screen, but to the audience: I had to yell “shut up” to 30 or so people several minutes into the movie, with the plot progressing. How low-class and rude can you be? An hour later, someone took a flash picture when Pennywise was on the screen. Another classy individual, for some baffling reason, tried starting a game of Marco Polo at several points during the movie. Many others continued to talk or look at their phones throughout the film.
The following day, a fellow employee told me he’d had a similar experience at an earlier showing that same night. Not only were several people talking, but the individual in front of him commented loudly on everything happening onscreen, all the while blowing vape clouds back into his face.
These are consistent problems I have had with almost every movie I see at Riverside Cinemas.
The only time to escape these thoughtless individuals seems to be at the earliest showing possible during the weekdays — and even during a recent 12:40 p.m. showing of “Mother,” the woman sitting two rows in front of me kept pulling out her phone to check and send texts. She was the only other person in the theater.
For argument’s sake, I’ll live with the crying children. If your toddler starts crying and you leave, then kudos to you. But if your infant screams for 20 minutes after the Hulk shows up onscreen, you should have left 19 minutes ago.
And how much can the theater staff really do? When I complained in the past, I was issued a refund. That’s all well and good, but I would much prefer to watch the movie without interruption. Can’t you give the offenders the boot and issue them the refunds instead?
Having worked retail myself for many years, it’s likely Coming Attractions’ corporate policy tries to avoid kicking out paying customers unless they are causing some kind of significant disturbance or harassing someone. That would be just a bit more understandable if the film industry didn’t require immersion. It doesn’t make sense for a cinema to follow a customer service policy similar to Walmart’s.
Why bother to see movies at your local cineplex when it’s just going to be a shoulder-tightening two hours of irritability and frustration? Why deal with that when you can opt to drive to Lacey or Olympia instead?
I challenge the corporate heads at Coming Attractions: You plaster warning signs all over your Aberdeen theater, and you should follow through. Give your managers and their employees some control to enforce your alleged “no talking or cellphone” policy — like they do, for example, at Alamo Drafthouse theaters, which automatically boot offenders the first time they pull out their phones or start talking louder than a whisper.
George Haerle holds a bachelor’s degree in creative writing for media and lives in Cosmopolis.
