Apparently Going to the Movies was ALWAYS Annoying – Halloween 1978

I was alerted to the existence of the following clip via FEARnet.com, a fine website devoted to every aspect of horror filmmaking. The clip marries what is claimed to be audio from a 1978 screening of John Carpenter’s “Halloween,” the film that maybe didn’t invent the Slasher genre (that was 1974′s “Black Christmas”) but definitely mainstreamed it and made it profitable and viable, paving the way for Freddy and Jason and a slew of others.

The following is how the audience reacted to the final 2 minutes of the film, so there are spoilers if you haven’t watched Halloween yet.

Now, all the comments on the YouTube page, and all the comments as the link is passed around via twitter and facebook, seem to be reveling in the joy and wonderment these theatergoers are loudly expressing at the scares Carpenter is throwing at them, one after the other, in that final 2 minutes. “Awesome,” “Brilliant,” and of course “Epic,” because this is the internet and that is how you describe things on it when they are good.

But as it played out, my first thought was “That would be fucking annoying to sit through.”

I understand, for a lot of people in that audience, I’m sure this was a pretty new experience; the horror-movie equivalent of watching the Star Destroyer just keep flying over the screen at the beginning of “Star Wars.” And further, that horror movies are specifically designed to scare audible reactions out of their audiences. They’re built to pop. Nothing tells you that your horror film is working as it should as really loud pops from a terrified crowd, sometimes followed by nervous giggles as they collectively remind themselves that it is only a movie. I remember seeing Blair Witch opening night, when the tent scene happened; the scene where the sounds of children giggling are interrupted by something pawing and pushing at the walls of the tent. A 40 year old man squealed as if something had bitten his dick, and he launched his popcorn skyward about 10 feet in the air.

But for all my opening nights and midnight screenings, I’ve never heard anything like the shit that goes down in that clip. It sounds like it was taped at a slumber party, with a couple smart-ass dads playing chaperone and yelling at the screen. That would have killed my immersion in the film, and I don’t think I’d have enjoyed it as much if that was the crowd I saw it with on first viewing.

Maybe I’m just a curmudgeon now – a grumpy old man whose sense of humor is slowly draining out of his body along with the rest of his vitality as he creeps towards gray hair (what’s left) and the cruelty of gravity tugging downward on all his extremities. But if I’m an old man now, at least this clip has taken from me the ability to point at the old days and say how much better it was then. Because this clip lends some credence to the idea that maybe the moviegoing experience in America hasn’t fallen that far. We like to think that audiences were better behaved, more polite, more attentive, and therefore the films were more rewarding back then. But I’m not so sure that’s the case, really, if this clip is any evidence. If those protracted WHEEEEEEEEE’s from the audience and bellowed one-liners from the peanut gallery are anything to go by, shit really hasn’t changed much at all, except for the price.

Or maybe I’m alone on this one. If so? So be it, shut your yap when I’m in the movie theater, and get off my lawn.