You're gonna be bothered by how cool I am.

I'm basically going to be living at the Nitehawk this October. Their weekend midnight and brunch series revolves around "final girls" (and women in horror in general - I mean, we can't exactly call Julie Harris the final girl of The Haunting, can we? she's the only one who [SPOILERS]!). ANYWAY, loads of great movies, many of them screening in 35mm (a vanishingly infrequent treat at the movies nowadays), and most of the weekends this month I'll be making two trips because there's just too much stuff I can't let myself miss!

So tonight I went there to see Re-Animator (not a part of their Final Girl series, but one of their "Nitehawk Nasties" screenings). I wrote about it here several years ago, if you're curious what it's about (why yes, I *did* change my layout and go back to the Kill Bill mood theme, thank you for noticing!), so I won't rehash the plot here.

It's hard to ruin Re-Animator, but it came darn close to being ruined this evening. First of all, the projector was too close or something, because the top of the print was clearly cut off. They moved it at one point, but then the *bottom* was cut off. A little off-putting, but not terrible. What was terrible was that this audience was determined to talk throughout the movie. In particular, the two women sitting next to me (right next to me -- it was a full house) were clearly drunk and insisted on talking, making comments and repeating lines of dialogue -- like, not even funny lines, but exposition sometimes. I could have KILLED them during a scene where the characters are looking for a cat named Rufus and they kept cooing "Ruuuuuuffffuuuuuussss!" and "kiiiiiiiittttttyyyyyyyy!" As the credits rolled, we were all still sitting there (the wait staff was late bringing our checks, so most of us were waiting for change or credit card receipts). Before I had a chance to spot Tim Minear's name (he was 2nd AD on this movie!), my neighbors spotted the name "Bunny Summers" among the cast and clearly thought this was the most hilarious thing they'd EVAR seen. They kept on and on and on about it, and this was evidently a name that was about to enter the mythology of their lives. Stories would be invented about her and twenty years from now she'll probably still be one of their inside jokes. I had a little mix-up with my bill and was the last to leave the theater. Twenty minutes after the movie was over and I left the theater, there they were in the doorway (impeding me from leaving and adding to me annoyance) -- AND STILL HOLDING FORTH ON BUNNY SUMMERS!

I've been meaning to try and talk to someone at the theater about the noise issue for a while now, but there had been a long stretch when there hadn't been any problems, so I thought it would be unnecessary. But they really should have a policy on talking, especially since the serving of food and alcohol make it more likely that people are going to treat it like a restaurant that serves movies instead of the other way around. I mean, there was nothing I could do tonight. As far as I know, there's no mechanism in place to alert anyone about talking patrons, and even if there was, there's no warning before the movie starts about talking. Shutting up and putting your gadgets away just isn't part of the social contract at this place the way it is at the Drafthouse.