Monster of the Day #3123

Updated on November 6, 2020 By Ken Begg 12 Comments

Speaking of screaming skulls….

So last Friday I did something I hadn’t done in a long while; I went to a theater to see a movie. They were showing a bunch of Halloween themed films to try to pull people in. It wasn’t working, as the lobby was a ghost town. I mean, it was Friday afternoon, but still. I think part of the probably was the movies they picked. Managers now are apparently young enough that they can’t imagine anyone going to voluntarily watch a black and white movie.

Well, you know who might want to see a movie on a Friday afternoon for $5? Seniors. I mean, I did go because they were showing The Nightmare Before Christmas (although I’m basically hitting senior territory myself, I guess). I love that movie, love it, and any chance to see it in a theater should be grabbed.

However, I was the only one in theater (which was good, because I was able to break the rules and take my mask off), until about three minutes in when a dad came in with two kids, although they sat way up in the back. Anyway, that quadrupled the take to $20, so I’m sure AMC is fine.

Still, if you’re showing Halloween-y kind of fare in six theaters, why not try a double bill of Dracula and Frankenstein or something? Not that it matters, Illinois is going restriction crazy again, so I’m sure the theaters will be closed entirely. Can they even reopen at this rate?

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  • Beckoning Chasm

    The theater nearest me opened back up when “Tenet” appeared. But I never see any cars in their lot. I think the movie-theater experience may be dead for good. Pity, as the new Morehead and Benson film is playing there, and those guys deserve an audience.

  • Gamera977

    There’s a couple of drive-ins that have reopened around here with vintage movies. Haven’t gotten around to visiting any though.

  • Drive-In’s are opening in São Paulo, but are insanely expensive (especially if it’s a Disney film). Boo.

  • thunderclancat

    With COVID-19 restrictions hampering multiplexes,? drive-ins might start opening again.

  • Ken_Begg

    One major problem with drive-ins is that the cars are soooo much smaller than when we where a kid. Sitting in a teeny car for two or three movies would be sub-optimal. Also, up north here they are few on the ground due to taxes and the large parcel of land needed to situate one.

  • thunderclancat

    True. And with some of the movies nowadays who would want to sit through one, let alone two or three? Also, yes, the taxes in NJ are ridiculous, as well, even in my mainly rural county.

  • The Rev.

    A couple of weeks ago I went to see Rifftrax do Jack-o. There ended up being about seven or eight other people there, two groups of three and a pair, who all say halfway up and well away from my lone self in the center of the back row.

    The guys were funny as usual but wow, they could only do so much because that movie is godawful. Slow and plodding and what little we got of the monster was it mostly lurking around. One decent decapitation gag, a couple of ridiculously silly kills, one supremely bad acting moment, and (slight spoiler I guess) the novelty of Linnea Quigley surviving a movie are about all to recommend it, and no, it is not nearly enough. If you HAVE to watch it, I guess do this version so you get some laughs from the guys, but honestly you should just skip it.

  • Jamie and I saw that in the theater on our first date, so it holds a special place in our hearts. Most of our theaters either never re-opened or closed down again quickly, so new state restrictions are unlikely to make much difference.

  • In October I watched three movies in theaters: Friday the 13th (original flavor), The Thing (Carpenter flavor), and A Nightmare on Elm Street (again original). Friday didn’t have that great a turn out, but the other two I thought did rather well considering the age of the films and 2020. The Thing as I recall it was damn near packed (social distancing taken into consideration.) However the theater The Thing was in was also a restaurant type place, so there’s that.

    I honestly hope theaters keep going, but you never can tell.

  • Ken_Begg

    Honestly, if drive-ins are going to work you need to draw families, or van-loads of teens. So I’d go with older movies. All ’70s car chase movies or whatever. Although I imagine the studios are restricting films for their streaming services, so that might be a problem. Disney live action films from the ’60s and ’70s might be off market for showing. (Because if fifty families go to see The Love Bug and That Darn Cat in a drive-in, they won’t pay for Disney Plus?)

  • Ken_Begg

    I think they will continue in some form, but it might be as a more expensive niche thing. But as Thunderclancat notes above, are modern films good enough to start drawing people back? I’d like to think changing economics might turn studios away from the blockbuster and we’ll start seeing more interesting comparatively low-budget movies being produced again.

  • Beckoning Chasm

    The Red Letter Media guys sarcastically suggested an idea a while ago: make theatre-going an “experience” like a convention and charge big bucks to make it “exclusive.”