Do they know what they are watching?

Hi,

As an avid film watcher at the cinema, it amazes me how many people leave a film, or turn up and start discussing which film they should watch while stood in the queue.

So why do people leave? Ok it’s their right to walk out if they are not enjoying the film, but they are not getting any money back, so why leave? Even the worst films I’ve seen I’ve always managed to sit it out, maybe something good while happen at some point. Then again maybe it won’t but I’ve paid for it I’m watching it.
But I really get the impression that these people don’t know what they are sitting down to watch. Maybe these are the same people who have turned up on spec and picked a film while stood in the queue, I don’t know.
Sometimes you can spot the “walkers” coming into the film, and we do comment on how many may leave a showing, depending on the film.
Sometimes though people do surprise me, watching Devil’s Rejects a few years back, and when we walked in there were 2 old women, I’m talking well into their 70’s sat waiting for the film to start. Hold on, surely they are in the wrong film! Then again maybe they were gore hounds who knows, what I was expecting was for them to leave. Guess what they stayed the course, through torture, rape and killings they stayed. We had to laugh, prime candidates for a walk out and they watched the credits roll – brilliant!

There have been a few films were people have left, Sunshine, Tormented, Planet Terror, but I’m going to look at just 3, 1 is obvious, 1 I could believe and 1 I was surprised at.

Funny people is maybe the one where I didn’t really expect people to leave. However 4 left (2 couples) they were fairly young though, maybe expecting another 40 year old virgin or Knocked up, come on it’s by the same director and has a lot of the same cast members, it’s going to be as funny or even funnier than them films, the audience will be rolling in the aisles. Well we weren’t and they weren’t going to stick around and see if it got any better.
Everything I had read or heard about this film, even the trailer implied a more subtle, “grown up” kind of humour than Apatow’s previous outings, so I’m sitting there and got what I expected, well actually it was better than I expected.

The obvious one is Anti-Christ; just the title alone would draw in young people hoping for an Omen style horror film, with lots of scary moments and major blood letting. Don’t think they got what they bargained for. A horror film yes, but grounded in reality and based on a persons descent into guilt/grief stricken madness. This film was hard to watch, grim, strange, but somehow gripping. As a film it was very good as a piece of entertainment it was terrible.
Well back to my point, 8 people left from an audience of 16, these 8 were young adults, who were just not going to get this film. Again every indication this was not a genuine horror film, from reviews, I mean it’s content was discussed all over the place surely anybody with half a brain is going to know this is not a typical horror film, and if that’s what they want they should wait for likes of Final Destination 3D or Sorority Girls!

My final film for walk outs is one where I was waiting for someone to go! Part 1 of the Grindhouse double bill – Death Proof. Qt’s films are love or hate them type’s, I usually like them, I did like Death Proof. But some didn’t and they left, can’t remember how many went, but it was a few. And again mostly young adults or teenagers, who again are never going to get what QT was doing with this film.
Again read the previews, read the hype, see the trailers this is not Pulp Fiction, this is not Kill Bill this is Grindhouse. I even think the editing put off many, I thought it added a certain feel to the whole thing. But that’s me!

So I get myself ready for a film, watch the trailers read the hype, read some reviews. Some I have high expectations for, some I don’t. But with all of them I know what I’m going to see and the ones I don’t like the look of, Year One, Miss March, Doubt and so on I miss and find something else to watch.

It’s all part of the plan!