OPINION: Barefoot and furry

Last Saturday, I was able to catch “The Substance,” a body horror movie which premiered at Cannes this year which is one of the most disturbing but fascinating movies of the year. For those without a queasy stomach will find a wonderfully sick experience which aims knives at the entertainment industry’s obsession with appeasing the male gaze.

I would love to talk more about the movie, which has been stuck in my head for long after the credits rolled, but there’s another thing I’d like to talk about which almost made me walk out during my screening.

I’ve only had to walk out of one movie, which happened in 2019 for “Pet Semetery.” This was at a time when AMC Theaters had a presence in central Iowa and was offering their subscription service to watch three movies per week for $20 a month.

“Pet Semetery” isn’t an awful movie, nor is the content too obscene to warrant a walkout. It was the audience which made me stand up and exit.

Theater audiences are tricky to talk about. It’s an essential part of moviegoing, it’s what makes the experience of watching a movie in the theater a social activity. However, distracting and obnoxious audience members can ruin the experience.

The essential rule of theaters these days is to shut your phone off. Fairly easy to do, but also decently easy to forget. I’ve witnessed a few times recently where a loud ringtone blasts through a theater during a quiet moment. It’s embarrassing to the person it happens to and is almost always an accident, so I don’t find it too taxing.

What is deeply malicious is continued use of your phone, which lights up with absurd brightness in the dark theater. I used to sit in the back of the theater, and it’s absurd the amount of times I can see people check their phones during a movie. I’ve seen people take pictures of the movie screen in the middle of the screening. If you wanted to brag about how many movies you watch, all you have to do is start a column.

I’m not completely innocent in terms of disrupting movies. In 2018, my friends and I on a bet went to see the DC Comics’ kid-friendly cartoon “Teen Titans Go! to the Movies,” which we were expecting to be terrible. Instead, we found ourselves continuously bursting into laughter at an unhinged and absurd spoof on superhero moviemaking. Movies based on DC Comics superheroes were typically dark and brooding at this time, with the Snyder movies and the legacy of “The Dark Knight” being appropriately dug up for gags.

For us, even in an ironic lens as nerdy teenagers, this was the funniest movie we had ever seen. Gags like Robin giving a young Bruce Wayne the thumbs up while his parents are shot or Robin asking the audience, comprised mostly of children, to ask their parents how babies are made absolutely lit us up. At one point, we noticed a family leaving the theater glare at us. They came back a few minutes later, but it was a moment of clarity where I wondered if we had ruined the experience for them in our loud guffawing.

Movies, especially in the theater, are social. Moviegoing is almost always better in a group. It’s apparently strange to go to the movie theater alone, something I’ve never had too much trouble figuring out. What duty does one have to the other people in the theater?

I walked out of my screening of “Pet Semetery” because of the audience I was seeing it with. Multiple groups of people in that theater just couldn’t stop talking during the movie. It felt more like these people were here to pass the time rather than see the movie, which I didn’t share.

I can’t imagine how one could purchase tickets to a movie, sit in the theater seats and still refuse to engage with the movie. I wonder if a thought like that is elitist or too judgemental, perhaps I’m selfishly trying to preserve an idea of exhibition which isn’t reality, but I think the theater experience is too magical to ignore.

I only have one rule for audiences in the theater: minimize distractions which disrupt the movie’s intended experience. It’s perfectly OK to laugh when the movie’s funny, it’s intended. It’s OK to jump when scared, or gasp when surprised. This is the intended experience.

I wondered about this rule as the man seated next to me during my showing of “The Substance” leaned back in his seat and raised his bare feet out of his sandals. Frankly, I almost didn’t have the will that day to deal with someone’s sweaty feet. Furthermore, a man seated to my distant left had another surprise for me that day as he carried with him a small Yorkshire terrier.

An hour into the movie, which I had stayed for despite how uncomfortable I was, I felt something pawing at my arm. I turned to my left to see a furry friend climbing over the seat. The dog had decided to come watch the movie with me. Its owner was too busy watching the movie to intervene.

As the credits rolled, the owner came over, scooped up the dog, and left without a hint of an apology or explanation. It was the most bizarre theater experience I have ever had. I wondered if the dog enjoyed the movie.

All I ask at this bewildered point is to show some decency to the people you watch movies with. Try to get absorbed into the movie, and if all else fails, at least be disruptive enough to be worth writing a column about.