My Experience With Movie Theatre Horror
Matinee: Image From IMDB
Memories of Movie Theatres in Movies and Books
I’ve always had a love of Movie Theatres in films and books. It’s probably one of my favourite tropes, or at least something which is always guaranteed to make me smile. I find them magical enough in the real world (modern multiplex’s aside) and often in movies and books that magic is amplified. Be it describing some grandiose beautiful Picture Palace from the silent era, or seeing some scuzzy grindhouse cinema showing midnight movies, I love them.
I adore Woody Allen’s Purple Rose of Cairo. Keaton’s Sherlock Jr. Frank Darabont’s The Majestic. Joe Dante’s Matinee. I love seeing the Gremlins watch Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, or Max Caddy laughing his ass off as he watches Problem Child. Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate watching herself on screen in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I’m a sucker for the whole movie within a movie thing, and films and books taken place or having scenes in a cinema falls under category.
But, while I could easily write a whole piece on the brilliance of Purple Rose of Cairo or Sherlock Jr. this article is about my experience within Movie Theatre Horror. Like most, I think the best example of the subgenre or trope is Lamberto Bava’s Demons. It’s a fantastic film, and one I’ve loved ever since I watched it. It’s one of those films you can tell inspired a whole generation who saw it in their formative years, myself probably included, but I’ll get to that in a moment.
Within my reading of Extreme Horror books over the last five years Demons was often an influence or starting point. Carver Pike’s Slaughterbox being one such example. Or Ryan Harding and Lucas Mangum’s wrestling horror Pandemonium, which substituted a cinema for a wrestling ring, but with the same Demons principle. Films like the amazing Planet Terror by Robert Rodriguez also has Demons written all over it.
Outside of Demons, I really enjoyed Movie Theatre Horror movies like Popcorn, and books like Jonathan Janz Witching Hour Theatre, both of which I wrote about while covering the subgenre. These are the sort of stories that stick with me, and not necessarily because of characters (which is normally the most important for me) but because of the setting.
A Movie Theatre feels like an ideal setting for a horror story. There’s already a built in relationship and understanding of the setting for horror fans. We’ve all been to the cinema to watch a horror, and felt that different energy which exists within the Movie Theatre walls when watching a great horror film, or even a bad one (which can be an equally enjoyable experience) Horror belongs in the cinema, often best watched with a crowd. It’s natural that the worlds combine every now and then, and we get a Movie Theatre Horror.
Abby Vs. The Splatploitation Farm. My First Novel
Movie Theatre Horror Within My Own Work
Abby Vs The Splatploitation Brothers
One of the strangest experiences I’ve had watching a Movie Theatre Horror was watching Todd Strauss-Schulson’s 2015 movie The Final Girls. A few years prior I had written a short film script called Josie and the Splatter Brothers, which I then adapted into a T.V pilot of the same name and was pitching around.
A few weeks after I’d finished writing the pilot and had sent it to a few different people I was telling a colleague at work the synopsis and they told me how it sounded like that new movie which was coming out, The Final Girls. My heart sunk. I really thought I’d come up with something completely unique within that sphere. So, when I sat down to watch The Final Girls my only real thought was please don’t be anything like my idea. Selfish I know, but I’d been working on that idea in various incarnations for years.
Thankfully, the movie was about ninety-five percent different from what I’d written. There was a little overlap, but we’d both gone about the idea in completely different ways. Years later I adapted the unwanted pilot I’d written as the story for my first book, Abby Vs The Splatploitation Brothers: Hillbilly Film
Both Hillbilly Farm and the sequel Savage City feature plenty of Movie Theatre Horror scenes. Like I said, I am a massive fan of the trope, and was determined to find a space within my story for scenes featuring a cinema, and in the case of Savage City, a Drive-In too (which I also love and think should make a massive comeback)
It felt amazing getting to design both the Splatploitation Brothers cinema, and the various different cinemas in Savage City. To be able to try and capture that same vibe I got from Demons, Popcorn, and Purple Rose. Although, I think the movie theatre scenes in American Werewolf in London and Taxi Driver were equally as inspiring for the work I was writing.
I just love Movie Theatres as a setting. And, because the subgenre is so heavily connected to the first two books I wrote (wrote, not published, as I held Savage City back for a while) it’s always going to be a personal favourite.
Reel One
It was fun going back to the setting while writing Reel One. I tried something a little different with this story having a period setting and using a different sort of cinema to what I had before. Despite the changes however, I think it’s something that could still fit into the Abby/Splatploitation world. Maybe I’ll even make it canon one day, who knows.
I loved doing the research for this piece too as I tried to get it as authentic as possible while also giving it that nasty modern twist. I had considered writing something a little more Haunted House like at first as I do like the Movie Theatre setting being used in that way. But ultimately I couldn’t help myself and went for more of a movie within a movie type deal. It’s who I am.
Movie Theatre Horror is something I’ll always have an affinity for. Like I said, it’s a subgenre I feel closely connected to through both my own work, and my love of cinema. Writing Reel One was great, and I’m already considering ways to go back to that story or setting. I probably won’t write something right away, but I don’t think it’s the last I’ll write set inside Picture Palace.
