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There is a lot to dislike about the modern movie-going experience. High-priced tickets, over-priced snacks, screaming children, annoying text messagers, mouth-breathers... However, I think the overall experience of watching something with the correct audience is criminally overlooked. There's just something about watching the same thing with a group of strangers that can not be replicated. It's a bit of a primal experience that I think we overlook, and something cinema excels in.

I've got two I want to mention.

The first is from the movie Hannibal. Hannibal is a bad movie. It misfires on all the things that made people so terrified by The Silence of the Lambs. Worst of all, it's boring. Not a recommended film at all.

**SPOILER**
However, there is a scene at the end that generated my favorite audience reaction of all time. If you've seen it, you are familiar with the scene where Ray Liotta's character is fed his own brains, sauteed, by Hannibal Lecter. The audience went crazy with uncomfortable squeemishness. There was outright disgust, nervous laughter, screaming, and just an overall level of "Holy Hell this is really happening." If I had watched this movie home alone, I would still hold the poor opinion I have of this movie. I would have missed this absolute gem of audience reaction, though. I still treasure it to this day.
**END SPOILER**

The second was a bit more subtle, and it's why I still hold that viewing a film with an audience is a vital part of cinema.

The Japanese anime Metropolis is an odd duck. Great movie, just odd. I was lucky enough to see it in a theater full of people that were fully invested in the movie. The entire audience was just keyed into what the movie was doing. Later in the film, there is a scene where one of the main villains finally gets a bit of comeuppance. It wasn't the show-stopping "I Can't Stop Loving You" moment, it was a quieter moment. But when it happened you could feel the entire audience just shift to a "Hell yes" moment. Which is why I love a good audience. The cinema, and probably more so live theater, has an energy that can't be replicated watching movies at home.

So what are your favorite audience reactions you have seen?

Great topic, Mofo.  :smile:

I have a few, too.

Watching The Silence of The Lambs in a Pretoria theatre in 1991 during the scene where Jodie Foster is in the dark with Ted Levine stalking her, the theatre was dark, not even an exit light on. I became aware of a dim light somewhere and saw that a guy in the audience had his cigarette lighter on, trying to give Jodie some light.  :teddyr:

The best audience reaction ever? Watching the South African film White Wedding at the premiere in Cape Town in March this year. I was reluctant to go see it (even though I was invited) because I thought it was a SA version of Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?. Boy, did I get a wrong number and I'm glad I did.

The full house danced, cheered, sang, laughed, clapped and the cast and crew in attendance, including the director Jann Turner, were stunned by the reaction. We gave the film a standing ovation and clapped until our palms were sore. We sang and danced especially to the final song Vulindlela [Clear The Path], a song traditionally used at weddings here and most of the cast and crew of the film were in tears at the end of it. Great film and a great memory: to think I almost passed up a free trip to Cape Town!

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* The best I ever experienced was during the climactic boxing match against Apollo Creed in the original ROCKY.  The theater was sold out and everyone was on their feet yelling and cheering like they were at a real boxing match.  It was exhilirating.

Honorable mentions that come to mind are:


* The audience cheering when Roy Scheider said, "Smile you son-of-a-b***h" at the end of JAWS.

* The audience cheering during the climactic attack on the Death Star in STAR WARS.

* Uncontrollable audience laughter during the farting scene in BLAZING SADDLES.


I'll try to think of a few more.

At the midnight showing of the new Harry Potter, when this thing grabs harry, there's a silence then the thing grabs harry, the crowd who saw it jumped 20 ft! :teddyr:

That scene has gotten everybody I've ever talked to...I'm sad to say it got me too and I have experience in this sort of film scare. 

The best time I've ever had, and I think I've accounted this here, was seeing Dante's Peak in a second run theater.  EVERYONE in the theater was making fun of the film out loud by the end.  My friend and I got a round of applause when we stood up and cheered when the dog was saved. 

Oddest reaction, thunderous applause at the end of The Mask.  I wondered if the audience had just seen the same film as me. 

I've watched quite a few movies with either German or American audience over the years. The Germans are very reserved and hardly make a peep. The Americans on the other hand, they enjoy their movies to the max. The "worst" movie I've seen at a Theater was with German audience thus hardly any reactions. Species II was the flick and wasn't a stroke of genius, but neither was part one. There is one rather effective jump scare that managed to squeeze out a not very loud "wow" from a German viewer, and that was it.

An entire audience of preteens erupting in screams when the title music began for Larry Cohen's killer baby epic IT'S ALIVE (1974).

God bless you, Mr. Herrmann!  :smile:

Back in 2003 I went to a midnight screening of X-Men 2 with Brother Ragnarok (an old regular here on this board who hasn't posted in awhile)

It was in a small college town by Waterloo, Iowa and the theater was packed with college kids.
When the X mansion is invaded by Stryker's forces, Wolverine freaks out and impales that guy into the metal fridge.
When that happened, every person in the theater yelled, "YEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!!"

That was a fun time.   :smile:

I've got two I can think of off the top of my head from recent years.
First was when seeing Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. When Yoda walks in on Count Dooku who has just defeated Anikin and Obi-Wan, a guy in the back of the theater screamed out, "Kick his a$$ Yoda!" the audience went to rolling with laughter.
The second one was during Superman Returns. In the film everything is blowing up and the city of Metropolis was falling apart. Sirens and alarms are going off everywhere. Then the film suddenly stops but alarms are still blaring. It was then that an usher from the cina-plex came in and asked everyone to evacuate the building. The additional alarm that was still going was a fire alarm that had going off due to a small fire in another theater. It sounds frightening but until they stopped the film and told everyone there was a fire, everyone in the theater thought the sounds of the alarms was just part of the movie. Needless to say, it was the first time I ever experienced an interactive film.

Rambo: First Blood Part 2:
Toward the end, a seething and teary eyed Rambo says, "what do I want?  For our country, to love US, as much as WE love IT. That's what I want."   Some guy in back of us yelled "about time too!" and the place erupted in cheers and applause.

Red Dawn: Patrick Swayze reminds Charle Sheen of the difference between "them and us" by slowly raising his antique .45 and saying, "because, we live here!!" and shoots the Russian soldier.  The audience cheered and one guy yelled "don't mess with the US!" and many cheered with him.

The 1968 Night Of The Living Dead (seen at midnight movie.) When Ben walks by the window and the zombie grabs at him, a group of girls behind me let out an ear-shattering set of screams that probably appointed them as the poster kids for hearing loss..

LOL! that's funny my wife did the same thing ... ehhh ... (so did I) :twirl:

While working as an usher I used to walk in on that part to see how the crowd reacted.  Sometimes there'd be tons of laughter, and other times gasps and exclamations of shock or disgust.  It was usually a mixture of all of those things.  Personally, I got a good sick laugh out of it!



Several years ago a local theater had a summer film series of Spielberg films and I went to see Jaws and the crowd then had the same reaction, although I'm sure we'd all seen the film many times before.



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Seeing Star Wars in the theater with fellow geeks was always fun but usually more fun before the movie.  People would be quoting films and having discussion of the utmost geekiness.  I always felt right at home. 

When I saw Halloween H20, there was a woman behind me that pulled the talking to the screen game.  I think she said "GET OUTTA THERE GIRL"  100x before the usher decided to pretend to care.

Full out applause and cheers when Rocky beat Drago at the end of Rocky IV.  Nothing brought out 80's applause like beating up some Commie!

Also during "I know what you did last summer" some random woman in the seat next to us got scared and grabbed my wife's knee during one scene  My wife screamed, then the woman screamed, and I laughed quite loudly.

I saw Freddy VS Jason in a really packed theatre in a part of St. Louis that is predominantly black.  That was pretty awesome, especially the reactions to the "Got your nose!" gag. 

Not quite to a movie, but I remember being quite moved one time when I was at a daytime screening of some film where many people in the audience were elderly, and the trailer to Pearl Harbor got quite a reaction.  Very memorable.

Friend of mine likes telling about the guy who, after the trailer for the original Pirates of the Caribbean, yelled out "Rated Arrrrr!".  Everyone in the audience groaned.

 :bouncegiggle: :bouncegiggle: Karma for that one!

When I was eleven, The Wild Geese was playing in my hometown cinema of Gwelo, Rhodesia. Roger Moore had a line something like "Where to now?" Richard Burton's reply was: "Rhodesia." The whole audience cheered.  :teddyr:

Hard to believe, but once upon a time JAWS on the big screen actually was scary. In the scene where they are throwing bait off the back of the boat and suddenly the shark appears and leaps onto the back of the boat, the entire theater jumped and a few people literally fell off their seats.

It's weird that I just saw the Harry Potter movie and can't remember the scene people are describing. The mind is going, I guess.

We saw Spiderman 3 in the theaters, and there was a scene where Evil Peter knocked down MJ. Somebody up front shouted "Oh no, he didn't!" and somehow it was perfect. The whole theater erupted in laughter.

One that stands out for me was seeing Star Trek 6 in the theatre. There was that moment when they forced the bird of prey to decloak and then blasted it to smithereens. The whole theatre erupted in a huge cheer. Funny thing was, we already knew something good was coming, because the people next door (where the movie started half an hour earlier) started cheering. This was before all the old downtown theatres disappeared where I grew up, when you could still find remnants of the first multiplexes, that were just sort of cobbled together from existing buildings. This one had two screens made by putting a paper-thin wall down the middle of one big theatre. It was interesting to hear both audiences having a virtually identical reaction to the movie.

Another one that was kind of interesting, in spite of being a chick flick, was when my girlfriend at the time convinced me to see Evita. When it got to the really sad part, the whole audience was silent, except for this faint, scattered symphony of sobs and sniffles and tissues being pulled from packages. Really, the only thing I remember about that movie was the audience reaction to Evita's death.

The same girl, when a bunch of us went to see The Relic, actually talked out loud to the characters. Can't remember the exact scene, but it was a really tense moment, one of those times you're sure something is going to pop out of somewhere. Suddenly, she blurts out "Don't open that door!" She realized what she'd done almost as she was doing it and clapped her hands over her mouth. It made a bunch of people jump, followed by laughter.

I remember lots of audience cheering during the original Star Wars films and 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'.

Probably the best audience reaction I ever witnessed was in 'The Exorcist III'. There was a shock in there from out of nowhere that had the audience screaming and jumping for at least a full 2 minutes. My friend and I just looked at one another in disbelief after our own initial jumping, it was surreal.

The part after Dumbledore and Harry retrieve the locket and the dead hand rises from the water to grab Harry's.  I'd say its one of the most perfectly timed scares in cinema history. 

I went to see Drag Me To Hell, and a guy puked up in the row front of me when an eyeball popped out of dessert. Everyone was like "Whoa, dude!"

A bit off topic; Am I the only one that thinks the TV Broadcast in the original Night of the Living dead is way too long? Seriously it's like 10 minutes.

-Jimmybob

I do not think I ever witnessed an audience enjoy a film more than when I saw Fright Night at Blue Ridge West Cinema

When I saw Superman 3,some people applauded(including me)when Superman beat his "evil half"

When I saw The Untouchables,it was obvious that the audience really cared about the characters(the ones on Nesses side)because when Sean Connerys character died it was obvious some were not happy.When the little balding guy in glasses died,some guy in the audience said"Ah,c'mon man!"

I don't know if it qualifies as a reaction,but when I saw Popeye,the theater was absolutely packed.I mean ALL of the seats were taken and some people were standing through the entire movie(in the very back).
I had not seen a theater that full before and have not since either.
It was also the only time that I went to the movies and the line of people waiting in line to buy a ticket stretched outside.

I had the same experience as Schmendrick.  Don't remember the scene at all, or rather, I remember it but I don't remember having any particular reaction to it.  I think some of us may just be immune to jump scares.

My most memorable audience reaction story came from seeing BOYZ IN THE HOOD in a packed theater in downtown Milwaukee.  There were five white people there, myself included.  Some members of the audience were cheering and laughing at the scenes of gang violence, exactly the opposite of the reaction the director intended.     
 

Ozzymandias speaks: My father had a similar experience when he was in the service in Tokyo. He went to see The Paleface. In one seen an indian shoots an arrow at Bob Hope. He picks up the arrow, looks at it and says (something like) "Oh great! This is Made in Japan." He said the audience cheered and clapped, even though it was supposed to be a slam.

I took several film classes at MSU (back when it was SMSU) in the late 80's. We watched Caberet in one of the larger classes. There is a scene where Liza Minellie keeps telling Micheal York about a guy named Max. She won't shut up about what all this guy can do. Finally Michael York says "Oh screw Max!" Liza says "I do." The class let out this groan of disappoinment toward Liza's character. Michael York looks mad for amoment then smiles and says "AND I DO TOO." The class lets out his "UGH!" in disgust and shock. It was like they felt sorry for him until they found out he was bi. Remember this was Missouri in the late 80's. MSU students are more PC now.

Ozzymandias has spoken!!!

One that I heard second-hand was a guy seeing Star Trek 6 for at least the second time. In that brief moment of silence between the opening credits and the explosion of the Klingon moon, this guy, doing his best Marvin the Martian, yells out "Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"

Me and my freind Nick,his sister Daphane,and her freind Tina went to see the SHINING way back when. Tina was pretty much in hystercs throughout the film-but the best part of the whole night came when Jack planted an axe in Mr.Halloren-Tina jumped out of her seat and ran screaming down the aisle into the lobby. She didn't come back-she sat in the lobby the rest of the film!  :cheers: THAT'S Entertainment!

Sin City

The early scene where Bruce Willis's character shot some guy in the D@#K.  One audience member cried out "OH S#$T!" Quite loudly and several times after that as well.

When I went to see Monty Pythons Meaning of Life,during the scene where John Cleeses character,along with his wife are going to demonstrate sexual intercourse to the students,my mom got up and left.
She went to one of the theaters and watched Tootsie.

I have two stories. One is just funny, and the other is both funny and unsettling.

In 1982, I saw "The Sword and the Sorcerer" w/ Lee Horsley, Robert Tessier, and Earl Maynard.

Somewhere in the film Morgan (Earl Maynard) calls out to Verdugo (Robert Tessier), the bald executioner: "What do you want, potatohead?" At this, half of the audience is now on the floor, rolling with laughter.

Now a short time later, Morgan coming up behind Verdugo, pushes Verdugo's face into a turning grindstone, and the blood goes spraying everywhere. At this, some wag in the audience yells out: "Hmmm! That looks good." At this the other half of the audience joins the first half on the floor, rolling with laughter.

In 1980, in Portland, Oregon, I saw "Zulu Dawn," which is the prequel to the better known "Zulu."

"Zulu Dawn" is about the battle of Isandlwana, in which the black Zulus defeated a British army. One of the worst defeats ever suffered by the British.

Whether it's because of the subject matter of the film, or because of the location of the theater, which was in downtown Portland, never before or since, have I seen so many Native Americans watching a movie.

Now, this is a stereotype, but it is true. Native Americans have a war whoop. It's a sound that whites can't recreate, but it's certainly something that whites recognize.

And whenever one of the black Zulus killed a white man in the film, the Native Americans in the film let out with this godawful war whoop. Which had the few whites in the audience, including myself, looking around to see what would happen next.

Now, it's just funny, but at the time, it was quite unsettling.