Best Audience Reactions

[keminet]

When Attack of the Clones came out a huge group of people had a party before hand. I was invited and we were told to cosplay (I was a Leia) and we watched all the movies while MST-ing them... There's a trend in Phantom Menace of little!Anakin yelling "Yippee!" at random parts.

Well, we'd seen the previews of the "He's holding me back!" moment, and when we reached that part in the movie about two rows of us yelled, "Yippee!" And the rest of the theater got really involved in it, and any dramatic parts after that with Anakin were punctuated with a "Yippee!" xD

[i luv dolma]

This thread was started last year. Wow. How did it come back, I don't know.


But I'll contribute something again. SEED OF CHUCKY's trailer, right before KILL BILL VOLUME TWO was the biggest reaction I've ever seen. Makes me want to run out and make intentionally bad films. Not saying that SEED will suck...

[MeAndMyMeatCleaver]

Ellie wrote:

> When I went to a midnight showing of "The Rocky Horror Picture
> Show". The audience participated in a big way. People were
> dressed as characters in the movie. I couldn't hear the movie
> because the audience was telling it word for word. Even with
> all that commotion halfway through I fell asleep. I couldn't
> believe how much of a following that this wierd movie had.

Now Rocky is where it's at.
The cast and audience is the key to the screening of Rocky.

I perform in TWO shadowcasts in South Carolina. F5 in Easley, www.farleyflavors.com and Back Row Productions in Charleston (www.backrow.org).  I play Brad for BRP and fillin for F5.
Shadowcast being a cast of folks who dress the characters and act out the show infront of the playing movie.  We add jokes and make it more fun and funnier.

The Callback lines from the audience add the whole extra layer.  Characters reacting and the audience reacting to that.  Running gags, and such.  Most theatres have a basic set they all say - but often at my own shows and seeing others I hear new lines all the time.

I highly recommend that EVERYONE sees RHPS in theatres in this way at least once. It should be required.  This link is a constantly updated list of all theatres in the US who play RHPS, whether weekly, monthly, or yearly: http://www.towson.edu/~lwood/theater.html

[Fluffy Catfood]

Damn, Americans are weird when it comes to movies. In Australia nobody claps or cheers or anything like that at the movies, the only thing the audience responds to out loud is if its funny or maybe super scary. That would p**s me right off if people gave a standing ovation to some cheesy line from a movie. I prefer absolute silence. Is it true that people were clapping and cheering during independance day? The only time I had to put up with that sort of thing was during the Phantom Menace, it drove me nuts. I bet after that movie they all thought to themselves "Why the hell were we cheering that movie?"

[trekgeezer]

In the Two Towers when Gollum is having the conversation with himself, the people behind us were laughing at first.  Then  as  the scene starts getting creepier  (when you realize he is actually dangerous)  the nervousness started creeping into their laughing  and then turns to stunned silence.

Many years ago my wife and I were watching the movie Arthur (Dudley Moore) when a drunk  who had obviously been watching the  movie( one of the Friday the 13th's I think)  in the othe theatre stumbles in yelling  "Has he killed the kid yet? ". After he yelled this a couple of time, he started calling a friends name, then he looks at the screen and realizes  he's in the wrong theatre .

[petrol lunatic]

During Gothika, my friend screamed "eww, that's nasty!" when they first showed Halle Berry's husband in it (for people who are confused about that, the guy was really fat, and it didn't seem possible for him to end up with her)

[chrysalis!]

well manos' audience was pritty cool... they all started laughing and making jokes so the crew had to sneak out of the cinema... SIGH i wish i was there... probably to make fun too :P damn that movie is horrible :P a well deserved action from the croud !

[Bgrade]

That 15 seconds of godizalla standing in the ruins is one of my favorite signal images of all time. It made me weep.  

The rest of the movie was reasonable.

I went the monday after opening weekend and it was just my 3 friends an two other people.

[Susan]

this topic comes up every so often. Same movies. Schindlers list: the most unique audience reaction ever, silence and every single person sitting through the entire credits.

Sleepwalkers - i think alot of people had high expectations for this movie for some reason, i remember I did. After the incest and very hokey storyline and moans and groans ensued...people began to lighten up and take it for what it was worth, a b-movie and were in uproarious laughter by the time the sherrif was geting stabbed in the back with a corncob

[Eirik]

"I'm definitely in the camp that views audiences as an integral part of the movie-going experience."

Some bad movies beg for interaction and that's great, but I am generally in the camp that thinks if the audience keeps its mouth shut, I'm happy.  

One thing really did crack me up watching the movie (Reese Witherspoon and Buffy the Vampire Slayer - remake of Dangerous Liasons).  In one scene Buffy is kissing another good-looking girl in Central Park.  This teenage kid behind me says loudly and sincerely  "This is the best movie I have ever seen in my entire life."  His delivery was perfect - the whole audience was laughing well into the next scene.

[BoyScoutKevin]

The best audience reactions come in, when the theater is full, and I have not been to too many of those. The films I see are usually not the "popular" ones, and when I do see a "popular" movie, it is usually sometime after the film has opened, so the audience is usually somewhat sparse by that time. But, one audience reacrtion I do remember . . .

1982. "The Sword and the Sorcerer." Robert Tessier is playing a bald executioner named Verdugo, and Earl Maynard is playing a prisioner named Morgan. At one point in the film Tessier says something and Maynard replies: "What do you want, Potatohead?"  At this, half of the audience is ROTFL, which sets up what happens next. As Maynard shortly thereafter pushes Tessier's face into a moving grindstone, so the blood goes spraying, some guy in the audience yells out: "Hmmm!!! That looks good!" Which sends the other half of the audience into ROTFL!

Another one is from an even earlier time . . .

1979. I take the Greyhound bus from where I live into downtown Portland, Oregon to see a film called "Zulu Dawn," which is about the battle of Isandlwana between the blacks and the whites in South Africa in 1879.  Now whether it was the subject of the film and/or the location of the multiplex, never before or since have I seen so many Native Americans in the theater.  And this is not a stereotype, Native Americans have a war whoop, which cannot be described by most white men, but, you'll recognize it when you hear it. So, anytime any of the whites in the film would be killed by any of the blacks in the film, all the Native Americans in the theater would let out with a loud war whoop. As one of the few whites watching the film . . . Strange, but interesting.

I just wish there were more.

[kriegerg69]

....EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC (which I happen to really like). The audience was reacting every way but they way the SHOULD have reacted. Personally, I was getting into the film at the time, and some reactions were p**sing me off.

[Mofo Rising]

> "I'm definitely in the camp that views audiences as an integral
> part of the movie-going experience."


I didn't mean that in the way that I want people to be shouting witty (or non-witty) comments at the screen.  More just the immediate reaction people have while watching a movie they really enjoy (or really not enjoy).  For instance, a theater full of people laughing hysterically generally makes a comedy better.  Or the gasps and jumps from people in a suspense/horror audience.  Just the common experience of sitting in a theater with people and watching a movie.

I brought the subject up because it seems that so many people focus on the negative aspects of an audience.  Or they just want to be able to ignore the audience as much as possible.  I've had good and bad audience experiences, and when the audience is good it's usually a memorable occasion.

[JohnL]

>One thing really did crack me up watching the movie (Reese Witherspoon and
>Buffy the Vampire Slayer - remake of Dangerous Liasons). In one scene Buffy is
>kissing another good-looking girl in Central Park.

Cruel Intentions, Sarah Michelle Gellar french kissing Selma Blair.

[Eirik]

"For instance, a theater full of people laughing hysterically generally makes a comedy better. Or the gasps and jumps from people in a suspense/horror audience."

That's true.  I think a loud audience reaction (either laughing, or screaming) is actually kind of liberating...  it allows you to laugh louder or scream or groan without worrying that the rest of the audience is disturbed or thinks you're weird.  Good point.