Fan Rant: Ask Your Parent's Remission

by William Goss Nov 3rd 2008 // 4:41PM

Filed under: Horror, Thrillers, Mystery & Suspense, The Weinstein Co., Fan Rant



Of all the showings, of all the movies, of all the days, of all the theaters, of all the towns in all the world -- she walks into mine. Maybe six years old, dragging a jacket and followed close by her probable brother (I'd say around twelve). They come in and sit beside who appears to be their oldest brother (eighteen perhaps?) and their mother, who continues to text and talk away through the movie they already missed nearly an hour of.

And they're all sitting a row away from me.

I'll spare you the specific circumstances which led to my attendance of last night's 5:25 PM showing of Eden Lake at the Muvico Starlight 20 on the outskirts of Tampa; suffice it to say, I knew that I could and thus should make my way to this one of ten theaters in North America able to spare a screen for a week and help the Weinstein Company fulfill whatever contractual obligation has them to doing this time and time again through their Third Rail arm.

So, anyway, I get there twenty minutes early and come to find myself joined by maybe a dozen other people in all -- impressive, given that the film has no trailer, no stars (so to speak), no local reviews anyway, and just so happens to be playing in B.F.E., Fla. A good forty minutes after the film has begun, however, do we find ourselves joined by the mother and oldest brother, and shortly thereafter the other two kids.

I tried to wrap my head around it. Could they have not waited for the 6:40 High School Musical 3, or could they not have been equally late to the 5:35 The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D? (Right, that would've cost extra -- almost as much as a babysitter.) Even without a proper rating description on it, did this woman honestly see a poster with a big, fat blurb that said "terrifying thriller" and decide that was just the ticket for her and hers? Was Saw V sold out? Had the prospect of a movie with the word Porno in the title frightened them all right into something a bit more suitable, like graphic violence done by and to teens and tweens alike (characters all too eager to drop the f-bomb, it should be noted)?

So they sat there, as did I. It was bad enough that she alone was discourteous to myself and others at any movie, worse yet that she happened to stumble into something available on so very few screens for genre fans to get out and enjoy (as opposed to the likes of Molly Hartley). Even worse yet was that her daughter was audible in her discomfort, asking all sorts of why's and receiving a mother's shaking head in reply. She said "I'm scared" at one point, and it simply failed to kick in that maybe she shouldn't be subjecting a young child to this brutality.

I wasn't going to call her out on poor parenting in public, but one thing, one big, selfish thing kept me from fetching a manager: the movie was good. Hell, I thought it was quite good at what it set out to do (for an age-appropriate audience), and because I had purchased a ticket and because I wasn't about to stick around for the next showing out of hopes for filling in what I missed, I remained seated. I hushed the mother once as she spoke to her oldest son -- trying to fill in the forty minutes that they missed, I presumed -- yet that only worked temporarily.

Finally, the lights came up, and I exited down the same hallway as this group. Mom and 18YO were behind me; 6YO and 12YO were bounding before me. As the young girl ran from wall to wall, unaware of the likes of me, her older brother turned and called out her name. She looked up at me, and I turned around to look at her mother -- not to say anything, but just to see if she was even paying attention. She had glanced up from digging through her purse with an expression not wholly unlike her daughter's: one not of concern, but rather utter naïveté.

This woman may have (barely) ruined a movie-going experience for me, but I can only stand to wonder what she may have ruined for that little girl.

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Tags: eden lake, EdenLake, featured, kelly reilly, KellyReilly, michael fassbender, MichaelFassbender, parenting, third rail, ThirdRail, thomas turgoose, ThomasTurgoose

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