Hallowe’en is coming. And for the first time since 2019 it is a Hallowe’en capable of having hijinks be plotted for it. Great! And yet…
The Lighthouse is showing The Shining and The Thing on the big screen over the Hallowe’en Bank Holiday Weekend. I am interested to see both on the big screen. Interested, but not enthused. I still find the return to normality while COVID still swirls about … unnerving. Especially as my private fear with which I have freaked out numerous people remains a twindemic of a nasty flu season coupled with a resurgence of COVID in a new variation that combines the original’s lethality with Omicron’s transmissibility, forcing everyone to stay indoors just as a second Beast from the East descends upon us that stays for weeks not days this time round, and rolling blackouts plunge us into teeth-chattering frozen hell. But I digress.
As much as I find the universal pretence that COVID is done weird, I am also wary of cinema audiences for another reason. 2018’s 40th anniversary screening of Halloween at the Lighthouse. Sure, I can think of films that were pretty miserable viewing experiences for me; Crawl, The Monk; but usually that was one or two people going out of their way to be obnoxious. 2018 was the first time I was party to an entire cinema going out of its way to be obnoxious. And feeling very old, and also very disconnected from the baffling attitude on display. Which leads me to think that by studying English at college, I was part of a bubble. One that may not exist any longer, even within that rarefied field.
Talking Movies 