Movies are back — and disgusted audiences storming out too
Horror feels good in a place like this.
You’d be forgiven for wondering whether recent reports of audiences fleeing a new wave of horror movies— often due to fainting or vomiting — are among the latest indications of a movie business in peril.
Earlier this month, the distributor for “Terrifer 3,” the latest installment of Art the Clown’s murderous saga, revealed that one person vomited and eleven people walked out during a special UK film screening.
“If the #Terrifier3 event impacted you please let us know if you need more support at this time,” the company posted on X, formerly Twitter.
“Terrifier 3” AP
Another movie of the moment, “The Substance,” a body-horror flick about an aging aerobics-loving actress (Demi Moore) who takes a (you guessed it) substance to unlock an enhanced version of herself, has also inspired some pretty guttural reactions.
“‘The Substance’ is not for the faint of heart (during my viewing, several people walked out mid film), but is an instant cult classic,” one person reported on X. “You’ve been warned.”
“My date wouldn’t let me drive him home after ‘The Substance’ because ‘we haven’t been seeing each other long enough’ for him to throw up in front of me,” another shared.
Demi Moore in “The Substance.” Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
Margaret Qualley in “The Substance.” Courtesy Everett Collection
Sydney Sweeney’s nunsploitation movie, “Immaculate,” also left some queasy and quaking.
“I walked out of the theater absolutely BLINDSIDED at how hard the last five minutes went,” a self-identifying Sydney Sweeney fan said.
“During the final scene of ‘Immaculate,’ I’m pretty sure a girl in the front few rows of my screening threw up,” someone else posted.
Sydney Sweeney in a scene from the film “Immaculate.” AP
Despite the influx of stories about audiences exiting cinemas in horror, this year’s scary films aren’t heralding the death of the movie business; they’re signaling that the industry still has a heartbeat, thanks to the fresh blood being injected into its veins.
“These kinds of stories have cropped up forever,” horror author Paul Tremblay told The Post. “When ‘The Exorcist’ was first shown, people were fainting in the aisles.”
Tremblay, whose novel “The Cabin at the End of the World” was adapted into M. Night Shyamalan’s 2023 film, “Knock at the Cabin,” added that the gory flicks of today spurring audience exits often make callbacks to horror classics of the past that prompted similar reactions from viewers.
“The Exorcist” (1973) Courtesy Everett Collection
“The director of the ‘Terrifier’ movies would be the first to tell you that he’s really making homages to the super gory slasher films of the ’80s,” Tremblay shared. “If you go back and watch some of those, sure, the effects are better now, but the violence that was happening in those movies is really over the top.”
“It’s by no means the first time in history that people have walked out of horror movies,” Rebekah McKendry, a filmmaker, horror scholar and professor at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, explained.
“That same hype was built around ‘Hostel,’ ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre,’ ‘The Last House on the Left,’” she added. “I’m fairly sure that the filmmakers of both ‘The Substance’ and ‘Terrifier 3’ are kind of giddy inside that people are walking out because that was their aim – to push those buttons.”
“Terrifier 3” Courtesy Everett Collection
“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974) Courtesy Everett Collection
And button-pushing seems to be encouraging warm bodies to put their butts in movie theater seats.
“Terrifer 3” opened at No. 1 at the box office with a four-day total of $21.5 million, beating “Joker: Folie à Deux” and “Saturday Night.”
“The Substance” has defied expectations, raking in over $32 million worldwide and becoming upstart indie film distributor Mubi’s biggest release to date (Universal, the studio known in its early days for blockbuster horror flicks, passed on the film).
“Horror is keeping people in the theaters now a lot of times when, for instance, Marvel movies aren’t,” McKendry said.
Sydney Sweeney in “Immaculate.” Courtesy Everett Collection
As for horror’s particular box office draw, the genre’s power may have something to do with what makes seeing horror movies at the movies special.
“Horror movies still get people to the theater because there is that communal viewing experience that maybe is slightly different for a drama or maybe even a romantic comedy,” Tremblay suggested.
“A horror movie with a packed theater is definitely sort of a vibe, to use the young person’s term. It is so much fun to hear the reactions and just feel the energy.”
“Terrifier 3” Courtesy Everett Collection
And horror — in particular, overtly graphic horror — might speak to audiences more now because of the much-discussed “unprecedented times” we find ourselves living through.
“People find horror cathartic, and the more extreme it is, the more cathartic it can be,” McKendry explained.
She summed it up as, “Stuff sucks, but at the end of the day, I can go watch this absolutely heinous, gory, visceral horror film and walk out and somehow say, ‘Well, at least my head is still attached to my body,’ and walk away feeling awesome from it.”
“Any time throughout history we have had any type of mass national tragedy, within five years afterwards, horror will get hyper extreme,” McKendry added, nodding at the COVID pandemic.
“We need that death-defying rollercoaster, and it is always going to be hyper-violent, and it’s always going to be really, extremely gory.”
