So recently I went to see the new My Bloody Valentine in 3D, because, in the tradition of any good horror movie, I expected to see lots of blood and breasts, but this time popping out of the screen and invading my personal space. I got to the theater and found out that the film was playing, but it was not in 3D.Hollywood's imagination is becoming narrower by the day. A 3D film is simple enough, and not even that is universal. Once, there was a time when film makers would try to turn the experience of watching a movie into something truly strange, something radically separate from everyday reality.
One of the most creative of these artists was William Castle, whose "Fright Break" in his 1961 film Homicidal was used to great effect by Gaspar Noé in his Seul Contre Tous. This was a ticking 45 second timer superimposed onto the image during the film's final scene, in which we approached a house containing the killer. The audience was informed by a voiceover that if they were too scared to watch the ending, they could leave and get a refund. This was advertised in the trailer, which explained that if you weren't able to handle the ending, you would have to sign a "Coward's Certificate," and that you would have to make sure not give the ending away to your friends, or William Castle would kill you. This didn't stop about 1% of patrons from demanding refunds. John Waters, a careful student of Castle, describes the results (quoted in the informative Wikipedia entry):
William Castle simply went nuts. He came up with "Coward's Corner," a yellow cardboard booth, manned by a bewildered theater employee in the lobby. When the Fright Break was announced, and you found that you couldn't take it anymore, you had to leave your seat and, in front of the entire audience, follow yellow footsteps up the aisle, bathed in a yellow light. Before you reached Coward's Corner, you crossed yellow lines with the stenciled message: "Cowards Keep Walking." You passed a nurse (in a yellow uniform?...I wonder), who would offer a blood-pressure test. All the while a recording was blaring, "'Watch the chicken! Watch him shiver in Coward's Corner'!" As the audience howled, you had to go through one final indignity -- at Coward's Corner you were forced to sign a yellow card stating, 'I am a bona fide coward.' Very, very few were masochistic enough to endure this. The one percent refund dribbled away to a zero percent, and I'm sure that in many cities a plant had to be paid to go through this torture. No wonder theater owners balked at booking a William Castle film. It was all just too damn complicated.Other excellent gimmicks are described in the entry here. Let's demand that contemporary filmmakers bring some of this back—along, hopefully, with Smell-O-Vision.
