By Phil Nobile Jr.
A big part of the horror community is the experience of seeing movies on or around the same day as everyone else, and being part of the collective conversation that happens around those movies. Good or bad, love them or hate them, the way a horror release can dominate a cultural conversation is fascinating. It’s hard to impress on anyone under 35 how wild it is to see hundreds or even thousands of people talking about the same horror movie for a week or so. It’s a very special thing and it’s, historically speaking, relatively recent.
And I almost never get to join in!
Take
Obsession, Curry Barker’s excellent new film, covered both
online and in the
current issue of Fango, and
reviewed on our site. It’s a special moment in the genre, out of which the horror crowd is making an absolute meal. But my magazine duties mean I saw it many months ago, and as a result I don’t currently have the same fervor as someone who emerged from multiplexes absolutely vibrating last weekend. I’m in a different place by now, and I kind of have to miss out on the moment.
Now, this can also happen with early fest screenings, but at least in those cases one can hit the lobby bar and talk about the movie with the people who also just saw it. My advance screenings, of movies that won’t be out for months, are usually something closer to what end-stage Elvis Presley did, rolling into an empty theater at 9AM to screen the film in solitude. I promise I am NOT complaining; seeing movies ahead of time allows me to get my head around how we’ll cover that movie, and I loathe watching a link on my laptop. Also? No one texting or talking! No one doing anything! I’ve discussed this perk before; gimme that Elvis experience every time.
At the same time, I have no one to talk about the movie with upon exiting the theater, which is an essential part of moviegoing. My friend Scott Wampler was always down to answer my phone call and have unreleased movies totally spoiled for him — he kinda loved it, honestly — but he died, leaving me no one with which to blab, save a curious publicist who’s looking to blurb-ify my reaction. I wanna blab, not blurb! Besides, I once confided in a publicist that I didn’t love the movie that was screened for me, and though Fango’s coverage was ample and positive, my opinion got back to the filmmaker, who never spoke to me again. A thankless endeavor!
I don’t have any real thesis here, just clocking how this job has actually changed the way I’m able to enjoy movies. That sounds like an obvious thing to say, but the small ways the gig impacts my own cinephilia sometimes surprises me. As another example: There are movies whose PR teams are such a challenge to navigate that, in the process of covering it, I lose all enthusiasm for the title and just never bother watching it, or sometimes I’ll apathetically ingest it on streaming, causing me to once more miss out on that community-wide conversation. The sacrifices I make for you, dear reader!
Conversely, when I feel the love for a project radiating off everyone involved in the film, that energy is often contagious, and I’m that much more likely to go out and spread the gospel of that creative work. I’m not sure if that makes me someone to rely on for new release movie recs, but if their love is real, my feelings are authentic in turn, and those are the days I live for at this job. Listen, I know my place; I’m a cog in a machine. But sometimes the machine can be all right, and there’s usually no good reason for it to be anything less.
