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Sometimes life is bitter, but sometimes it’s really sweet. This weekend the Associated Press reported that an audience of parents and children at a multiplex in Holtsville, New York, were expecting to see The Last Mimzy, a gentle, PG-rated fantasy in the Spielberg tradition, but instead got a face full of The Hills Have Eyes 2, an R-rated sequel to the gruesome 2006 hit about cannibalistic mutants in the New Mexico desert. “There were kids that were crying, there were people trying to cover the kids’ eyes,” reported one audience member. The movie opens with a woman in chains giving birth to a deformed child, which left at least one little moviegoer traumatized. “My wife is eight months pregnant,” his father told the AP, “and he’s been asking, ‘Is that what mommy’s going to have?’”
Then, when we’ve finished with the multiplexes, we infiltrate the art houses. We apologize for the inconvenience, but this afternoon’s screening of A Man Escaped will be replaced by Chained Heat. Of course you’ve always wanted to see Black Narcissus, but tough luck—tonight we’re screening Black Sunday. And we understand that you’ve cleared your entire day to experience the seven-hour Satantango, but to spice it up a little we’re going to slip in a few reels from Blood on Satan’s Claw and Tango & Cash.
