Monday night, October 26, I went to see the original Halloween at South Bay Cinema in West Babylon. John Carpenter’s 1978 classic, on a big screen, in October. That should be one of the small pleasures of the season.
After I sat down, a couple in their late twenties walked in. They had a two-year-old with them. They took seats right in the middle of the theater.
A two-year-old. At Halloween.
What Happened
The child talked through the entire movie. It got bad enough that other people in the theater yelled at the parents.
I went out to the concession stand and complained. I told them there was a toddler in the theater and the movie was being spoiled.
They did nothing.
The Kid Did Nothing Wrong
Let me be clear. None of this is on the child. A two-year-old talks. A two-year-old doesn’t sit quietly in a dark room for an hour and a half. That isn’t bad behavior. That’s being two.
The Parents
The parents are another story.
Halloween has sex scenes. It has grotesque violence. It’s been famous for almost fifty years. Nobody wanders into it by accident.
These two looked at that movie, looked at their toddler, and decided it was a fine night out. Then they sat in the middle of a room full of strangers and let the child talk while those strangers yelled at them. That isn’t a parenting slip. It’s a choice, and everyone else in that room paid for it.
South Bay Cinema
Then there’s the theater.
A paying customer walked out of a movie to report a problem happening in their theater at that moment. That’s about the easiest call a theater gets. Go in and deal with it.
Instead, nothing changed. The talking went on. The movie stayed spoiled for everyone who paid to watch it.
Part of what you buy with a ticket is a room where you can actually watch the film. A theater that won’t protect that is just selling chairs in the dark.
The Bigger Problem
Here’s the thing. That toddler isn’t really the story. The toddler is a symptom.
Somewhere along the way, a lot of people stopped treating a movie theater as a shared space. You keep quiet. You think about the people around you. You don’t make your night everyone else’s problem. If your situation doesn’t fit the room, you stay home or you get a sitter.
That used to be understood. It isn’t anymore.
I’ll keep going to the movies. But I’m done pretending this is normal. And South Bay Cinema should decide whether it’s running a theater or just a ticket counter.