The Ohio Sci-Fi and Horror Marathons

The Official Forum of the Ohio Sci-Fi and Horror Marathons
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 8:27 am

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 12 posts ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 5:06 pm 
Offline
Site Admin

Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2006 10:59 pm
Posts: 840
Location: Drexel North, circa 1993
Image
It's gotta be that cake, right?

So for those of you who can remember last fall (and I sympathize with those of you who can't), you'll recall that in the lead up to the historical explosion of terror that was the 666th Annual SHOCK AROUND THE CLOCK, I posed a weekly question/discussion starter to get things rolling here on Da Board. It was so much fun that I thought I'd continue it for SF32.

So here's this week's question (granted, it's Thursday already...but hey, next week will be earlier...I promise):

What single moment of your years (or year?) of Marathon going truly defines the event for you? If you had someone on the fence about attending their first Marathon, and had to single out one moment for the hard sell, what would it be?

This might be a bit tough, but it has to be a specific moment. So no mentions of just "the crowd" or "the trailers", etc. As usual, I'll post my answer a bit later. And no, it wasn't eating my piece of the 10th Anniversary cake. But boy, that's a tempting choice.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 12:24 pm 
Offline

Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2014 4:51 pm
Posts: 482
Location: Ohio
Joe Neff wrote:
What single moment of your years (or year?) of Marathon going truly defines the event for you? If you had someone on the fence about attending their first Marathon, and had to single out one moment for the hard sell, what would it be?


There are WAY to many to list them all but if I had to choose one I would say when the Crowd all yelled "AH AH" evertyime someone said "FLASH" during the FLASH GORDON Screening. That type of communal experience is why I am willng to pay $40.00 a ticket to come to the marathons instead of just watching the Blu-Rays alone at home.

_________________
"If you have GHOSTS you have Everything" - Papa Emeritus II GHOST B.C.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 1:20 am 
Offline

Joined: Sat May 13, 2006 12:54 am
Posts: 355
Location: Outskirts of Nowhere
1996. The Riffe Center. My first marathon, and I was wondering if it was going to be for me. Then, I don't remember the movie, but someone made a reference to Peter Gabriel's "Shock the Monkey". I laughed really, really hard.

I was hooked from then on. I was unable to attend 1997 for various reasons, but I always knew I would come back.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 6:57 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2006 9:21 pm
Posts: 906
Location: Phoenix, AZ
If I had to narrow it down to a single "moment" amongst dozens and dozens of memories over the years, I would make it one that I have written about on this forum before. My very first Marathon, way back in 1992 at the Drexel North, the near sell-out crowd gives the live accompanist for Metropolis a standing ovation. I knew this was something special, and I was hooked.

You flippantly mention eating a slice of the aforementioned cake, yet that was also a pretty special moment for me. Just so I am not repeating myself, I will say that a close runner-up to a defining moment was at the beginning of that 10th Marathon at the Riffe Center. It was a new venue, new rules (like ZERO food or beverage consumption allowed inside the auditorium!) and the seats were wildly uncomfortable. Yet when the opening moments of Alien began to unspool onto that giant makeshift white sheet of a movie screen, it was like a cozy warm blanket. The MARATHON truly earned it's name during the Riffe Center years, and I was in it for life.

_________________
Aliens? Us?
Is this one of your Earth "jokes?"


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 9:59 pm 
Offline
Site Admin

Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2006 10:59 pm
Posts: 840
Location: Drexel North, circa 1993
For me, it's all about the beach ball.

I wracked my brain trying to figure out a defining moment that wasn't so obvious, but really, THE moment that I would pitch to anyone if I was trying to convince them why the Marathon have been and continue to be so cool is when I first walked into the Drexel North in 1993.

As I've repeated ad nauseum over the years, I had known all about the Marathons since 1988, but always figured that I was too young to attend. (Years later, when telling this story to my mom, she told me that if I had wanted to go in 1988, one of my sisters probably could've taken me. AGH!) So my first Marathon, and first trip to the Drexel North, was SF7: IT CAME FROM THE DREXEL NORTH in 1993.

Since I was still just a mere film fan, my expectations hovered around the mild level. If it hadn't been for my best friend convincing me to go, I might have never attended a Marathon. So when I first stepped into the North's auditorium, it was as galvanizing an experience as I've had in this life. Vintage sci-fi music and radio spots were playing on the PA system. There were almost 800 people from all walks of life milling around. There was a palpable excitement in the air, like all of these audience members had been waiting a long time for this moment to happen again.

And there was the beach ball. A few minutes after we found our seats down front, someone started tossing a beach ball around the theater. My 16 year-old self had never experienced anyone doing this in a theater. It was so simple, so goofy....and yet, it was also the topper for the rest of this scene of unbridled group enthusiasm. I had found the home away from home that I never knew I had been looking for.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 8:14 am 
Offline

Joined: Mon May 27, 2013 1:16 pm
Posts: 14
1988 the first It Came From the Drexel North and my first marathon experience. Less than a year prior my Mom had passed away from cancer and I was just having a really hard time with everything. You see while she was sick and in the hospital I was given the video card and given free reign over renting whatever movies I wanted-and I did just that but I had always watched these movies alone. When I saw that the Drexel North was doing this I was so excited but I was only 15, so I begged my older brother to take me.... And he did. It was so exciting to know that we were going to be hanging out without any parents watching us, little did we know that we would have hundreds of "parents" watching us! I think Bruce said something like don't behave like your neighbors and everything would be fine! We went across the street and ate GD Ritzey's at a break and we watched all the movies I had been watching alone but now they took on a whole new life with an audience, they had come alive. I have been coming since but I will always remember and be thankful for this first one because I was able to escape all the pain that had surrounded my life for so long and enjoy some movies for those short 24 hours.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 11:44 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2014 8:14 pm
Posts: 84
Location: Columbus, OH
It's very hard to narrow down all my marathons to a single moment, and each one I focus on tends to be about the crowd and the community experience in a good way. So many things have happened over the years (including Ghost's reference to the crowd yelling "Ah-ha!" during FLASH GORDON).

One of these great moments happened several years ago while BURIAL GROUND (?) was shown. The creepy Twin Peaks dwarf child character showed up at a critical moment at the end, the crowd erupted in cheers. You rarely get that experience in a theater, even one that is packed, nowadays. So rarely are all the members of the audience so in sync with what's happening on the screen and emotionally invested. It's this community reaction and cohesion that makes me coming back, and now has me bringing my kids with me.

One other great moment from just this past horror marathon was the climax to YOU'RE NEXT. Let's just call it "the blender moment." It was my son's first horror marathon, and I was a little worried the content might be a bit too graphic for him. However, at the key point of "the blender moment," I looked over at him, and he was cheering along with the crowd. He totally fit into the marathon experience, and I could tell that he was bitten by the marathon bug. Anyone can watch most of these movies at home... but having people along with you to cheer at what's happening on screen cannot be duplicated outside of the marathon.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 12:17 pm 
Offline

Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2009 7:15 pm
Posts: 360
Location: Akron, OH
kevincarr wrote:
One other great moment from just this past horror marathon was the climax to YOU'RE NEXT. Let's just call it "the blender moment."


That, along with the climax of HOUSEBOUND, were two of the greatest crowd reaction moments for me. They made up for my second sci-fi marathon in 2009, when everyone was too tired by the end to yell "KHAAAAAN!!" along with Shatner.

Another great moment, although certainly not a fun one, came during PHANTASM at 2013's Shock Around the Clock. Someone in the audience (forget his name, but he wrote about it afterwards on this forum) started having a seizure or some sort of similar medical situation. Once it became clear what was going on, members of the audience and event organizers sprang into action, getting him to safety and calling for help. Obviously it would have been preferable if it hadn't happened at all, but in that moment I was struck by how helpful, concerned and compassionate everyone seemed to be to the situation. I thought that, if a similar thing had happened in a normal movie theater during a normal showing, everyone in the theater would have just sat around helplessly, wondering what was going on and afraid to get involved. Maybe I'm overly cynical about people elsewhere in the world, but that moment really made the Marathon crowd seem to me like a cohesive, supportive community.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun Mar 01, 2015 5:27 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Sat Dec 11, 2010 3:28 pm
Posts: 618
Location: Beautiful Cleveland, Ohio.
As a 3 year newbie at Columbus (plus 30 years at Cleveland) it's hard to define a specific moment.
stinky got it right when he described the reaction of the crowd to an emergency. People reacted as a community.
The community business is also true of Boston & Cleveland & something I've only seen at one other movie event. (That was a Fathom Doctor Who 50 Ann. show where everyone was burbling over with Doctor stories and the laughs & cheers were made in unison.)
So I guess if there was a notable moment it was my first Columbus Thon where first the announcements and then the contests defined a common crowd. The cheers and comments and reactions defined a something that went beyond a bunch of observers. I didn't need a crowd of people that I'd seen on and off for 30 years to feel that I was at home.

_________________
Thar’s only two possibilities: Thar is life out there in the universe which is smarter than we are, or we’re the most intelligent life in the universe. Either way, it’s a mighty sobering thought. - Walt Kelly


Last edited by pogo on Wed Mar 11, 2015 6:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun Mar 01, 2015 9:09 pm 
Offline

Joined: Wed Apr 05, 2006 12:23 pm
Posts: 527
The Tingler.

OMG, The Tingler.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2015 2:20 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Thu Nov 13, 2014 2:24 pm
Posts: 191
For me, the defining marathon moment is from a horror marathon a few years ago. We were watching "An American Werewolf In London", and when a song came on, people began clapping. I joined in and then probably everyone was clapping. That is something you just don't usually get (if at all) from watching a single movie at a movie theater that is not a special event.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 6:04 pm 
Offline

Joined: Sat Jan 13, 2007 5:49 am
Posts: 70
Location: Springfield OH
During The Apple, when the guy is singing some sad song while looking out a window, and our audience starts chanting "Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump ..."


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 12 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 27 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group