How The Audience Can Make Or Break A Film

Posted on Monday February 13, 2012, 15:07 by Helen O'Hara in Empire States

My parents went to see The Woman In Black this weekend, and learned something about the importance of the audience you see a film with. You see, that Friday screening was full of teenage girls who had (we're guessing here) grown up watching Daniel Radcliffe play Harry Potter and had gone to his new film on that basis. And it's fair to say that they were not prepared for a scary film. There were screams. There were groups of teenage girls running out of the cinema at particularly traumatic points. There was, essentially, audience participation in the form of involuntary reactions. And the question is, what do we all think of that?

Now I'd argue that people screaming in a horror movie can go either way. It can add to the jump scares, emphasising the unsettling effect of whatever's happening onscreen. Or it can, especially in the case of screams that seem like a total overreaction, puncture the tension completely, getting the rest of the audience laughing instead of cowering. Which is, generally, not so good.

In some action films, short of actual disruption I'd argue that you can get away with quite a bit. Chris Hewitt and I have been known to act up a little in the, er, less pretentious sort of action film. It's possible that there was nudging and giggling during 2012, and there was definitely high-fiving during Fast And Furious 5.

Come to think of it, it's possible we were disruptive in both of those. Um. Ooops. Sorry, neighbours.

In dramas, one should probably aim to maintain a respectful silence, unlike a certain friend of mine who once broke into an insane fit of very LOUD giggles during the really emotional bit of Prince Of Tides and set the entire cinema off. While that might arguably be the correct response to Prince Of Tides, for cynics at least, it seems a little hard-hearted. The problem comes in cases like this, where the reaction doesn't depend on the film  but is determined by a small group of audience members instead. Then suddenly your drama is a comedy, and your comedy is just an irritation.

But this indefinable atmosphere is all something that critics have to be aware of because it can affect us significantly. Sometimes the audience participation, or lack thereof, can hugely change the impact of the film. Those who saw Mamma Mia! at the packed and boisterious multimedia screening enjoyed it much more than I did after seeing it at a quiet lunchtime showing. It can be very difficult to have a good time at a silly comedy or actioner when surrounded by serious cineastes who maintain a deathly silence that somehow still manages to convey their disapproval at every turn. And while studios sometimes try to stack the decks by inviting demographics that they think will enjoy a film to critic's screenings, there's really no way to determine the outcome in advance; beer might help, but it can also make things worse if the film doesn't hit the spot.

We are all social animals, and acutely aware of each other in all but the most absorbing situations. Unless your film is great (in which case, no worries) the audience can determine its effect to a considerable degree, magnifying its successes or flaws exponentially. It's part of the reason we all get so angry at idiots who deliberately act up in the audience, because they pull us away from the emotional state we're trying to reach. And it's the reason that a really good cinema experience is so very great (Fellowship Of The Ring, midnight on opening night in December 2001). When it happens and you're all swept away together, it's a tiny bit magic.

I'm still not sure that actually walking out is the best response to the scary bits in Woman In Black, though.