News reports indicate a some incidents occurred where moviegoers go into convulsions during a scene replete with flashing visuals in “Twilight: Breaking Dawn–Part One.”
These apparently spontaneous attacks of jitters call to mind publicity stunts for pure horror films in the 1950s that promised over-the-top frights. This week’s episodes with the “Twilight” audience, which apparently are spontaneous, will probably help box office by stoking curiosity.
The latest installment of the “Twilight” movies series, which is distributed by Summit Entertainment, is doing huge box office amid weak critical reviews. Critics say that the vampire romance movie that has a big following by the teenage female audience is a bloated mess.
Regarding illnesses, a California man went into convulsions during a violent birthing scene in the movie. A news story in the UK-newspaper The Guardian says that the man later said that “he only attended the screening to placate his girlfriend. He has no plans to revisit the movie to see how it ends.” The girlfriend and hundreds of thousands of others are fine with the movie. A Utah man also had some sort of nervous attack during the movie, according to news reports.
Several reports on internet movie sites show reports of other people suffering similar symptoms during the same scene, which contains flashes of red, black and white. A medical expert is quoted that the incidents might be photosensitive epilepsy.
Meanwhile, promising over-the-top scares made for big box office in the 1950s. Famous horror film impresario William Castle, in a calculated publicity stunt, promised to cover each moviegoer who saw his film “Macabre” with a then sizable $1,000 life insurance policy. To collect, they had to die in the theater—presumably of fright.
Promoters of other movies promised to have medical staff on call in the lobby or emit warning sounds to alert moviegoers to look away from the screen, which probably only served to focus their attention on the movie.
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