Vuvuzelas in a movie theater isn’t normal, but in Amsterdam, it is.
The Night of Terror is a long-running tradition as a part of Imagine Film Festival, the Amsterdam’s own Fantastic Film Festival. The idea behind the event is simple: the organizers screen four horror films during one night, in the most beautiful film theater in Europe, Pathé Tuschinski.
The trick is, that the audience is expected to participate by shouting, commenting and screaming. In addition to this, people bring horns – vuvuzelas, among others – toilet paper rolls, light sticks and other loud and/or throwable items with them, to color the screenings even more.
The rules are simple: if there’s a man on the screen – any man – everyone shouts “HOMO!”. If there’s a woman on the screen – any woman – everyone shouts “HOER!” (Whore”). And whenever anything remarkable happens – like someone is killed, people scream and shout as loud as they can. And during the the rest of the times, commenting by the means of animalistic screaming is more than welcome.
I know we missed most of the content, given that commenting happens in Dutch, but the vibe was certainly there. I don’t think we’ve laughed more in a movie theater since we saw Dead Snow (Død Snø, 2009), but it’s good to know that the films are far from such quality acts. The film we saw (we only lasted through one film, to be honest) was called Husk (2011), which was a big steaming pile of mid-budget horror crap. But the film was brought suddenly alive, when there was a full house of screaming people around you. As a cherry on top, as Pulp Fiction has already taught you:
So I assume the party gets harder as the night progresses.
We slipped out of Tuschinski after the first film, no matter how much fun we had, we were completely beat, and I had a seminar the next morning and I didn’t want to be completely offline.
If you are in Amsterdam during Imagine Film Festival, don’t hesitate to get your tickets for the The Night of Terror. It’s definitely worth it, one-of-a-kind experience. But I do feel bad for the director who I heard wasn’t aware of the name of the game here, and left the Night of Terror screening extremely disappointed, because “people couldn’t hear his film”.
The hordes of people waiting for the second screening to begin.
Never been to the NoT, (this year was even my first visit to Imagine)
but watching some YouTube videos (like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNgR5skPTtY&feature=related)
I can say that the Dutch comments don’t need much translation when you don’t understand Dutch, but many things come down to ”There must be a penis into that”, referring football clubs, ”telling” the characters what to do, screaming the names of diseases, like ”cancer” and ”phthisis” etc.
But it’s not my cup of tea, I would have a very hard time participating in this madness, I’m no alcohol drinker and my morals and values would withhold me either. (not that I don’t cuss or whatsoever, but going crazy like this for hours? That’s a bridge too far IMHO.)
Btw, ever though of making your own ”Vuvurensola”? Would bring a unique Finnish sound to all those standard noise-making instruments.
But luckily (almost) everyone can tell apart the NoT from the normal Imagine festival, so I have nothing to complain, only the NoT isn’t my cup of tea.
Can’t wait for your report about the rest of the festival and your (first?) experiences in Amsterdam.
Hopefully Iron Sky + fan party on Imagine next year, can’t wait!
Cool info indeed. My mother has been searching for this content.