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A moviegoer passed out last night during a midnight screening of the genre film V/H/S. EMTs came, say sources close to the film. I’m told the guy who passed out–during the first particularly gruesome scene–was embarrassed and didn’t want to leave but was encouraged to by his girlfriend. He returned to meet the film’s directors, Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, and Radio Silence. Another moviegoer was apparently treated for nausea 20 minutes later. This is the second festival in a row where a hard-edged horror film caused moviegoers to faint. At Toronto, two audience members passed out during The Incident, a hardcore horror film about three struggling musicians who moonlight as cooks in a high security insane asylum, only to see the cells open during a storm. One person fainted when one of the cooks was tied to a stove top and burned alive. The film sold for distribution right after to IFC Midnight. While these reactions are not desirable for films in other categories–though I’ll never forget when the New York Film Festival premiere of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction was temporarily halted when a moviegoer fainted after John Travolta plunged an adrenaline needle into Uma Thurman’s chest–I wonder if this is going to become the Good Housekeeping seal for festival midnight horror films looking for distribution deals. V/H/S is about a group of misfits hired by an unknown third party to burglarize a desolate house to acquire a rare VHS tape, and discover more found footage than they bargained for.
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What a stellar culture we have – instant sale when your film is so sick and revolting someone passes out. Rome at the beginning of the end…
You really don’t need to be so uptight. Inducing laughter is fine, tears is fine, but somehow inducing horror is perverse? Maybe you should save your disregard for creatively bankrupt schlock like the Kardashian circus…
You sound simple and angry, so I’ll keep it short and sweet.
The point Al was making is that it’s not hard to be gross. The directors/writers aren’t scaring anyone with this kind of schlock and that’s what horror movies are suppose to do. Scare people. These things just gross people out.
That’s NOT difficult. We can all stop and think up some terrible and disgusting things to do to the human body ( HumanCentipede, anyone?). We don’t need to actually film it. Unfortunately that’s common practice in horror genre nowadays.
Now making the hair stand up on the back of your neck. THAT takes talent.
I’ll remain brief and doubtful that the fainter didn’t just take a dive for a couple of bucks and 15 min. of fame. The Exorcist, Jaws and Psycho had substance and undeniable plausability to keep your heart and brain in the director’s grip. This glove don’t fit ’cause it’s way small, so I’ll acquit on grounds of delusion of grandeur.
You forgot to add, “Get off my lawn, you dang kids!”
You do realize that people passed out watching Psycho, The Exorcist, and Jaws — just to name a few all-time great films — right? Sometimes a visceral reaction to the movie is a sign that it did what it intended to do.
The sky’s never falling as bad as you think it is.
Let’s not forget people passed out when the first footage of train was shown pulling into a station from the bystander’s POV. They ran from the theater in terror in fact.
We’ve come a long way, but the human mind can still be tricked by the magic of cinema.
So the syringe scene in Pulp Fiction was “sick and revolting”?
As has been explained many times (for Sundance anyway), the high altitude coupled with the fact that people often neglect proper eating (or eating at all) while standing in long lines in the cold is the reason for passing out when they get excited – i.e. something that a horror film should do. Perhaps if Sundance programmed some actually funny comedies then we’d hear stories about people passing out at those too. Luckily they stick with an endless barrage of “30something slacker finds themselves at crossroads, returns to hometown, encounters several quirky weirdos, learns lesson” “comedies” that only produce mild chuckles.
You also need to add that half the people at the midnight showings are drunk off their asses.
Don’t be too quick to judge: movies/plays can trigger a psycho-physiological condition called “vasovagal response” that causes a person to faint because the heart slows down/blood pressure drops and causes loss of oxygen to the brain, thereby inducing fainting.
The triggers are different for different people, but my husband has these episodes. He has fainted at a few movies & plays with physical trauma scenes involving realistic hospital procedures – the needle in Uma Thurman could do it – or body trauma, like a hand or fingers being hacked off. He fainted at the finger-hacking scene of “The Piano,” and during the crucifixion in “The Last Temptation of Christ” because they were extremely realistic to him. He wasn’t drunk, it wasn’t a stunt, EMS has been called, and he was embarrassed when he regained consciousness. You can’t foretell what will trigger an episode, but, obviously, we have to be careful about what movies he can go to…
Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary[3] describes this as the “feeling of impending death” caused by expansion of the aorta, drawing blood from the head and upper body. Among people with vasovagal episodes, the episodes are typically recurrent, usually happening when the person is exposed to a specific trigger.
V/H/S was genuinely scary. Just sayin’…
I agree. While the right to free expression is very important, I think that the push to reach ever greater extremes to produce more gripping art that makes large amounts of money must be recognized as a factor that gradually changes us as people through desensitization. If we can watch a man being cooked alive without passing out or even being affected, what is to motivate us to stop violence in the real world when we see it? After all, the brain really does not make much distinction between real and imagined experiences, and do we really want to practice being numb to the suffering of others?
Oh calm down, Al. I can’t believe you just equated horror films to the fall of Rome.
I heard he was suffering from ‘exhaustion’.
BEAT ME TO IT!!!
Well done, Alibi!!
PUBLICITY. STUNT.
Agreed.
Yeah, that was my first thought too.
If people passing out or getting sick is the ticket to getting your movie distributed, then there’s suddenly going to be a LOT of people getting sick at extreme-horror genre screenings. There are a lot of unemployed actors out there who could use a few bucks just for “passing out” at a screening.
I almost passed out during the hospital scene in Born on the 4th of July. Pretty amazing how movies can impact you.
Amen to that. I still remember that scene vividly and I only saw it the one time. “Is that my bone?”
Sounds like a clever publicity stunt. William Castle must be a consultant.
and if you believe this, i have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
this is a page out of Eli Roth’s old playbook.
sorry Ti. gotta come up with something new, bud.
This is why the torture porn industry should receive an NC-17 rating. I’d rather my kids see a naked woman than a man burned alive.
I passed out during Red Lights. (Actually, I fell asleep.)
I passed out during THE TREE OF LIFE, no one seemed to care though.
I recall someone passing out during “Benji”.
I passed out during the Jack and Jill preview. I was truly horrified.
I tried really hard to pass out during the Jack and Jill preview but failed. It was worse than horrifying.
Wait! Why so many directors???
It’s an anthology.
That must be the guy that fainted at one of Obama’s speeches in 2008 on the campaign trail. Now they just puke.
I threw up during Seth Rogan’s “Green Hornet”.
Come to think of it I throw up at ANYTHING he does.
While the torture-porn genre serves a purpose, I admit I’m baffled at what it can be. I choose not to watch this stuff, not because it scares me, but because it’s easy to show people being butchered, but much harder to write a creative story, direct it with style and substance and scare an audience by NOT showing the gruesome detail. Someone brought up Psycho, which scared without showing the gore. John Carpenter’s original Halloween did the same thing. I do require a hell of lot from my movies, but I’m willing, from time to time, see a stupid one (though never will be an Adam Sandler film or a Twilight one). Still, I’m more of the belief that writing is the crux of any movie, and a director can enhance it by use of creative filming. but showing someone burned alive on a stove is just gore for gore’s sake. And that’s bad film making.
I assume, many will disagree.
ITA. I love horror films, but I don’t watch torture porn, the last one I watched was Hostel, and I said never again.
It didn’t scare me, it made me sick and angry, and I don’t find that entertaining.
I would also add The Ring/Ringu to your list.
This movie was awesome. I was at the midnight premiere. It was scary and unique.
I passed out reading this post.
altitude, attitude, cognac & cocaine.
I was there. it was quite gruesome and gory, and I totally see how some folks would not be able to handle it. The effects were all very real. It was a fun film. A tad too long, but totally worth the night tremors that followed.
every time a horror movie is for sale the publicist/producer says someone passed out, it’s becoming ridiculous, have them die, blow up, throw up on the cast, something a little more original next time please!
Like Fred said, gotta come up with something new right…? Because nobody’s talking about this. Try a google search. Who needs original when you have effective?
Can anyone say Altitude Sickness + partying and/or skiing and/or seeing a bunch of films all day might just put someone over the edge at midnight and not because of anything else?
I mean, really…
I went to the premiere of Antichrist a few years back at the Toronto International Film festival and during an intense scene a guy puked on the person in front of him.
Brian, you nailed it. If that Sundance “comedy” has music by Grizzly Bear as well, I too will pass out.
I fainted during the Home Alone trailer. . . And i was not even watching it.. This movie sucks. Anyone can create horror movie scenes. Just play creepy music and stay on the scene 5 min and freak everyone 1 out.