# Movies you've walked out on **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 20, 2006, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295 "2006-07-20T04:36:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/61 "2006-07-20T17:27:48Z")
> [@Alma](#): > > I do agree with you on this point. Both movies I walked out on I didn’t know anything about, Green Card being a date thing and we didn’t have anything else to do. It was so predictable, and didn’t seem worth another hour investment. > > I worked for a while as a cinema manager, and it shocked me how many people tried to get their money back on a film they didn’t even know anything about. We had descriptions for every film at the box office. I remember once a mother getting righteously indignant when I questioned why should would bring her tween child to see [**Novocaine**](http://imdb.com/title/tt0234354/), when it was rated R for a reason. She told me that it had Steve Martin in it, so it was supposed to be funny. > > We almost always gave people passes or their money back, but it bothered me a lot to think that people expected theaters to be arbiters of their tastes. Imagine the fits that would be thrown if the box office staff questioned patrons and made judgements on whether or not they would like the film. > > But that’s just my personal opinion and I never almost never strayed from the company’s policy of accomodation (gotta keep the guests happy). Except to one really obnoxious lady who every week got more passes for movies when she would see something all the way through and then tell us she hated it. I asked her if she would go to an art museum and demand a refund if she didn’t like some of the art. She told me yes, absolutely she would. I couldn’t argue with that and she got her passes. Aint working with the public grand? Anyway, though I won’t walk out of a movie, clearly lots of people do, so now I know it’s just a weird personal quirk of mine. I will never understand how someone can think of demanding their money back just because they don’t like the movie. What would ever make someone think that’s a reasonable thing to expect? ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/62 "2006-07-20T17:32:31Z")
**Mission to Mars** - I was feeling totally unmotivated one day, and I had a long incubation. I was going to be in the lab until 9:00 PM anyway, so I figured, what the hell, I’ll go see a movie in the afternoon and come back. **Mission to Mars** was showing when I arrived, so I bought the ticket, some popcorn, and settled in. Not long after the weightless ballroom dancing thing, I decided I just couldn’t take it anymore. I hear at some point later on Tim Robbins has to take his helmet off, and his head gets freeze-dried. I maybe should have stayed to see that, as any Tim Robbins death scene is almost worth the price of admission, but I’m not sure the cost:benefit of sitting through that suck-ass movie for the necessary additional duriation would have made the payoff of Tim Robbins shrunken head a good time investment. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/63 "2006-07-20T17:40:12Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > I’m wondering how so many people ended up at movies that were so bad you couldn’t bear to watch another minute. Motion sickness inducing camera work I can understand, but do you usually go to movies with absolutely no idea what the the film is about? An American Werewolf in London was gory? No kidding? A John Waters movie offensive? Neveh! Generally I try not to make up my mind about movies _before I see them_. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been pleasantly surprised by entertaining bits in otherwise mediocre-to-dreadful movies such as **LXG** , **Congo** , **Judge Dredd** ,\* or, more recently, **Superman Returns**. I don’t see where anybody has claimed that they had \*absolutely no idea \* that \*\*An American Werewolf in London \*\* was going to be gory, or that John Waters movies can be offensive; instead, they walked out because they felt the films were _excessively_ gory and/or offensive, which is a matter of personal taste and hard to gauge from reviews. **AWiL** had a much higher gore level than almost any other mainstream monster movie, or indeed any non-slasher horror movie, up to that time. If someone went into it expecting a conventional werewolf film with updated effects, I can certainly understand them being taken by surprise. \*\*The Butterfly Effect \*\* (at least the part I saw) was significantly less gory than **AWiL** , yet I walked out of it because I felt its violence was wholly inappropriate to the premise, a poor attempt to produce artificial tension in the absence of skillful scripting and direction. I’ll sit through dumb, and I’ll sit through ugly, but I will not sit through dumb _and_ ugly. \*\* _Although my brain insists stubbornly that_\* Judge Dredd \*\* was actually a _good_ movie. I have no explanation for this. \*\*Except for **Congo.** But hey, it had lasers vs. killer apes. ---
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/64 "2006-07-20T17:46:04Z")
> [@Terrifel](#): > > **The Incredible Mr. Limpet** , starring the incomparable Don Knotts. Funny; I also saw this movie at about that age, and I thought the idea of spontaneous piscification was just about the coolest thing ever. I seem to recall spending a lot of time at the kiddie pool after that, waiting to become animated. You were obviously a much cooler five year old than I was. Great, another damn issue of inadequacy to deal with with my therapist. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/65 "2006-07-20T17:56:09Z")
> [@SuaSponte](#): > > You were obviously a much cooler five year old than I was. Nah, I’m just a freak, I assure you. My earlier defense of \*\*An American Werewolf in London \*\* derives from the fact that I’ve probably seen it more than any other movie. I just seem to have a peculiar affection for the idea of people turning into critters, I guess. If you get the chance to ask your therapist what this means, I’d appreciate it. > [@terrifel](#): > > I’ll sit through dumb, and I’ll sit through ugly, but I will not sit through dumb and ugly. Speaking of dumb and ugly, I just recalled another film I walked out of… although calling it a “film” may be an abuse of the term. I guess I have to admit that I did have absolutely no idea what **House of the Dead** was about. I’d been under the impression that it was some sort of zombie movie. Instead, of course, it was a Uwe Boll production-- a stand-alone category of which I was not previously aware. I left right after I was certain that the video-game excerpts were actually occurring on screen, and not just some sort of strange seizure I was having. ---
**Author:** ![Godfrey\_Daniels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Godfrey\_Daniels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Godfrey_Daniels)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/66 "2006-07-20T18:12:35Z")
Last Days. Horrid, pretentious, mind-numbingly boring. If I was “Blake” in this movie, it wouldn’t have taken me near as long to pull the trigger. ---
**Author:** ![Alma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Alma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alma)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/67 "2006-07-20T18:38:38Z")
> [@Terrifel](#): > > (snip) instead, they walked out because they felt the films were _excessively_ gory and/or offensive, which is a matter of personal taste and hard to gauge from reviews. I can totally understand walking out of a movie that was completely or disturbingly different from what you were expecting. I think a lot of movie commercials are deliberately misleading. What I just don’t get is people (and I don’t believe that that’s anybody in this thread) who just don’t even bother looking at the rating or the content. I saw a whole lot of that while working, and I don’t know why you wouldn’t at least check to see if it’s appropriate for children before dragging them into it. Like who on earth would bring a child to a David Lynch movie? That king of behavior seems Homer Simpson-esque, and it frightens me that people actually act that way. I think this is a kind of hijack, so I’ll stop with that now, even though my despair at our dumbed-down and blandly safe culture could fill pages. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/68 "2006-07-20T18:40:51Z")
I walked out of a free showing of _The Bill Chill_. Bar none, the MOST boring twenty minutes of film I’ve ever sat through. My girlfriend insisted that we leave five minutes before the ending of _Silence of the Lambs_. She was a psych major, and was completely creeped out. That’s pretty much it. ---
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/69 "2006-07-20T18:44:31Z")
My then-girlfriend and I walked out on **Eight-Legged Freaks** after about 30 minutes into the movie. Biggest waste of sixteen collars ever! ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/70 "2006-07-20T18:50:13Z")
It wasn’t exactly walking out, but I was loaned a copy of Napoleon Dynamite and I couldn’t watch the whole thing. I didn’t see it in theaters because it looked dumb, but everyone I work with kept saying, “It’s so great, you should see it!” and such, so I borrowed someone’s copy of the movie. I turned it off when Napoleon is trying to feed a llama ham. I had not laughed once and thought to myself, “I am not going to waste another second of my time trying to figure out why someone thinks this movie is funny.” ---
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/71 "2006-07-20T19:01:50Z")
Sixteen dollars, dammit, _DOLLARS!_ :smack: (So much for spell check). ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/72 "2006-07-20T19:53:30Z")
I would have walked out on **The Forgotten** if I had been alone. I don’t know if this counts, but I fell asleep in the theater during **Good Night, and Good Luck**. ---
**Author:** ![brossa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brossa/32/3040_2.png) [@brossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brossa)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/73 "2006-07-20T19:55:22Z")
I knew going in that Pink Flamingos was going to be gross and tasteless. I think that ‘gross and tasteless’ can also be funny, or tragic, or advance the plot, or _something_. It occurred to me fairly early in the movie that Waters was daring me to walk out of the movie by piling grossness on grossness without purpose, other than to offend. It then occurred to me that if I stayed through the whole thing, did that mean that I had won or lost? I must say that I have a grudging respect for Waters in this regard, in that he very effectively set up a lose-lose scenario for the viewer. Even though I didn’t sit through the whole thing, it kept me thinking for a good while. ---
**Author:** ![mamboman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecb155/32.png) [@mamboman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mamboman)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/74 "2006-07-20T20:25:04Z")
I’m almost ashamed to say this, but the only film I have ever walked out of is _Full Metal Jacket_. I so did not get it (at the time). Seems odd I grew up to be, like, a Kubrick groupie. I cannot believe, however the OP walked out on _Twister_. Even Bill Paxton is tolerable when enough of Helen Hunt’s luminous lovlieness is onscreen 🙂 mm ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/75 "2006-07-20T20:34:16Z")
> [@Terrifel](#): > > Somehow, somewhere, I’d been given the impression that\*\* The Butterfly Effect \*\* would be an interesting and intelligent time travel-paradox movie. I walked out right around the point where the dog is about to be burned alive a second time. WOW! I walked out during this scene too! …and I didn’t even try to sneak into another movie either, instead!! :o ---
**Author:** ![Elza\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Elza\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elza_B)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/76 "2006-07-20T20:45:27Z")
I walked out of _Philadelphia_. Not because it was a bad movie, but because my godfather had died of AIDS just a few months before, and I couldn’t take it - I walked out of the theatre sobbing and couldn’t go back in. There are a lot of movies I _wish_ I had walked out of, but didn’t. E. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/77 "2006-07-20T21:27:45Z")
My date and I left about 15 minutes before the end of Goodfellas when we both realized that we didn’t care how it ended. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/78 "2006-07-20T22:46:01Z")
Never walked out. But I should have, when viewing **A Sound of Thunder** –total and utter crap, and again during **The New World** –so boring, so stultifying. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/79 "2006-07-20T23:32:52Z")
Wow!! I just remembered!! I walked out of this movie too and didn’t remember. What got me was the futuristic cars on the highway, or should I say, futuristic car that was duplicated several times via special effects to give the impression of traffic. Geesh, they didn’t even bother to change the color!! ---
**Author:** ![cruel\_butterfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5daacb/32.png) [@cruel\_butterfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cruel_butterfly)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2006, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295/80 "2006-07-21T00:15:51Z")
I’ve never walked out of any movie. Granted, as I’ve gotten older, I tend to go to the theater less and less often. Having a widescreen TV and surround sound at home makes a sticky, noisy theater unappealing. There are movies I wish I hadn’t sat through, and there are movies during which I mentally “walked out”: **The Godfather** -fell asleep **Scarface** -found many excuses to get up and go to another room **The 40-year-old Virgin** -fell asleep **Saw II** -found myself very disappointed that the clock didn’t display on the DVD player during the movie **Gothika** -fell asleep [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-walked-out-on/365295.md?page=5)