Bogleech.com's 2013 Horror Write-off:
"NOW! IN THEATERS NEAREST TO YOU"
Submitted by Glumdrop
I really was hyped up to see this movie. It's probably not even very good, but it doesn't matter- I can't HEAR it with all the disgusting slurping and gulping and licking and lip-smacking all around me. I know movie food is bad but, this stuff.. Most of it is just meaty goo poured into buns and buckets.. Is there even popcorn under there? They just came in with trays and trays of this crap. They're not even looking at the goddamn screen, they're just shoveling slop into their mouths. I can even hear seams ripping and buttons popping in the dark. These people are pigs!Maybe it isn't them, maybe it's the fact that every other frame of the movie seems to be subliminal messaging. I just noticed it somehow- Cut from Keira Knightley's face to a tray of pretzel-ish things sitting in pink oil and back again. Then before the next line is even finished, cut again to a bowl of white blobs being drizzled in something black. They go by so fast and yet I see every one clearly. And they move. In the fraction of a second in which they go by, they move. There's just something really, really shadey about the whole movie house, I'm definitely not coming back.
Then the movie just stops! It freezes, halfway through, and these little dancing cartoon food-things parade across the screen. I didn't think they still made these kind of ads. But it isn't just an ad, they must have been edited in! The animation is crude at best, the song is both grating and badly written (Seriously, English is clearly not the writers' first language), and meanwhile we're graced with more pictures of nauseating "food" stuff. And subtitles, I guess we're supposed to sing along somehow! What language is that? By the end it's descended into the food-things screaming "GET TO LOBBY! GET TO LOBBY!". Good God, is there a fire?
And yet, it works. Everyone is going to the lobby, practically trampling my feet as I'm the only one who doesn't jump up. I've never seen a theatre clear out so fast... I'm done, I'm out of here and I'm taking the back door of the theatre to avoid the crowd and their treats.
Fuck...
Fuck, fuck.
Something is waiting on the other side. This tall, tube shaped, featureless thing, brown and white with flecks of green... It stands there on its tiny legs, arms swinging limply at its sides. At first it does nothing- until I try to move past it, and its body begins to split down the middle.
I run back. I don't stop when I lose a shoe to the thick melted candy and gum.. I hope that's what it is.. covering the floor. I burst out of the theatre's entrance. The other moviegoers are returning en-mass already, and I have to fight my way through the ever-softening, flabby crowd. They don't care when I push them or kick them, they're busy. Eating. When it spills all over them they lick it off, each other and themselves.
After the free horror show I'm alone in the lobby. I turn back and look into the theatre. If the thing is following me maybe it got trampled.. but I don't see it. Wait..The movie is starting over?
The hidden messages are gone- Now there's product placement IN THE MOVIE. The fucking actors are going about their business, same lines, same scenes, with the addition of them constantly eating this.. No, it's not food!! It isn't even close!! But they're biting into it between lines, the extras are constantly snacking in the background, they carry bags with them during the action scenes! And they're changing, slowly, horribly.. Still saying their lines as normal until they can't speak anymore. Chris Pine's bloated, featureless head keeps mumbling the script even as it cracks open to reveal...!!!
This has to be a prank. A sick, elaborate prank, and I'm going to find the manager.
I turn back to the front doors. It's dark outside. I remember coming here at the crack of dawn to avoid the lines! How long have we been here? How many times did they stop the show just to make us eat this shit?!?
Something drips on me, warm and slimy. I look up at the enormous, fleshy worm hanging from the ceiling, staring at me with the organic equivalent of plastic googly-eyes. I barely dodge it as it leaps down upon me, watching it turn and undulate like a horrible meat-serpent. Why does it reek of old grease..?
Which is when the other thing bursts out of the theatre. The worm stops pursuing me, turning toward the other creature, which rips itself wide open. The "worm" nestles comfortably in its bun, eyes at the top. For the first time I notice the little old-fashioned usher hat it wears. The hotdog man walks on its spindly, sausage-link limbs like a poorly controlled puppet, shambling towards the counter for a bottle of mustard.
Enjoy, I think. This is my chance! But as I turn to run my feet stay still. The filthy theatre carpet is bleeding bubblegum! The more I struggle the deeper I sink into the swamp as it hardens, becomes flavorless.
The hotdog thing wobbles over slowly, giving the bottle a vigorous shake. I can barely move, much less fight..
The creature takes the mustard and writes "BRANCH MANGLER" down its slimy body. No, it wipes some off, writes.. "MANAGER". oh, good... and it's a chain on top of everything else..
Then it draws a big, goofy smile beneath its cartoonish eyes.. It reaches into its bun, relish globs rolling out, for two free movie tickets to tuck in my shirt pocket. And finally, since I must still look upset, it draws a big mustard smile on me. It nods, approving of its own work.
Well. Thanks for cheering me up, before your eyeballs puff up and explode with boiling fat, and before you rip your skin open to shove handfulls of your own rotten, meaty innards down my throat when I try to scream.
It's... it's so good.. it's ok to
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.....Yet my last thought- my last sane, coherent, stupid thought- is that I really prefer burgers.