One of the main reasons that I virtually never go to the ordinary cinemas any more – and I’m not alone in this – is because people in the audience won’t shut the fuck up. This is also why serious movie goers don’t go any more, and why box offices are losing money year on year.
Whether it’s fiddling about on their phone, with its screen illuminating and flickering in the darkness giving distraction from the movie, or carrying on a conversation and ‘messing about’ with their mates, the art of sitting still and getting immersed in the movie seems to escape them.
These people use the cinema (or theatre) as if it’s a pub they’ve come to sit in, as if it’s a place for a good chinwag, catch-up and conversation. They treat a cinema as if it’s a place for socialising.
Urgh! … It is not!
These people are so ignorant that when asked to ‘please be quiet‘ they will take offence and act as if they’ve in some way been severely wronged. They are the generation that refuse to take responsibility for their actions and rather than apologise and shut up, or even just shut up, just get louder and more annoying.
I mean, nobody minds people who interact with the movie. Laughing out loud at a funny bit, or screaming at a scary bit, or even cheering or applauding, are all interactions with the movie. Even turning to a person sitting next to them and quietly whispering, “What did he say?” when a piece of dialogue isn’t too clear is completely acceptable (as long as it’s not every 30 seconds).
It’s all the activity that has nothing to do with the movie that is the problem.
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| (Wot no chloroform?) |
So, it was with some amusement that I heard about ‘Cinema Ninjas‘.
Operating inside London’s Prince Charles Cinema, there’s a small team of ‘Cinema Ninjas‘. Dressed from head to toe in black, they will creep up upon offenders without being seen.
Once they reach them they will stab the annoying bastards with a needle coated with a toxic poison that instantly kills them.
Huh. I wish.
It doesn’t kill them, it just sends the annoying bastards to sleep for the rest of the movie, giving the rest of us a bit of peace.
Sigh. I wish that too.
No, in truth, all they can do is ask them to shut the fuck up, which, apparently, they do reasonably effectively.
Personally, I’d much prefer the killing the annoying bastards option, or grudgingly, the tranquillising them for the movie duration option, but apparently all of that is illegal.
But, what a brilliant idea. I hope it soon gets copied across to other cinemas, especially those in and around Liverpool. I miss the option of just going to the cinema, rather than having to rent the entire auditorium to allow for an unhindered private showing of my movie of choice.
I love the idea of ‘Cinema Ninjas‘ getting those annoying bastards to shut the fuck up so that I can once again get to enjoy the movie in a public cinema.

