There are certain rules that need to be followed at a movie theater to ensure that the feature presentation is enjoyable for everyone. Don't prop your feet up on the seat in front of you, step out of the theater if you need to use your phone, and above all else, don't talk during the movie. One woman at a Colorado theater recently asked some of her fellow patrons to stop breaking that last rule and causing other disruptions, and she received a fractured nose, a black eye and several scratches as a result.
Last Thursday night, Melissa Piper caught a movie at the Century 16 Belmar Theater in Lakewood, Colorado, but at the beginning of her screening, three people in her row were acting "extremely over dramatic" by climbing on top of their seats and on top of each other. As Piper told Inside Edition, she first politely asked her row-mates to quiet down, and when they go louder, Piper then yelled at them to "shush." Eventually the obnoxious attendees shut up once a security guard entered the theater, but one of the trio retaliated against Piper as she walked to her car after the movie concluded. Piper explained:
I heard screaming behind me. I turned around and this girl was on top of me. She was just screaming. She punched me in the face and my glasses came off. She kept hitting me and all I think is 'I can't hit a child so I tried to grab her and hold her away from me.'
Eventually this girl ran off, and understandably, Melissa Piper was shocked that someone would react so violently, though she hoped that the girl is able to find some help. The Lakewood police are now investigating the assault and looking at the security footage from that night.
The fact that this girl and her friends were acting so obnoxiously is ridiculous. If a child were behaving this way, that would be grounds for their parents taking them out of the theater immediately, so you would think that someone older, even a teenager, would have moved past that level of immaturity. The attack on Piper, on the other hand, is downright abhorrent, so here's hoping that the police can track down the attacker and bring her to justice. That being said, this isn't the biggest altercation to occur in and around a movie theater setting recently. Last month, a brawl broke out in the United Kingdom as a screening of the Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor fight wrapped up.
You can look through our 2017 and 2018 movie premiere guides to see what's being released in theaters over the next year. Just remember that in your future theater trips, stay quiet during your screenings, if only as a sign of common decency.
