Editorials
Stop Being A Victim; You Can Stop Cell Phone Use In Theaters!
As Denis Leary once said, “Happiness comes in small doses folks.”
He was referring to a cookie or something else incredibly insignificant in your life that brings great pleasure. Next to basketball, the one thing that makes me happier than a pig in mud is being able to see a movie in a theater, with an audience, and a giant bucket of popcorn pressed between my legs (enjoy that metaphor). It’s the rare hour and a half I get to escape from the real world, and immerse myself in someone else’s fantasy. It keeps me focused in the director’s world that they’ve created, and forces me to shut down technology without having any urges to hit the pause button to check an e-mail. I AM FOCUSED; that is until someone else gives into their urges and pops on their cell phone…
I constantly hear and read about new “ideas” to solve the problem. But there’s only one way to eradicate cell phone use in theaters, and that’s with ZERO TOLERANCE.
Please read forth to see how you can help make a change. I urge you to take a few minutes out of your day to help. One voice gets lost in the woods, but an assault of requests can’t be ignored.
Stopping the use of cell phones in theaters is easy. Theaters and managers will acknowledge the problem; they’ll say they’re working on it, but ultimately, theaters are afraid that they’ll LOSE customers by kicking them out if the theater. Instead, they expect us to compromise our own safety by asking the offender in a pitch-black theater to please refrain from texting, checking e-mail, or surfing Instagram.
Using a cell phone in a theater is a disturbance; just like a drunk fan at a sporting event is a disturbance. On the back of tickets it states that the venue has the right to refuse the admittance to any guest and can eject them without a refund. By accepting the ticket, it’s a contract between the ticket seller and the buyer.
This means that theaters can eject a guest without any legal ramifications.
So why doesn’t this happen? My theory is that the theaters are afraid that if they eject a disruptive guest, that patron won’t return to “spend money” in the future. From my perspective, the theaters are going to lose their “good” customers – you know, people who actually want to see the movie – for the younger generation of kids who are solely at theaters for the social experience, as opposed to actually seeing a movie.
Without any repercussions – such as immediate ejection without a refund – the theaters are non-verbally communicating to these bad eggs that it’s “OK” to use their cell phone in a theater.
Theaters need to utilize negative reinforcement and adopt a ZERO TOLERANCE policy for the use of cell phones in theaters. If caught, patrons are ejected immediately. I guarantee they’ll never do that again in that theater, and word will spread rapidly of the theater’s strong stance.
I could go on and on about the issue, but really, there’s nothing to discuss. I could tell you stories, but you’ve experienced them on your own. Something needs to happen, someone needs to take a stand, and as a movie-going community we can make a difference.
HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO in very easy steps (and I urge you to have your friends also participate).
1: Tweet to your favorite theater chain and nicely express your frustration with cell phone use in theaters. Offer the ZERO TOLERANCE solution. Let them know this is the only way to effective eradicate the problem.
Here are some major chains to get you started: @Marcus_Theatres, @AMCTheatres, @ArcLightCinemas, @CineplexMovies, @RegalMovies, @LandmarkLTC, @ravemovies, @LaemmleTheatres.
2: If this bothers you as much as it does I, you may also call your local theaters, ask for the managers and nicely express the same sentiments. ZERO TOLERANCE.
3: Take it a step further and visit the websites of theater chains and contact the main company. Express your frustration nicely.
– Marcus Theaters
– AMC Theaters
– Arclight Cinemas
– Cineplex Movies
– Regal Movies
– Landmark Theaters
– Rave Motion Pictures
– Goodrich Quality Theaters
– Laemmle Theaters
4: VERY IMPORTANT: If you are in a theater and have this problem, DO NOT approach the individual. Walk out of the theater, speak civilly to the theater MANAGER, and ask him to remove the problem. When the movie is over, request a FREE MOVIE TICKET for your troubles, and make it clear that they’re going to lose you as a customer if things don’t change.
I think it is extremely important to make our voices heard – without voicing your complaints, the theaters think there’s no problem. We must show them there’s serious concern. I love the ease of VOD, but at the end of the day I am a movie fan who loves to experience film in theaters. I want the fun to return to cinemas. I’m sick and tired of feeling anxiety in my sanctuary.
Here’s a great article posted at Dark of the Matinee that lit the fire under my ass to post this.
(*In the comment section, please tell me any twitter handles or company links I may have missed.)
Watch a bunch of Alamo Drafthouse PSA videos that play before every feature:
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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