Worst Date Movie Experience?

“Do you have a friend who could go with Mary?”

So begins the process, where one becomes a part of a double-date. Kenny and “Taurus” were a couple, Kenny had literary aspirations and Taurus was a true free-spirit. Taurus had a long-time friend, Mary, she thought she might be a good match for one of Kenny’s friends: me. It was early fall, not yet really cold at night and with dusk around 7:30 it was possible to go to a drive-in theater and catch a double feature and still have time for some other “fun” after the show.

Or something like that.

I thought movies in the late sixties were pretty much uniformly bad, unless they were European or directed by Stanley Kubrick. Kenny liked horror movies, but since he was driving and we were going “Dutch” I didn’t care what we saw. The idea of a good “date movie” still hadn’t gelled in my brain, and Kenny’s choice of films was probably not the best either.

The first film was Count Yorga, Vampire, a “modern” vampire film. Set in L. A. in 1969, it had originally been intended as a porn-film, but the producers evidently though they would more successful if they cut out the x-rated footage and aimed it at the horror market. It was creepy enough, with a pretty good Count, but all the other actors (and the sets) were from the porn circuit, lending it an unmistakable odor of degenerate despair. Extremely violent scenes of rape and gore (one involving a cat!) kind of killed any light banter the four of us might have started in the car. The ending was “modern” as well- THE VAMPIRES WON!

The second film, while not as existentially bleak as Yorga, was just as depraved, with a large dose of cultural bias added as well. Brides of Blood has been described as one of the “crown jewels of Filipino horror films.” An American scientist and his curvaceous assistant travel to a remote South Pacific Island to study a lost culture which has a ritual of sacrificing female virgins to a horrid monster. The drums would start, the girls would be tied to a stake and the monster would come and ravage and dismember his helpless (and topless) victims. This film also had another gimmick: Bloodvision. Whenever the monster's appearance was imminent, the filmstock would be colored red. I cannot remember how it ended, or if we even stayed to the end. The show wasn’t quite over, though. Kenny had evidently taken some type of mind-altering substance between features and when we were driving home he suffered some kind of minor freak-out at an empty railroad crossing.

Needless to say, Mary and I didn’t hit it off. Kenny and Taurus broke up soon after, Kenny married on the rebound, divorced and ultimately made up to Taurus and they have been happily married for many years.

LESSON: None than I can see, other than the obvious one. A good date movie makes you both laugh, makes you both happy, and makes you both feel better about yourselves, and life in general. And then you might get lucky.

The next date movie I went to was A Clockwork Orange.

How about your bad date-movie experiences?

 

Off topic slightly...

Going to a movie is not a good idea for a first date.
Interaction on a first date is essential. Being stuffed in a seat in a crowded environment where you're supposed to be quiet defeats this.

 

Enjoyed your story, thanks for sharing.

The one I recall is when we were first married and amorous, we were vacationing in a romantic city and for some reason thought it would be fun to see Deep Throat.
Walked out by mutual agreement after the fist few minutes. Sheesh. What a buzz kill.

I do recall certain drive-ins were the dumping ground of the movie distribution business in those years.
Teens needed any excuse to get out of the house and into cars together, regardless of what was showing.

There was a lot of junk, especially at drive-ins, but I saw plenty I enjoyed at the time and have seen multiple times.

1967
Bonnie and Clyde
Cool Hand Luke
The Graduate
The Taming of the Shrew
The Trip
You Only Live Twice

1968
Barbarella
I Love You Alice B Toklas
Rosemary's Baby
The Thomas Crown Affair
Romeo & Juliet
Wild in the Streets

1969
Alice's Restaurant
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
Easy Rider
Goodbye Columbus
The Illustrated Man
Midnight Cowboy

 

I took a girl to see Thelma & Louise in June, 1991, soon after it was released. Afterward, she decided a second date was impossible because we disagreed on the ending.
At least that was the reason she gave me.

 

What was the disagreement?
I ask because I had a disagreement with someone once about this movie too.
She thought it was possible Thelma and Louise survived at the end because we didn't actuall 'see' them die. She said the car could have landed on a slope and they could have driven away.

 

The movie on your list I really enjoyed was Barbarella, a European production. That’s probably not a good date movie either.
American movies did get a lot better in the 70s…

 

I thought the two deciding to die by driving off a cliff was far-fetched, especially since the killing of the rapist could have been sold as self defense. The ending was too much of a downer. She thought it was the only appropriate ending after all they had been through.

 

Didn't you know? People go to the movies now to have entire conversations out loud with each other through the whole movie (wish I was joking).

 

Took a beautiful young woman I'd been dating to see Blue Velvet by David Lynch.

I thought it was a brilliant film and began effusively praising it as we walked away from the theater.

As I did so, my date's face darkened and then she slapped me across the face.

I was stunned.

What? Didn't care for the movie?

Needless to say, that relationship didn't work out. LOL

Bill

 

I worked with a guy who dated the same girl for years. Then they broke up. A few months later he finds out that her dad had hung himself in the family's garage.

Not long after that, he tells me is going to call her that weekend and see if she is up for a movie. On Monday, I ask him how it went.

Awful, he says. The film they went to was Pirates of the Caribbean, which he said opened with a shot of a dead pirate hanging from a noose.

 

Took a girl to see Sixteen Candles at a drive-in. Never got to watch the movie. What a waste of ten bucks.

 

Better date movies in bold typeface.

1967
Bonnie and Clyde
Cool Hand Luke
The Graduate
The Taming of the Shrew
The Trip
You Only Live Twice

1968
Barbarella
I Love You Alice B Toklas
Rosemary's Baby
The Thomas Crown Affair
Romeo & Juliet
Wild in the Streets

1969
Alice's Restaurant *
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
Easy Rider. **
Goodbye Columbus ***
The Illustrated Man
Midnight Cowboy ****

* great if date tokes and listens to folk
** great if date tokes and into hard rock
*** great if date is Jewish
**** great if date is gay

 

As mentioned by @Wildest cat from montana a date movie is a terrible concept but one that has unfortunately persevered.

The only 2 date movie experiences I've had weren't great.

1. Can't remember whose choice it was to see that specific movie or maybe it's because there was nothing else out that was interesting at the time but I brought a girl to see the 1st Magadascar movie. Seeing as how it was a CGI movie and Dreamworks was a studio going head-to-head with Pixar which had only produced amazing films thus far, we both assumed it'd be very good. It was utterly awful, a movie perfectly made for the most extreme advanced cases of ADHD possible! Jumpcuts every 1 to 2 seconds, it was *quite* exhausting to watch this. Add the so-called comedy aimed at 6-year olds and it was no picnic sitting through that. I was really disappointed in it while she was getting angrier at how horrible it was as the movie went on. We white knuckled it through. The movie was so horrible and had such an unfortunate impact that there were no positive vibes left by the end of it and therefore no 2nd date.

2. A friend tried to match me with a friend who was nice enough. We double-dated this one, the 1st Borne Identity. Not my choice but I went along with it. Again, it was horrible. Shaky cam galore and the most cliché-filled plot. All the girl could talk about after leaving the theater was how hot Matt Damon was which of course made me feel awesome. There was no 2nd date.

 

Or to apparently catch up on the 457 text messages they have not yet resolved. I have had a few people sit near me and text for basically the entire movie, even after a few other patrons have politely asked them to please shut off the bright phone.

 

When I was a teenager, I regularly paid admission to the drive-in for a lot of movies I never watched!

 

I went with my then-girlfriend to see Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2. It didn't cause us to break up or anything. Neither of us enjoyed it, but she was still a bit unhappy that I chose to take her to that particular film.

And yes, I know there are people out there who liked it, but I have chosen never to re-watch it in all of the years since.

 

My girlfriend ( now wife of 402 years) and I went on a movie date to see the new "King Kong" with Kurt Russell and Jessica Lange. About 10 minutes in a peculiar smell was wafting about the theater, after 2 minutes someone yelled "FIRE". Everyone got out safely, but we never did go back to that theater again. My girl was pissed because she got really dressed up for this date and it was "spoiled". I took her to a nice meal afterwards, but the mood was gone.
Eventually got to see "King Kong", it didn't do much for either of us.

 

You would have thought that a nice dinner when you are all dressed up would reset the mood from watching a large monkey?

 

Sounds a bit similar to me, first film I ever took my pre-marriage wife to was Ichi the Killer. I had heard of it but didn't expect that. Amazingly she still married me but did say I could never own it on DVD, hehe.

 

You guys are OLD!!

 

I took a girl to see Rocky Horror Picture Show at a midnight movie. Neither one of us knew what to expect. Early in the movie a roll of toilet paper hit her in the head, then I knew we were leaving.

 

I think it depends on a lot of other factors. If the couple is not very talkative or extroverted, it can work to their advantage to be in a situation where they don't feel like they have to make conversation. Also, most movies (especially these days) are not crowded environments and dates can get a sense of how the other person behaves or how receptive they are to physical proximity or not, which is just as important as conversation. It can be an even better indicator of whether to go on a second date than yammering for two hours. Also, and this is a big one for me, can the other person talk about what they saw in any sort of intellectual or emotional capacity--can you bond about how you felt about certain characters in the film, or whatever. Because that's a good indication of how you can bond over all sorts of stuff in life.

I have a couple stories, one was a first date in the '90s seeing Big Lebowski when it was in theaters. I lived in Huntington Beach at the time. The theater was practically empty. I was laughing throughout the film. My date didn't react. I don't think we went out again after that.

Similar story seeing Hail, Caesar! another quirky Coen bros movie nearly 20 years later. I think this was a second date. I was cracking up throughout the film and we exchanged some emails afterward where I wished to discuss the film, but there was really no interest on her part. Never went out again.

Definitely should not have taken these women to Coen bros movies, but on the other hand it may have weeded out the wrong types of people and spared me from relationships I shouldn't have explored to begin with.

 

Thanks Strat! Should read 42 years LMAO

 

We got the point.