The Huge "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" SLC Pre-Screening

On January 21, 2016, I tried to watch the SLC’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies pre-screening. Advance screenings, or “pre-screenings,” of upcoming films are a right usually reserved for professional film critics, but FSU students and Tallahassee locals are increasingly getting opportunities. The SLC (short for Student Life Cinema), our humble school movie theater located in the Askew Student Life Center (ASLC), is hosting such events with more frequency, which is excellent news for cinephiles like myself. I was particularly stoked for this, their most recent one  - and it did not work out for me.

I thought I had it all planned out: I got my advance ticket well ahead of time, and because the doors opened at 6:00 for a 7:00 showing, I wanted to get there well ahead of time. However, when I checked with my friend Madison Woodward to see if she was going, she said she was already in line and added, “There are already a lot of people here!” I wondered how bad the line could be at only 5:30 … and I discovered this:

So many people, for a movie where Elizabeth Bennett uses ninja moves on zombies. (Photo credit: Rachel Stephens)

I was totally blindsided: how did this get so many to show up? It is not like this never happens at the SLC: their “live, interactive experience” midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show pack the theater every Halloween. Every semester, several other movies manage to get a full house. However, that is Rocky Horror, the definitive cult classic/midnight movie. This is a movie called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. How did that, of all films, of all things, get such an impressive turnout?

Besides trying to analyze the sociocultural forces that made this ginormous audience possible, at the time I was also trying to figure out how I was going to get in, especially when my best friend Gustavo Mercado, who possessed the two-person ticket that would get us both inside, was stuck in class until 6:30. With the line already so huge at 5, let alone when I arrived at 5:30, things were not looking good. I found Madison and hung out with her and her friends until the doors opened and I had to scram.

I waited in my apartment until I finally found Gustavo at 6:40, and we hopped to the back of the line at 6:50. Though the line managed to get indoors and we even managed to get on the stairs, the movement ceased as we reached the stairwell’s midway point of the stairwell. I asked the volunteer who held the door open about our chances, and he said that he was told only 35 seats were left, and that he had counted 35 people long before we got through the door.

Yet there we were: around thirty of us still lingered, uncertain if we would enter and refusing to leave. We stubbornly stuck to our spots on the minute chance that people already inside would leave and anyone still waiting could then see their patience rewarded with gruesome images of Jane Austen characters slicing off zombie heads. Again, why this?

Seriously, why this? (Photo credit: Rachel Stephens)

I ended up asking this aloud, and Ashley Dykstra, the person ahead of me in line, replied that she loves Jane Austen and that Pride and Prejudice is her favorite book. This sparked a conversation between her, Gustavo, and I that went on until around ten minutes later, when a volunteer politely declared that there were no seats available for anyone from a certain point of the line onward. The three of us were in the part that would not get in.

That was when I realized just how much I wanted to see it, and that was when I considered why I wanted to see it so badly. I’ve never read a word of Jane Austen. I’m not even that big on zombies. I concluded that I waited that long because there was just something fun about taking part in a unique and novel experience. Chances to watch Mr. Darcy slaughter the undead do not come around often, and I had the chance to see it with friends, for free, and before anyone else. And I get the feeling that anyone else in that 400-person line wanted to see it because they were either like Ashley, who wanted to watch Pride and Prejudice with zombies, or like me, who couldn’t resist the chance to watch something called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. What should have been obvious to me was clouded by my own highbrow pretensions, and I accept my foolishness.

Madison later said of the film, “It really exceeded my expectations. I had never read Pride and Prejudice … but I became so attached to the characters in this movie that I might just need to go pick up my own copy.” Rachel Stephens, SLC Blockbuster Chair and ASLC Social Media Coordinator, said it was “darker than [she] expected” and that “the filmmakers stayed true to the tone of the source work.” They seem to confirm my hypothesis, but moreover, I am glad that they, and presumably others, had a good time.

As for me, I am not too cut up about not getting to see it. Waiting in that long line and not knowing whether or not I would get in made for a bonding experience, both with the friends I had with me and the cool new people I met. The pre-screening experience can be exciting even if you don’t get in.

(Besides, I ended up watching an anime film called Wolf Children with Gustavo and crying my eyes out. Seriously, it is so good, please find it and watch it.)