I admit I was a bit hesitant when I heard the plan. The
AMC Marlton Movie Theatre was going to jettison hundreds of seats in order to install new reclining loungers. I thought it was the last gasp of an already dying, perhaps on its last gasp, local theater. My friends and I called it literally 'the dead theater.' There was never anyone there, you always got a parking spot in front, and when the news came that they had finally closed, no one would be surprised. Not in the least.
Allow me to swallow those words.
Twenty, thirty years ago, the Marlton 8 as we called it, because it had a multiplex of eight theaters, a novelty at the time, was the happening place to be on the weekend. It was the place to be seen, and the place to see all the latest movies. Every date happened here. Welcome to the 1980s.
Die Hard,
The Breakfast Club,
Amadeus,
Batman,
Weird Science,
Robocop,
Dirty Dancing, even
Silence of the Lambs, I saw them here, and so did everyone else I knew.
There was a time, with the
T.G.I.Fridays and the long forgotten ice cream parlor in the strip mall, every parking spot was taken and police had to direct traffic within the shopping center, sometimes blocking areas off to kids and other foot traffic. Three months ago, and as far back as maybe a decade ago however, the place was a ghost town. Business had moved elsewhere, into Voorhees with the Ritz, now Rave, and into Cherry Hill with the airport terminal sized and
customer unfriendly AMC Loews with a whopping twenty-four theaters.
This weekend, The Bride and I had date night, On the Border for dinner and then
Jack the Giant Slayer for movie. As this was the first week the Marlton renovation was complete, we chose there. I was stunned when we pulled into the nearly full parking lot. This was the Marlton 8 of old. Things got better as we went inside.
The lobby got a nice repaint and remodel as well. The refreshment area is a bit different too. Besides new menu items like chicken fingers, chicken sliders, pizza, and oh yes,
French fries, there were also two
Coca-Cola Freestyle machines. Color me impressed.
We did have to wait a while for them to clean the theater before we could go in and sit. I'm thinking it takes more time to clean individual seats than it did previously to just do a quick sweep. The line of impatient folks waiting to get in were not so understanding. I guess no matter how nice a theater is, there will still be jackasses who complain, and talk during the movie, use their cellphones, and bring toddlers to 10 PM showtimes - no way around it. Damn mankind, we're doomed.
The new seats are incredible, reclining loungers that come in pairs where can pull up the arm between them and cuddle. They also come with three cup holders each and touch controls to go up and down. Sooo nice. I did notice the theater's current occupancy was now 115 where it used to be between 200 and 300.
This is an incredible risk for the theater financially, especially when you consider we paid a very reasonable price for two prime time 3D tickets, nearly a third less than we would have paid at the Rave or Loews. I hope it succeeds.
I loved this movie experience. I have a new favorite theater. I can't wait to go back.
The basic concept is that you and a group of friends or strangers are trapped in a room, and using clues at your disposal, or given by the room masters if asked, you solve puzzles and/or mysteries to earn your escape from the room in an allotted amount of time. Otherwise, you are stuck in the room for that amount of time.
