Snakes on a Plane: Day 2

As a movie-going experience, last night’s opening of Snakes on a Plan would be hard to beat. The audience at the Paramount was down: from the crew wearing afros (presumably a reference to star Samuel L. Jackson’s role in Pulp Fiction) dancing in the aisles before the show to the heckling on trailers (On Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning: “NO SNAKES!”), giddy anticipation was at a high.

And then there was the movie itself.

Perhaps the most brilliant thing about SoaP’s so-called viral marketing campaign is the fact that it has completely diverted attention from the movie’s actual content. Instead of having to recycle scenes in trailers, every genre cliché and cheesy moment comes across as amusingly fresh.

Snakes hiding in the sickness bags? Of course.

Snake point-of-view shots? Brilliant.

Studio execs would be smart to run with their audience involvement angle and record the enthusiastic cheers and hissing- yes, hissing- for an alternate audio track on the DVD release.

But if you’re ever going to see SoaP, a packed theatre is the place to do it. I loved every minute of last night’s screening- in a way that I know I won’t be able to if I ever stumble across the movie playing on cable mid-afternoon.