By: Ed Williams

First of all, let’s get one thing straight: I’m not here tonight to review the film Monsters. It’s cinematic Marmite and you either love it, or hate it – I’ve yet to meet anybody who’s told me “It’s just okay”.

No, what I’m here tonight to do is review the event, the spectacle, the happening that is Jamesons Cult Film Club.

As I approach The Royal College of Surgeons, I’m immediately overwhelmed by the sight of a queue snaking all the way down the street and round the corner – it’s the physical embodiment of a blockbuster. Hundreds, if not a thousand people are waiting in the bitter cold, all in the name of cult cinema, to watch a film the majority of them have already seen.

It’s quite a phenomenon to behold, and I start to look forward to the evening ahead, although waiting in the cold for the doors to open, and my mood gradually deteriorating.

When I finally do get in, people meet me with AK-47s decked out in full HazChem gear barking orders in broken English and Mexican Spanish. It’s quite bewildering, and dumps some much needed adrenaline into my bloodstream, which thankfully returns the feeling to my frozen fingers.

The lobby and bar have been bathed in green spotlights and plant life, finally answering the age-old question, “What would my lawyer’s office look like after the impending apocalypse?”. To take your mind off the décor, Nachos with Jalapeno’s and cheese are available, and at a very reasonable price.

Then the floodgates open – the bar and lobby are awash with people. My plus one and I resort to taking turns in holding the drinks while feeding each other nachos. As for the drinks, there are some wonderful cocktail concoctions, all laced heavily with Jamesons. I settle for a Whisky mule, and numb my senses while I get jostled for the umpteenth time.

I enjoy a good jostle as much as the next person, but as the bar reaches capacity, I soon grow tired of the experience, and seek out my seat in the screening room.

Maybe I’m too old, maybe I’m just a cynical fart, but what strikes me most about the evening is that Jamesons have managed to combine my least favourite aspects of drinking and cinema going into one neat, frustrating package. The crowded bar leaves little but elbow room, and even then it feels like I’m trapped in a nightclub with limited bar staff, and no music to sedate the screaming voice inside my head that tells me to run as fast as I can lest a shortage of oxygen cause me to pass out, and transform me into a trampled man carpet. More importantly, the seating is uncomfortable, visibility is limited and the sound isn’t up to scratch. The last thing I want to focus my attention on during a film is my arse, pretty as it is, and after 15 minutes my cheeks felt like they were being massaged by cheese graters.

This is not to say there isn’t some enjoyment to be had from an evening such as this. If I had been a die-hard fan of the movie being screened, I would likely crawl through glass to attend a screening this extravagant. Actually, if Jamesons decide to screen Die Hard in the future, crawling through glass would be an appropriate gauntlet to run the audience through before the film starts.

As it stands, Monsters wasn’t my cup of tea. I appreciated the Q and A session at the beginning of the screening (though, due to it being pre-screening, there were many questions that had to be avoided for spoilerific reasons), but it didn’t blow my socks off.

I wouldn’t attend another Jamesons Cult Film screening, but then I’m getting on a bit now, and I like my creature comforts. Had I been 18, on a night out with a fire in my belly, I’d have had the time of my life.