【Corruption (1983)】

Going to the movies these day is Corruption (1983)a crapshoot. People might scroll on their phones or record the screen the whole time. Audiences may lose their damn minds over "chicken jockey." And thanks to a new announcement from Meta and Blumhouse, the production company behind horror films like M3GANand The Woman in the Yard, the moviegoing experience might be about to get a whole lot worse.

On April 9, Blumhouse revealed it would be re-releasing three of its biggest hits — Annabelle, Ma, and M3GAN— for its Halfway to Halloween festival, part of the company's 15-year anniversary celebration.

For the April 30 M3GAN re-release, Blumhouse teamed up with Meta for the first use of Meta's Movie Mate, a chatbot audiences can activate by messaging the M3GAN Instagram account. In turn, the chatbot will give audiences real-time trivia, behind-the-scenes facts, and exclusive content. The whole thing is intended to promote M3GAN 2.0and elevate the so-called "second-screen experience," but really, it feels more like a free pass for people to use their phones in the movie theater.

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Even without the irony of creating an AI chatbot tied to a movie about a killer AI doll, Movie Mate is a horrendous ploy that will ruin the theatrical experience, which is all about communally absorbing a movie to its fullest extent. And I don't care if the Movie Mate experience is limited to specific screenings — its existence encourages people who use it to believe this behavior is okay in other screenings. No one deserves to have a movie be ruined by the bright phone light of their seatmate looking up who's in the film. That's what the credits (and frantic post-movie googling) are for! Otherwise, the second-screen experience should just stay where it belongs: at home.

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