Movies That Move You, Literally

By Steven Pate in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 28, 2011 8:20PM

Chicago is getting its first D-Box equipped cinema this weekend, as the Muvico Rosemont 18 joins the ranks of technologically advanced locales such as South Jordan, Utah and the Mall of America on the forefront of movie exhibition gimmickry. For a mere $8 surcharge per ticket, you can watch Fast Five in one of the 36 D-Box seats (certainly never to be confused with "the d-bag seats"), which will lurch, shake, pitch, and heave you into entertainment bliss according to a precise set of cues felt by a Burbank, California-based team of motion designers to most enhance your enjoyment of Justin Lin's orgy of car chases and gunplay.

Along with 3-D, motion-enhanced viewing is part of a trend towards what exhibitors refer to as "Immersive" experiences, meaning they immerse Hollywood in more of your money while studio executives cross their fingers and hope that you say your experience has been "enhanced" enough to warrant an 80% price increase. We've never experienced the D-Box product, and can only raise a skeptical eyebrow when they insist it is "not a theme park ride," especially after seeing how much fun this guy seems to be having. Given that the only other titles employing the technology so far this year have been The Green Hornet, I Am Number Four, Battle: Los Angeles and Hanna, we think it may be a while before we find our way out to Rosemont.

Installation is free and with the additional ticket revenue split between D-Box and the exhibitor, the theaters will probably make money on the seats. Home incarnations of the system cost in the five figures, and people do seem to love the novelty of it. If the theater gimmick trend continues, we would hope somebody with the ingenuity of William Castle comes a long. A veritable Bill Veeck of movie exhibition stunts, Castle most famously rigged seats with devices which gave a vibrating jolt to (un)lucky viewers in The Tingler. Now that's worth eight bucks.