Cinephile(Midnight Screening)

## Poster

**Cinephile** is the main slasher villain of the 2021 slasher film, Midnight Screening.

He is played by **Tom Thumb**.

## Personality

The Cinephile is an average man who just wants to enjoy watching movies in the theaters and can get irritated at anyone who interferes with his enjoyment. He will not hesitate to commit murder whenever someone rubs him the wrong way and believes he deserves better treatment.

## Background

The Cinephile is an ordinary man who loves to go to the movie theaters to watch films on the big screen. However, he doesn’t want to deal with other audience members interrupting the film, so he always waits until the last screening of a film he wanted to see to check it out. However, this one night when he sees a movie with his wife, two girls in the audience rudely talk through the movie, upsetting the man as all he wants is peace and quiet. He talks with the movie theater’s manager, Fuller, and asks if he can talk to them. Fuller assures him that he’ll resolve the issue and tells him to continue enjoying the movie. However, once the Cinephile and his wife are back in their seats, Fuller and one of the workers, Kyle, walk inside the theater and find the two girls aren’t talking anymore, so they just simply shrug it off. Having enough of people who interrupt movies and the staff not doing anything to resolve the problem, the Cinephile decides to wait until the movie theater is closed and kill the staff.

## Biography

Fuller and the staff members of the theater, Kyle, Sheila, Tammi, and Alan, stay after hours to do a test screening for their next film release.

Tammi’s friend, Amy, makes it to the theater to watch the test screening with them until the Cinephile walks up to her and grabs her by the throat to kill her where he is now wearing leather gloves. He then uses her phone to text Tammi that she can’t make it.

As the staff prepare the test screening, the Cinephile sneaks inside and ambushes Tammi while she was tidying up the concession stand and kills her.

The rest of the staff members start wondering with Tammi is, unaware that her body is on the floor in front of the concession stand, while the Cinephile continues sneaking around the place.

Eventually, the Cinephile finds a knife in the theater’s kitchen and a popcorn tub with cutout eyeholes that Alan made earlier and uses it to conceal his identity to the staff. He finds Alan in the projection booth, wearing the popcorn tub as a mask, and uses the knife to decapitate him.

The Cinephile continues sneaking around and even messes with the staff by making shadow puppets from the projection booth. When the rest of the staff now start wondering where Alan is, Fuller calls his phone only for it to be discovered by Kyle in the projection booth. Kyle than finds the Cinephile in the booth, thinking he’s Alan and tells him to start the film for the test screening.

Later, as Kyle waits in the theater for the movie to start, Fuller tries to look for Alan. As he tries to look for him, the Cinephile kills Kyle by stabbing him in the chest with the knife while leaving behind an application for a girl that Fuller was going to hire. Afterwards, the Cinephile finds Fuller in the projection booth where Fuller argues with him, thinking he’s Alan. The Cinephile then kills Fuller by hanging him from the ceiling with a projection booth’s film.

Sheila discovers Kyle’s dead body in the theater and tries to call for help, only to find the phones disconnected and the doors locked. She runs through the building until she runs into the Cinephile where he discards the popcorn tub mask and reveals himself to her. Sheila asks why he didn’t go after the two girls who interrupted the movie instead, to which the Cinephile reveals that he plans to get them next. He also tells her that all he wants is to enjoy watching a movie in the theaters with no problems with the audience. Sheila, terrified, asks why he couldn’t just wait for the dvd of the movie to come out instead, which only upsets the Cinephile even more.

Sheila runs back to the theater and pulls the knife out of Kyle’s chest to defend herself. However, once she runs back out, the Cinephile grabs her and snaps her neck, killing her, and he responds, “Your silence is appreciated.”.

With all the staff members killed, the Cinephile places their corpses in the movie theater and watches the movie along with them, finally enjoying a movie in the theaters in peace.

## Kills

* **Amy**: Grabbed by the throat and killed.(Off-screen).
* **Tammi**: Throat slit.(Off-screen)
* **Alan**: Decapitated by knife.
* **Kyle**: Found with a knife stabbed into his chest.(Off-screen)
* **Fuller**: Hanged by film.(Off-screen)
* **Sheila**: Neck snapped.

## Trivia

* Despite wearing a popcorn tub for a mask, the movie never actually shows the Cinephile wearing the popcorn tub on his head. Instead, it mainly shows his point-of-view looking through the eyeholes of the popcorn tub.