For years, I have been going to the Tinseltown movie theater here in Erie. Since I have to do a movie review each week, I am comfortable with most of the ins and outs of the theater, but there was always one thing that I had never tried: D-Box seating.
For those of you who don’t know, D-Box is a premium seating option that is offered at many movie theaters.
When you pay for D-Box seating, it is advertised that you can get more immersed in the movie you are watching because the seat that you are sitting in vibrates and actually movies along with the action on screen.
This is an expensive upgrade that I only tried out for the first time this past weekend. I was seeing “Ad Astra” to review for the paper, and I wasn’t too invested in my experience of seeing that movie, so I thought that it would be a good time to try it out. Now that I’ve seen a movie in D-Box seating, I know for a fact that I will never do it again.
I wanted to be systematic about my assessment, so I opted for the complete D-Box experience and turned my chair’s motion all the way up, and I have to say, for the first couple of minutes it was very distracting.
After I got used to it, the motion and vibration of the D-Box seat were actually kind of cool, and if it weren’t for its other crippling flaws, I may have considered doing it again.
Next on my list of complaints is the light emitted from the control panel. On each seat is a couple of buttons that allow you to adjust your desired level of motion. Adjacent to these buttons is an LED indicator that illuminates your seat number.
Now, I’m the kind of guy that likes it to be pitch black while I’m watching a movie. I understand the need to have the exit signs in every movie theater to be lit the entire time the movie is going, but that still doesn’t make up for the fact that it annoys me. I’m that high maintenance when it comes to movies.
Well, my OCD was going crazy at the bright LEDs at my side throughout the whole movie. Just when I get adjusted and reconnected with the movie, I catch them out of the corner of my eye, and then it’s all that I can see for the next 10 minutes.
I think I probably could live with both of those gripes if it wasn’t for D-Box’s greatest atrocity, the comfort of the seats. I am not exaggerating when I say that the D-Box seat that I paid about twice the price of my normal seat to sit in was one of the most uncomfortable seats I have ever sat in.
The seat did not recline one bit, so I felt like I was being forced to sit straight up at a 90-degree angle for the entirety of the movie. To put the icing on top of this awful cake, the cushion of the chair was essentially nonexistent.
I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that my butt was sore from sitting in the chair before the movie even started. I can’t think of a time in recent memory when I was more uncomfortable while watching a movie outside of a classroom setting.
Overall, I would recommend never spending your hard-earned money on D-Box seating. I can’t think of a bigger waste.
I’ve sat in IMAX movie theaters and felt the sensation of motion just from how much of the screen was taking up my visual field, and that did much more for my sense of immersion than D-Box ever will.
I want my money back.

BENJAMIN HAYLETT
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