Chantal knew that when Astral Projections, her local cinema, decided to showcase a Shrek event, an overnight, back to back to back to back showing of Shrek, Shrek 2, Shrek the Third, and Shrek Forever After, the temptation would render her helpless, that she would, without fail, be in attendance. Chantal is and always has been a sucker for Mike Myers, for clunky, early-days, full-feature CG film, for slapstick, lighthearted delights. Toy Story was her first love. Buzz gave her a proverbial woody. Viewings of Ice Age thaw her frayed nerves, melt all her worries away.
She wasn’t sure if she would make it through the all-nighter without dozing in those cheap but comfy, concave seats. She wasn’t sure if she’d sneak in a hip flask of booze to make what is good even better, to help swish loose from her teeth and wash down the masticated Milk Duds plastered to her smile. She wasn’t sure if she’d regret it come the morning, when the rest of the world would wake up to face a new day while her own had never ended for a chance to be renewed, refreshed. But there was one thing Chantal was unflinchingly sure of, zealously positive would come to fruition; without wasting time, she solidified her convictions by purchasing a ticket to Shrekathon, an event she would not miss.
Chantal has lived out the last three weeks of her life as if that space of time has been nothing but an obstruction to a moment that awaits her in the near future, a desirous event. Like a martyr, she has sacrificed her month so that one day may live. Unlike a martyr, she has done it all for herself. Donning green, in honor of the ogre oaf voice-acted by Mike Myers, Chantal smiles back at her reflection in the mirror. She looks good, she surmises, ready, in any event, for the main event, the overnight Shrekathon.
Astral Projections is a small, single screen cinema. With something as tasty as Shrekathon on the menu, Chantal anticipates a full house. Her expectations of a crowd are laid to waste, obliterated by vacancy. As she chooses any seat she pleases, Chantal is surprised, but not disappointed. She stretches her legs, pops off her shoes and props her feet up on the seat in front of her. She does not turn off her phone, mute it, or set it to vibrate. She does not conceal the hip flask filled with Malibu rum as she brings its sweet nectar to her green-glossed lips. Chantal makes herself at home. In this moment, the world is her own. She is elevated to royalty, Queen Lillian herself.
There are no trailers played at a proper Shrekathon. No previews of what’s coming next week, what is on offer for further cinematic indulgences. There are no adverts, absolutely nothing to water down the Shrek of this evening. Pure, unadulterated, comic, green ogre; the projectionist feeds the reel. The event has begun.
The credits roll as Shrek emerges from an outhouse in the woods. He baths himself in an open-air, outdoor shower. Stubby fingers lather mud and slurry over an exposed canvas of sickly, guacamole flesh. Brown ooze is gurgled and spat, splattering to the ground to spell out Mike Myers. The credits are in their infancy and already Chantal is grinning from ear to ear as if she, herself, is among the menagerie of CG travesties. Her joyful grin is cemented together by corn syrup and dextrose, the adhesive tenacity of gut-rot Milk Duds.
At the back of the small cinema, elevated above, the projectionist looms. He packs his Newport cigarettes in time to “All Star,” that jaunty, happy-go-lucky hit by Smash Mouth. He pins a cigarette between his lips and lights up, initiating his own planned event, a seance of sorts, an invitation to dreadful beings from another, malignant dimension. Smoke signals of menthol mist communicate to demons where the fun is to be had. Soon, there will be more than just one, green ogre at Shrekathon.
There is a subtle shift of energy, a palpable doom, that does not go unnoticed by Chantal. She shifts in her seat, discomforted, watching scenes she knows better than the back of her hand, better than the Toy Story poster on the ceiling above her bed. Familiar jokes and well-known discourse between a jolly, green giant and a sassy donkey, quips and sallies exchanged between Mike Myers and Eddy Murphy, do nothing to amuse. On the contrary, they weigh Chantal down, fill her with dark thoughts, ruinous anxiety.
An aroma of mint pervades the small cinema. It grows, rich and heady, an invasion of smokey menthol. Chantal wishes to leave. She is desperate to vacate the concave depression of cheap upholstery, but somehow remains still, against her wishes, as if her thighs, ass, and back are bonded to the seat by squashed Milk Duds, or voodoo, black magic.
Shrek ends and there is joy in knowing it is over. But then Chantal remembers: this is a Shrekathon. So she stays put. She watches a new set of credits herald the start of yet another film. Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz. It is more of the same. It is Shrek 2. In her misery, Chantal deems it is an adequate title for the sequel. It feels twice as long. It is twice as bad. Shrek the Third, her favorite, is somehow, tonight, a dire nightmare, a dark curse that she feels may be terminal.
It is not fair, she thinks, as Shrek Forever After begins. One film after the next, it goes on and on, forever after. Watching the fourth installment is for Chantal like crawling on all fours, her fourth lap around a racetrack of hot asphalt, upturned pins and needles. The Milk Duds have devolved, mutated, from their initial satisfying chew, their saccharine smack, to an antsy, sugar high, a depleting come down, and now the wretched gut-rot they were always destined to become. Chantal burps and tastes Malibu rum and milk chocolate. She stares up into a silver screen at a peridot ogre and feels her own complexion go green.
When it all ends, Chantal blinks away the tears, she wades through a haze of cloying menthol. From the projection room, a shadow lurks and an ember bud blinks through a white veil in morse code. Chantal doesn’t wish to decipher whatever strange message there may or may not be to convey in the pulse of a lit up cigarette tip. She has but one wish and it is to run, to escape the clammy clutches of a split pea demon. From above, a reel of film slows to an eventual halt. The big screen goes black. Whatever mystic bondage had fastened Chantal to the cheap seat throughout the duration of four feature films has now been removed.
Chantal gets up and walks away. She leaves her shoes behind. She ignores the bathroom even though her bladder is near to bursting. She walks in strides past large, glass boxes of popcorn, a row of movie posters, a ticket booth. She walks out through a revolving door into the budding glow of dawn and breathes chilled, morning air. Chantal is free. She has survived the merciless gauntlet of a Shrekathon.