As the header explains, I hadn't been to the Hampden Center 8 in 4 years, and it was honestly never a favorite.  But even so, it stung a bit to learn last night that the 20 year-old multiplex was running its' final shows even as I was reading the news.  I've never understood the gripe of multiplex-haters about their sameness.  I've been in all kinds of theaters, large and small, old and new, hometown and corporate, and to me, each place, each screen in each place, has its' own character and personality.  In that way, the Hampden Center was something of a grouch, perhaps, but I spent some fine afternoons there, and while I'd stopped going without regrets, it just feels wrong that it's no longer out there doing its' thing. 

In the mid-90's, the center of my moviegoing universe shifted from the Pottsville/Frackville area to the Harrisburg suburbs.  At the time, there were five theaters in the area.  I never got to the United Artists Camp Hill Mall duplex, which closed in 2001.  For all the times I visited that mall during that period, I could never even figure out where it was.  Two trips to the UA theater at the Capital City Mall persuaded me the once-proud 6-plex was on its' last legs before it closed the following year.  Two years earlier, we'd lost a UA location the Colonial Park Mall that I visited with some frequency but little comfort.  But the twin towers of the area in those days were a pair of AMC Theaters.  The Colonial Commons 9 (we'll hit that one in a future article) became my primary theater for a time, while the Hampden Center 8 was notable for two kinds of bookings:  art house flicks like Shadow of the Vampire and A Midsummer Night's Dream (the one with Kevin Kline), and its' odd tendancy to hang onto movies long after they'd closed everywhere else.

The Hampden Center itself is one of those shopping plazas we've all got in our area that lacks the good fortune to have a true anchor store and gets by on an ever-changing assortment of supermarkets, book stores, craft shops and local pizza parlors.  A very nice Ruby Tuesday's restaurant faces the highway, while the theater stood alone on the far left.  When it opened in 1988, it was no doubt drempt of as that missing anchor for the plaza, and for a little over ten years was a destination for what specialty films made it to the area (if they didn't play at the Capital City Mall, that is).  That all began to change with a theater construction boom that began with the January, 1998 opening of The Cinema Center of Palmyra, and was followed in November, 1999 by a real shot across its' bow, the 14-screen Hoyt's Cinemas 14 at Susquehanna Marketplace (we'll hit both of those another day too).  Suddenly the Hampden Center's 8 screens, tinny sound and really long runs seemed a little less special.  But it still had its' side of the Susquehanna River to itself... until the 2005 debut of the Cinema Center of Camp Hill a stone's throw away.  From there it was only a matter of time.

As you can see pictured above, whomever designed the place loved red.  For that reason alone, it was one of the most visually distinctive multiplexes I can recall, with an ambiance perhaps more suited to a fast food joint than a movie palace.  Two hallways of four screens each reached back from a central concession area (you can see it pictured above) with restrooms on either side of it.  AMC concessions are among the more standardized and uninspiring among chains, with even their 25-screen theater in Times Square offering the same menu as their Central PA locations.  Highlights:  hot dogs with a fixings bar off to the side and a small popcorn size that really means it.

Inside each auditorium you got the 1988 version of theater luxury, which meant yes to cup holders, but no to rocking chairs, moving armrests, headrests or stadium seating.  Did I mention that the sound was a tad tinny?  A tad loud, as well, which really hurt when you were at a movie with a small crowd incapable of absorbing the noise.  The aforementioned Shadow of the Vampire stands out in my memory as my most bone-rattling moviegoing experience.  Not to defame the good people of Harrisburg's West Shore, but I also had an uncanny knack for being seated near someone with a really loud cold.  I actually feared that Ebola was loose in the theater as I watched Entrapment but, hey, I'm still here.

Of course there were highlights, like letting the wonderfully queasy Mimic introduce me to Quillermo Del Torro and ignoring Disturbing Behavior's legion of flaws to still get creeped out.  My sister and I may have been the only people in America to see the delightful B-Western American Outlaws twice.  I saw Face/Off there, and on my final trip in 2004, the underrated Manchurian Candidate remake.

I haven't missed The Hampden Center 8 since I stopped going.  It wasn't a great theater, and the ones that replaced it first in my heart and then in totality are better places to see a movie.  But still, a moment of silence for that big red warehouse the day after its' final shows.  When I needed it, it was there.