A Haunting Report

“We heard a woman screaming at the top of her lungs,” Violet Crown Cinema General Manager Victoria Webb tells SFR of an experience three or four years ago. “One of my coworkers and I were the last two in the building. We had just done a theater check. Nobody was in the building. It made my heart stop for a minute; it came from theater 10.”

Even before Violet Crown opened to the public in 2015, a rumor had started among its staff: Theater 10 is haunted. That rumor persists today.

To be fair, that particular auditorium is a touch more scary as it’s one of several underground. Moviegoers descend into the basement at Violet Crown, then into the far back corner. And Webb is not alone. Numerous Violet Crown employees have reportedly experienced the ghost in theater 10.

“I was listening to music with one earbud in,” says usher Camille Baca. “I got the chills. Then something in my ear said, ‘Go. Go away.’”

“I personally got hissed at,” says usher Miles Devensty. “Nobody believed me, but the hiss was so loud I jumped and spilled water on myself.”

In addition to the noises from the alleged ghost, staffers report experiences ranging from the auditory to sudden drops in temperature.

“You can kind of feel a presence in there,” Webb adds. “When I go in there alone I’m like, ‘OK...hi!’ It’s crazy.”

And while staff certainly report being creeped out now and again, no one has quit over the matter, according to Webb, who has worked for Violet Crown since it opened. At this point, she notes, roughly 10 to 15 people have related their run-ins with the alleged ghost—some even welcome the apparition.

“Everyone knows I like it,” usher Arianna Perea tells SFR, “I always get cold, get the chills.”

And though cinema brass hasn’t tried to exorcise the presence, they haven’t tried to capitalize on it, either.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Webb says of possibly playing horror movies in theater 10 during Halloween—the new Halloween movie, Halloween Kills, releases soon, she points out.

For now, theater 10 will operate like any other movie auditorium, though Webb does have a warning for any non-believers.

“None of us believed,” she says, “until we all experienced it on our own.”