How village cinema halls kept us entertained in the 90s

(Courtesy/CinemaTreasures)

In the 90s, there were few ways to enjoy and while time away in the villages. Many homes did not have TV sets to catch up with news and entertainment.

To make up for this, there were cinema halls where many people went to watch cinemas and films on paying a valued 10 shillings per movie.

The movies were played from tape decks and analogue TVs with some using projectors to beam the video to the audience.

The movie halls were usually dingy and very dark to allow viewership, with very small windows to let in fresh air.

It was the best of the time, it was equivalent to the current home theatres and youtube, it was our Netflix and series.

The shows used to start at around noon on weekends and 4pm during the weekdays, with posters advertising the cinemas hanging on the door to allow customers to chose what they would want to watch and its time of show.

The hall sitting was more of a church sitting arrangement, with deafening sound system, the TV was raised for everyone to see with a DJ who had prior knowledge of the cinema to keep the audience abreast and spicing it up.

Nothing spiced up a weekend like watching James Bond movies, Wang Changlee and Arnold Schwarzenegger in this dingy village halls. As customer relations move, we would also be given 30 minutes of watching wrestling from the tapes for free.

That is how village folks came to know of wrestlers like the Undertaker, British Bulldog, Kane, Bret Hitman Hart, Hulk Hogan,Yokozuna and Rick Flair. Wrestling was such a darling of the village folks and kept us glued to the screen for hours.

To make a good killing out of the shows, the proprietors would sell njugu karanga, boiled maize or porridge to the audience.

We were not left behind as urban folks took their girlfriends to Thika Road and Nairobi for movies. We treated our girls to these movies as well, only that there was not much gliiter, pomp and colour in our village halls.

The setting of the halls was by default more than romantic. It had to be dark to allow viewership, sitting at a lonely corner with your green and blue village girlfriend and having parted with 10 shillings was a thing to behold and remember.

At the hall corner, whilst cracking groundnuts and a cup of porridge, it was time to show our girlfriends how good we knew about the forthcoming movie by giving a few insights and the names of the main characters or actors, which any way we had read from the poster. It was our trickery.

There were no gadgets to distract us from watching the movie from start to end. There were no phones. Our girlfriends made the experience that of Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet of the Titanic Romantic adventure.

Nothing spiced the day as power blackouts in these dark halls. It was a quick moment to plant a kiss on our girls.

It was very easy for someone to pledge loyalty and love after this treat of a village movie of the 90s. Those that did not have the money to watch the payable moves would wait for a free mobile movie that would be screened once a month in the villages, from 7pm.

Hundreds of village folks, old and young, would congregate at nearby shopping centres to catch a glimpse of the end month movie.

Gen Zs and late millennials will never know how we suffered to watch a movie, how we had regulated movies and squeezed variety without an option.

We had our time and we enjoyed with the little resources. And we enjoyed to the fullest!