Frightened patrons injured after pranksters enter movie theater with leaf blower

Edwards Big Newport 6 in Newport Beach, California.
(Image credit: Facebook.com/KTLA)

Three moviegoers sustained minor injuries when they fled from a theater they thought was under attack.

On Saturday, at least two people opened an emergency exit door at the Edwards Big Newport 6 in Newport Beach, California, intent on terrifying the audience watching The Gift, police say. "All of a sudden someone comes in screaming from the emergency exit...he waves something in the air and cranks it and everyone thinks it's a chainsaw," witness Kyndall Aldama told KTLA. Another witness, Katrina Wolfe, said: "All I could think of was James Holmes and the Aurora, Colorado, movie shooting.... My boyfriend and I believed that this was a person with a weapon — probably a gun — and fully expected shooting to start at any moment."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.