Spotlight Cinemas St. Andrews, 527 Saint Andrews Road: Early December 2023 10 comments
My memory is that when this theater opened, it was a Dollar Cinema with every ticket for every show priced at $1.00. In the beginning, I think there were also a large number of video games and pinball machines associated with the operation. I don't seem to have done a closing on it, but at some point that operation went under, and the place came under the Spotlight Banner, still operating as a second-run theater, but with higher (though still very reasonable) prices. The Lexington Chronicle suggests that the transition was about eight and a half years ago, so around 2015.
I do remember going here several times while it was Spotlight, but cannot now recall exactly what titles I saw. At any rate, it was fine, and a much cheaper way to get the full theater experience if you didn't have to see a movie when it was on its first legs.
Movie theaters have certainly had it hard the past several years and we have lost a good number of them in the Midlands. This closure leaves only full price first run houses in the area (not counting Nickelodeon, I suppose).
Here's a bit more from The State.
(Hat tip to commenter Gypsie)
UPDATE 24 January 2024 -- To be Elevation Church:
10 Responses to 'Spotlight Cinemas St. Andrews, 527 Saint Andrews Road: Early December 2023'
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59 Ford Wheelman
20 Dec 23 at 6:15 pm
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The arcade room also, for a while, and a video jukebox. That is, a jukebox that would play music videos. Never before or since have seen another. Harkened back to the Soundies of the 1940s, although a) I wasn't alive then, and b) I had never heard of Soundies until a few years ago.
badger
21 Dec 23 at 10:53 am
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Cinematreasures entry: https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/59780
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I heard that Elevation Church plans to move into this building later this year (per a colleague of mine that goes there)...
Andrew
2 Jan 24 at 10:19 pm
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This place was still a dollar theater when some friends and I watched the first Iron Man there about 15 years ago. I (not just my wallet) liked the older theater and didn't miss the stadium seating, surround sound, etc.
There's a similar theater in Pageland called The Ball, and it also shows movies on the cheap. The building is getting close to being almost 100 years old, though it has not been continuously open during its lifetime.
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If I had the capital, I would open up a “Music Theater,” and onlyrun concert movies or documentaries such as Stop Making Sense, Grateful Dawg, Heart of Gold, I’m Trying To Break Your Heart, etc. Kinda like I used to see at Nickelodeon. Demographically, and financially, it would make zero sense, and would close within two months, but I’d go down in a musical blaze of glory.
Jonathan
4 Jan 24 at 12:40 pm
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@Jonathan -- I have often thought that would be a good format for a radio station: Just live cuts.
ted
8 Jan 24 at 10:06 pm
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I'm really bummed about this one. We usually opted to wait and see a movie here instead of going to see it at a first-run theater. In part because of pricing, but mostly because I just hate being stuck in a theater with a bunch of loud people on their phones. I loved the fact that I could see a movie at Spotlight without breaking my wallet and with only a few other people around.
Back when I was in middle school and it was The Multi's this was THE place to be on the weekends. Someone's parent or older sibling would drop us off around 6 and we'd see a movie, play some games, then walk over to Pizza Factory for a bite to eat, and then we'd go across the street to Putt Putt and hang out until midnight or so.
Gypsie
16 Jan 24 at 10:50 pm
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Reminds me of the Movies at Polo. Similar entrance and same classic sign.
Jay R
19 Jan 24 at 10:11 pm
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As if there are not enough churches in that area!!
Arthur P
23 Feb 24 at 7:02 pm
Ted, as a child of the 1970s and 1980s who grew up in Whitehall, I can confirm that this theater opened around 1983 as the Saint Andrews Multi-Cinema and Games (or, as those of us in the Irmo public school system called it, "The Multis"), and featured second-run movies for $1 admission. There was also a decent-sized video game arcade, which was originally on the left side of the building, in front of the screen rooms. I have not set foot in the building since probably the late 1980s, but I do remember its early days pretty well.