M’sia Cinema Seats Turn Mouldy But Most Cinemas Have Claimed These Are Not Their Halls

On more scary tidbits of information that make us terrified when going out…

Mould.

No, no that kind of mould. This kind of mould:

Oh yeah. Either someone enjoyed photoshopping mould into photos too much or more than a few people aren’t doing a good maintenance job at malls.

Cause after the mouldy leather goods, this is round two for the cinemas.

Cinema Seats and Floors With White Mould

In a now-deleted Facebook post shared on 12 May 2020 by Chong Andy, pictures of a mouldy cinema were attached with the caption “Seats in the cinema grew mouldy 😱”.

Here’s the rest of the image in its full glory. Don’t eat while reading.

If the lockdown meant that places like the cinema weren’t used or cleaned for a long period of time, mould can grow. Especially for Southeast Asia because of our high humidity. A place like a cinema would also have poor ventilation.

So if the aircon isn’t turned on, it’s free real estate for the mould colonies.

But Where Exactly Is This?

In case you weren’t paying attention, there isn’t any indication or evidence where this picture was taken. Speculators are currently pointing to somewhere in Ipoh.

But Malaysian news site SAYS contacted five cinema operators, and four of them said it’s not theirs. One, mmCineplexes, hasn’t responded.

TGV Cinemas did a thorough investigation and verified that the photos weren’t from their cinema halls.

MBO cinemas say that their common touchpoints in the cinemas are cleaned and disinfected weekly at all locations nationwide.

Lotus Five Star Cinemas cleans their halls daily and ensures that the photos are not of their cinemas.

Golden Screen Cinemas (GSC) says they ventilate their cinemas on alternate days by switching the aircon on and also carry out checks in all halls and seats.

They even made a Facebook post ensuring us so, completed with images of their beautiful and shiny seats:

And even threatened those who say it might be from GSC:

It seems like GSC PR or marketing team were quicker with their response here, since a brief check on other cinemas show that GSC is the only who has responded publicly thus far.

(To be fair, GSC seems to be the biggest operator, so they probably have a larger PR team.)

Some commenters haven’t forgotten to use this opportunity to remind GSC to improve their popcorn:

My poor-ass is like “you guys are buying food when watching movies?“, but back to the topic.

Four out of the five big operators are cleared. There are also other smaller operators in Malaysia, so assuming that this isn’t some photoshop, it could be anywhere.

mmCineplexes, there are eyes on you.

But don’t anyhow say it’s them.

After all, the original post was, for some reason, removed, and cinema operators aren’t really in the best of mood now. Just look at how GSCinemas react.