Twilight ‘Breaking Dawn’ Scene Allegedly Causing Seizures
Fans of the “Twilight” movies have much more to worry about other than the series of films coming to a close next year, as a scene in the latest installment has reportedly been causing viewers across the country to have seizures.
Several instances of people saying they have developed seizures during the tense birthing scene in “Breaking Dawn: Part One” have been reported. The in-theater seizures, also known as photosensitive epilepsy, are thought to be a result of the bright flashing of red, black and white during the film’s nerve-wracking scene.
Brandon Gephart and Kelly Bauman had gone to see “Breaking Dawn: Part One” last Friday when Gephart began “convulsing, snorting, [and] trying to breathe,” according to Bauman. He doesn’t remember anything, he says, but soon awoke on the theater floor and was taken out by paramedics. The remainder of the screening was cancelled.
“It’s like a light switch going off, because it hits your brain all at once,” Dr. Michael G. Chez, medical director of pediatric neurology and epilepsy for Sutter Sacramento told CBS 13 in Sacramento, adding that “the trouble with theaters, it’s dark, the lights flashing in there is more like a strobe light.”
Instances of the scene inducing seizures have been reported elsewhere across the country. In Utah, a married couple told ABC-4 in Salt Lake City that bright, graphic scene caused the husband, who doesn’t want to be named for fear he could lose his job, to pass out and led to his entire body shaking.
“I didn’t really remember what happened after that I think I blacked out. According to her, I was shaking and mumbling different noises,” he told ABC-4.
His wife was sitting by his side in the theater.
“He started mumbling and he was blinking on and off with his eyes at that point. I was kneeling in front of him slapping his face,” she said.
The couple said that they left early, and when they returned the next day they heard that it had happened to another girl watching the film too, though the manager of the multiplex where they viewed “Breaking Dawn” said he doesn’t know of that instance.