Dedham Community Theatre — Local services in Dedham

My grandmother and I drove nearly an hour to Dedham to see A Hidden Life at noon on 1/12/19 and the movie immediately started skipping and flickering. I have some experience making DCPs (digital cinema packages - the hard drive that the studios send theaters that they then feed into their digital projectors), and I recognized the error immediately as something I've experienced with faulty DCPs. After 10-15 minutes of restarting the film, I spoke to an employee and explained to him my prediction-- that the error was due to a bad DCP and that they weren't going to be able to fix it. He said that they thought it was because the anti-tampering device on the projector was overheating. The manager came into the theater and said they were going to try to fix this, but that full refunds would be issued to anyone who didn't want to wait.

I sat down and eventually they got the film working... for about thirty minutes until the same problem happened. I reported this to an employee, and asked for a refund, and this time he told me that he could only give me a free ticket for another film. I was visiting my grandmother, and the theater is 3 hours away, so this was valueless to me. Frustrated, I went back into the theater and waited for them to get the film running again.... for another 20 minutes, when the same error happened again. I again asked for refund, and this time an employee apologized a said that they were having this problem before and thought that they had fixed it. So they knew the DCP wasn't working, and still sold tickets! Why wouldn't they cancel the showings until they were sent a working copy of the film?

At this point, I was furious and my grandmother and I left without a refund. It's such a shame because it was the only theater playing the film and the prices were reasonable. If you do go to this theater, keep your fingers crossed that...

Dedham Community Theatre is from the pre-multiplex era and has all the feel of a small town movie theater--which, of course, it is.

Let's start with parking which is never a problem. The theater is on Dedham Sq. Across the street is a free town lot.

The two screens are perfectly adequate for he types of movies shown. In other words, no SurroundSound etc. But your viewing "experience" will be fine. Plenty of seating. These are not little "slot" auditoriums.

The DCT tends to show off-beat, quirky, independent films.

The refreshment counter is fully stocked. One can order beers and more.

The staff is unfailingly friendly and helpful.

I believe that the theater is protected by a law that states its building cannot be used for anything other than showing movies. So it will be around longer than you or I.

Give it a try. It's a good little...

Went to this neat little theater tonight for first time to see Flow for 5pm. I was very excited until….Local Ads ran for 30 minutes until 5:30. So frustrating! Then previews until 5:45. 5:45!!! Finally, the movie begins and ITS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MOVIE. There’s tons of little kids in the audience very disappointed. This new movie plays for about 10 minutes until the screen goes black. Not one employee came in to explain what the problem was. Zero explanations. Worst experience ever in any movie theater. I would not have minded so much if someone had intervened and given us an apology and an explanation. I left. So disappointed. Most likely a one off but I’ll probably...