public

Reported

The last auditorium in the old Cinedome had a reputation that preceded it — regulars knew to brace themselves before sitting down. Patrons swore there was one seat where the temperature dropped so sharply it could frost the ice in your drink, and that same seat carried an unmistakable feeling: eyes on the back of your neck, steady and patient, long before the lights went down. People said they could make out a couple — two figures, side by side in the dark — that weren't quite there when you looked directly at them.

The Cinedome 4 opened on December 22, 1982, a product of the Syufy Enterprises multiplex boom that blanketed suburban California in utilitarian screening boxes. It expanded in 1984 and again in 1991, eventually becoming the Cinedome 8 — and Napa's last remaining movie house after the Uptown Cinemas shuttered. Cinemark operated it under lease until November 8, 2012, when it went dark for good. By 2016 it was rubble, replaced by a parking lot. The record shows a perfectly ordinary theater; the legend, as ever, was running in a different auditorium entirely.