Florida woman says she was laughing at a movie scene in theater. Then a man hit her in the face with a pizza pan: ‘Cheers!’

A night at the movies in Coconut Grove, a neighborhood in Miami, Florida, allegedly turned violent after a disagreement between moviegoers over laughter escalated into an assault at Cinépolis Luxury Cinemas, according to WSVN. The incident reportedly happened during an evening screening, where a 24-year-old woman and her friends were laughing at a scene before a man seated nearby confronted them.

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, told WSVN the encounter quickly spiraled after the man objected to the group’s laughter. According to the woman’s account, the frustrated audience member turned around and yelled, “Shut the [expletive] up.” She responded that he could have asked them to be quiet without using profanity. That’s when, she said, the confrontation intensified.

The woman said the man then approached her table. “He got angry,” she told WSVN, and then said, “I want to throw away all of your food.” Believing he was bluffing, she challenged him to go ahead.

Then came the alleged pizza pan attack

Instead, she said, the man allegedly grabbed a metal pizza pan from the dine-in theater’s food service and struck her in the face. “I never thought he was going to get the tray and hit me on my face and break my finger,” she said.

According to WSVN, as well as a fractured finger, she experienced bruising to her cheek and an eye injury. She said the blow came so suddenly that she instinctively covered her face while pizza slices flew into the air.

After the alleged assault, the woman said the man calmly returned to his seat, sat down as if nothing had happened, lifted his drink toward her group, and said, “Cheers,” rather than fleeing immediately. One of her friends snapped a photo showing him holding up the cup before theater security, and police were contacted.

The victim also criticized the theater’s response, saying security allowed the man to leave before Miami Police officers arrived. By the time law enforcement reached the theater, he was gone. She said her group turned over cellphone video and photographs of the incident to investigators.

The incident quickly spread across social media, where many users focused as much on the unusual circumstances as the alleged assault itself. One Reddit user joked, “I really just want to know the film that was playing,” while another quipped, “he was a critic, there to pan the movie, as in ‘the movie has been panned by critics.'”

The Miami Police Department’s Assault Unit is handling the case. Beyond the victim’s description of the encounter, little is publicly known about the suspect. Police have not released his name, age, or identifying information, and no charges have been announced. As of this writing, authorities have not announced an arrest.