WOONSOCKET — Everyone came with a story.

Meredith Moore ate her first lobster at the Shore Dinner Hall.

John Smith met his wife in the beer garden.

Howie Bergel spent 10 years operating the creaky house of horrors ride.

Director David Bettencourt addesses the audience before the showing of You Must Be This Tall: The Story of Rocky Point.

Last night, Rhode Islanders unwrapped those memories like a gooey amusement park treat and headed to Woonsocket for the premiere of the feature documentary, You Must Be This Tall: The Story of Rocky Point Park.

Rhode Island lore met Hollywood glam as more than 1,000 people descended on the historic Stadium Theatre for the event. And for few hours at least, the lights that dimmed more than a decade ago at the Warwick amusement park shined bright again.

“Everyone has a memory, that’s what this is about,” director David Bettencourt said, circling the lobby as movie-goers poured into the theater.

Bettencourt too had visited the park as a youngster, but the filmmaker never gave a thought to making a movie about it until his son, Andrew, asked about the park and Bettencourt found he knew almost nothing about its history.

When he started unraveling the fringes of Rocky Point’s 150-year saga, Bettencourt knew he’d found his first feature film.

As most who gathered in the Stadium Theatre knew, Rocky Point was more than just a popular attraction. It was for many a part of the fabric of Rhode Island summers, a piece of history in its own right, riddled with good times and bad, with politics and sports and love stories.

Last night, Bettencourt said his pre-screening nerves felt somehow appropriate. “It’s a lot like a queasy sort of ride,” he said. “Like a tilt-a-whirl. I might be sick, but in the end it’s still wonderful.”

All around him, guests posed for pictures with the park’s mascot, “Rocky” the giant red lobster, and shared tales of Saturday afternoons at the park: flirting with skyway operators, tagging behind dad on his company’s picnic, waiting for AC/DC to take the stage.

Inside the theater, three generations of the Tenczar family settled into seats in the second row. When the youngest, Susan Salvatore, 29, heard about the movie, she knew she had to take her mother and grandmother to see it. As a child, she visited the park and heard the endless stories: her parents rode the carousel on their first date; her grandmother swam in the saltwater pond; and as a girl she remembers flying high on the rides with her father, in the years before he passed away.

“It’s really a part of our good family memories,” Salvatore said.

When she heard about the screening, she bought tickets that very day “just to reminisce, to take a little trip back and remember the good old days.”

She wasn’t alone. As the theater darkened and scenes of the old park scrolled onto the screen, the audience was giddy. By the end of the opening montage they were cheering.

Back out in the lobby, Bettencourt no longer seemed nervous.

“This is why I make movies, to get people to come out like this,” he said. “Rocky Point was different for everyone who went there and that’s what I want them to take from this, their own personal memories.”

Information about the film including future show times and places can be found on the movie’s Web site, www.rockypointmovie.com.

cneedham@projo.com