The Room (No Spoilers)

I first heard of The Room back in June. I was on Market Street Cinema's website, and saw the poster you now see to your left, with only one showtime listed for the 9:00 p.m. timeslot, the last Saturday of the month. I clicked on the provided link, which took me to The Room's IMDB page. I was thoroughly confused as to why MSC would be showing some obscure 6-year-old film for one screening on one night. But I let it go, not wanting to waste my one in-theater movie viewing for June (since we've been averaging one a month this year) on some random film that I'd never heard of. Instead we saw The Hangover for our June movie.

The next week, I was visiting my buddy, and fellow LAMB, Jason's site, Invasion of the B-Movies, and read his review of The Room. I was floored. MSC wasn't just showing some obscure 6-year-old film: MSC was showing a horrible, obscure 6-year-old film...on purpose. I needed answers. That's when I started digging (thanks Wiki) and found out about the film's exceptionally devoted cult following in the big cities, which have monthly midnight screenings. Turns out some guy wanted to get that started here in Little Rock too.

And so The Room began its invasion of MSC for one screening on the last Saturday of every month. And every month I kept putting off going to see it, saying "Oh, next month we'll definitely check it out." Well, it didn't pan out well and October was the last time MSC screened The Room. So I pouted some and just ordered it from Netflix to watch at home, which sucked because I really was going to check it out in November. *Sigh*

With the lengthy story of my exposure to The Room aside, the film was certainly as awful as everyone promised. There isn't much of a plot: Johnny loves his "future wife," Lisa, very much, but she gets bored and, instead of just leaving him, she has an affair with his best friend, Mark. Several subplots weave in and out of the Johnny-Lisa-Mark triangle, including a friend's brief run-in with a drug dealer, Lisa's mother randomly announcing her breast cancer, and a couple of friends who like to get it on in other people's living rooms. Throw in 4 sickening "love" scenes, multiple attempts at tossing a football around, half the script being comprised of people greeting each other, terrible acting, editing and directing, all with an overall lack of coherence and no indication of what "room" the title implies, and it's no wonder The Room is considered one of the best worst movies around. That's right: people seek this movie out at midnight screenings and bootleg DVD copies just to laugh at it horribleness. This is the stuff legends are made of.

Writer-Director-Producer-Star Tommy Wiseau, a man of indeterminate origin, makes this movie what it is in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way. No matter what the man says or does on screen, you just have to laugh. I'm convinced every other "actor" in this movie could be replaced and the film would be the same, but if you take Mr. Wiseau out of the equation, it would all fall flat and just be another bad and forgettable B-movie.

All that being said, I don't think I could watch The Room again on its own merits. However, accompanied by Rifftrax, I could certainly laugh along with the professionals and their relentless mocking of one of the worst films of all time. I do advise that you try it on its own at least once. Because you have to see it to really believe it. Then tell a friend, so the legend of The Room will continue.

Ratings (based on entertainment only):
The Room (sans Rifftrax)

The Room (plus Rifftrax)



P.S. Check out the LAMBCast devoted just to The Room, one of the best episodes.