Until recently, The Room was just another unsuccessful indie film flop — a drama, independently financed for around $7 million by writer-director-producer-actor Tommy Wiseau and released in a few theaters with no support from studios, that was panned by the few critics who saw it and went nowhere. Except that, thanks to years of relentless midnight screenings at a Los Angeles movie theater and the film’s poster (at left) plastered on a Highland Avenue billboard for nearly five years (at a cost of $5k/month), it became the movie that wouldn’t die, and a cult following has grown up around it not unlike that of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Against all odds, seven years after its inauspicious release, The Room has become a kind of so-bad-it’s-hilarious hit, selling out shows and bestowing upon its creator a modicum of notoriety/fame. It is, according to one professor of film studies, “the Citizen Kane of bad movies.” Wiseau is now saying that the film was made to be intentionally funny, a claim disputed by his actors (and almost anyone who’s seen the film). This is a kind of bad-ness you just can’t fake; a kind of cinema magic that comes along maybe once a generation.
Let’s start off with the trailer, and go from there. Just watch this …
But the magic of the film can’t really be captured in a cut-to-pieces trailer — it plays out in the bizarre pacing of the scenes and the off-kilter line readings that have made it a favorite among Hollywood comedians like Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill. An EW article reveals how on the set of Role Models, “to Room” came into use as a verb —
‘When we do a take, and it seems bad, a comment about The Room is often made,” says Joe Lo Truglio, who played the jolly knight in Role Models, and is yet another fan of The Room. ”’Dude, your heart was in the right place, but the acting wasn’t. You Roomed it!”’
So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty and watch some scenes. This little montage of three scenes captures one of the hallmarks of the film — weeeiiiiird pacing.
This scene feels like the script supervisor lost a page of dialogue or something; abrupt emotional transitions are another thing that make The Room such a strange viewing experience.
The most famous line from the film, akin to Brando yelling “STELLA!”
In this scene, Wiseau gets so angry at Lisa that he goes all Bruce Banner tears apart a room (the room?), throwing a TV out the window. But his rage is so strange and slow, so awkward — like he’s just swallowed a fistful of Xanax.
In this scene, Wiseau orders a hot chocolate at a coffee shop. For some reason, the orders of all the customers in line before him are recorded in meticulous detail.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that football plays a special role in the film — an attempt by its Austrian director to make the movie seem more “American”? — and the characters are forever awkwardly throwing one around. Another notorious scene features a group of guys playing football in tuxes.
So why do audiences love this movie so much? I don’t know, but they do — watch these audience reactions after a screening. Some of them have seen it fifteen times!
Apparently, screenings of the film are filled with audience participation — people laughing, shouting at the screen, reciting lines along with the characters — and whenever a spoon shows up in the film (there are framed pictures of them that appear now and then), this is what happens:
SPOON!!!!
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It will never eclipse Plan 9 From Outer Space as the worst ever.
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 2-18-2010 at 1:26 pm
AS showed it on Halloween or April Fools I think. I thought it was some sort of horrible soft porn flick.
posted by blink on 2-18-2010 at 1:29 pm
It’s like they all phoned in their performances from the dentist’s office. While on laughing gas. And Novocain. And Quaaludes.
posted by lleachie on 2-18-2010 at 1:36 pm
Wow just watching a little of these clips with the sound off is more than enough to get a sense of how bad it is! Now I’ve got to find a theatre showing it!
posted by Jenny on 2-18-2010 at 1:59 pm
i think im gonna have to check out the screening in DC, seems too good to pass up.
posted by Jay on 2-18-2010 at 1:59 pm
The best way to watch this movie is with RiffTrax.
posted by WaitingIsFullness on 2-18-2010 at 2:37 pm
I like how none of the actors know how to throw a football.
posted by Craig on 2-18-2010 at 3:01 pm
One of my friends made us watch this and it was so horrible and awesome at the same time! For Halloween her one friend and boyfriend went as Tommy and Lisa! The best thing about this movie is that they replace the actor playing one of Tommy’s friends and hope you dont’ notice!
:o)
posted by Lindsey on 2-18-2010 at 3:11 pm
Did you ever see Attack of the Killer Tomatos? Hard to beat that one…
posted by Bob on 2-18-2010 at 4:01 pm
Why would actors in a film being praised for being so good at being so purposefully bad claim that it wasn’t intentional? If they thought they were doing good and are being wildly panned, why hold to thinking you were deep and full of acting? Take what you can get and run with it! It’s easy to be bad, but very difficult to be good at being bad! Just say, “That’s exactly what we were going for, Thanks!!”
Oh and recaptcha: The yuckiest
posted by acejcnj on 2-18-2010 at 4:07 pm
@acejcnj:
The reason the actors are refuting Mr. Wiseau’s assertion that the movie was purposely comedic is because they had such a terrible time shooting it. Wiseau micromanaged every line reading and every scene. It was a total vanity project. The actors were miserable. The crew departed in droves. As a former commenter noted, one of the main cast members quit, and Wiseau simply replaced him with a different actor—who had a different character name!
posted by loripop on 2-18-2010 at 4:40 pm
I like how in the tux football scene they start doing what I assume are chicken noises. Reminiscent of Arrested Development’s multiple awkward chicken dances?
posted by Buster on 2-18-2010 at 5:05 pm
Why does Tommy look like he’s having a stroke in the movie poster?
posted by Yams on 2-18-2010 at 5:06 pm
Sounds bad…but not the worst. Terror Squad tops my list. A film that featured horribly timed explosions, an extremely long police chase, guitars that sounded like synthesizers, and Chuck Connors. Hard to find, worth the wait.
posted by Nick on 2-18-2010 at 5:25 pm
Obviously the writer of this article has never seen “Hell goes to Frogtown”.
posted by Wren on 2-18-2010 at 5:44 pm
Oh my God, I love this movie. I KNEW this was going to be an article about the Room as soon as I read the title.
I went to a screening a few weeks ago in Boston and it was pure insanity. EVERYONE NEEDS TO SEE THE ROOM.
posted by Marisa Gesualdi on 2-18-2010 at 6:03 pm
On “30 Rock”, Liz has a spoon and fork hanging on the wall in her office, similar to the ones on the wall of the brick-red living room in “The Room”.Has to be a wink-wink.
Scotchka!
posted by Pete on 2-18-2010 at 6:50 pm
Great post, Ransom. I had read the article in EW but your clips really help illustrate the hilarity and weirdness.
One of my movie pet peeves is when the characters say each others’ names all the time. (Catch, Johnny! Alright, Peter! Here we go, Mark! Catch, Mark! Gee, Peter, you’re clumsy.) It’s like the screenwriter has never heard people talk.
posted by Miss Moneypenny on 2-18-2010 at 8:33 pm
HA! This is as bad as ‘Eraserhead’.
Awesome.
Victor@icomplainthereforeiam.com
posted by Victor @ I Complain Therefore I Am on 2-18-2010 at 8:51 pm
Ummm… Wow!
It has all the gentle sensitivity and subtlety of a root canal.
posted by George Kapotto on 2-18-2010 at 8:56 pm
Woah woah woah, now. I won’t brook any nasty talk about eraserhead!
posted by Ransom Riggs on 2-18-2010 at 8:58 pm
@Bob, now don’t dis the Tomatoes – George Clooney starred in the sequel!
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 2-19-2010 at 12:32 am
Director was rich before he even started filming the movie. clearly he spent 50k on the film and deposited the rest in his bank account. $7 million? WTF?!?!
posted by Allan on 2-19-2010 at 3:14 am
The article calls Wiseau Austrian… is there research to back this up? Room fans have long debated his origins.
posted by Tim Harrod on 2-19-2010 at 5:30 am
I hate to say this, but is Tommy supposed to seem like a retard? And I actually mean someone who’s mentally impaired. Because the way he talks and how awkward it is, that’s what it seems like.
ReCapthcha: liner SCAR-FACED
posted by tess on 2-19-2010 at 2:42 pm
Seriously, I’ve seen this movie twice in the theater in LA. It’s AMAZING, and everyone should go. Although this review does not mention, nor nearly do justice, to the 4 or 5 absurd sex scenes in the movie.
posted by samuelleejackson on 2-19-2010 at 6:10 pm
The “You’re tearing me apart” line is actually from Rebel Without A Cause, said by James Dean to Jim Backus and Ann Doran who played his parents in the movie…..Just sayin’ is all….
posted by EastOfEden on 2-20-2010 at 3:14 pm
I realized that [adult swim] is showing this right now in honor of April Fool’s Day. The cheesy opening scene came on, and I thought…”No – it couldn’t be. It is!”
posted by Sara on 4-1-2010 at 12:12 am