I've Been To THE ROOM

Have you ever been to The Rocky Horror Picture Show? People dress like the characters, act out scenes and scream comments in unison at the screen.

It appears that a new contender is vying for that midnight honor. It’s called THE ROOM

The Room

It is directed and stars Tommy Wiseau, a man who resembles Jeremy Irons after surviving a grease fire. With some European accent that has a touch of Schwarzenegger and a touch of Olivier, but he won't tell you his nationality.


When talking, the guy makes no sense. Then again, nothing about his film makes sense. Well, it makes sense in the way that every scene says the same thing to the point of the dialog actually repeating itself. See how that last sentence felt really repetitive. Stretch it out to two hours and you've got The Room. The supposed plot revolves around a love triangle in San Francisco and how it ends up hurting everyone involved... I think. Maybe it’s a testament to existentialism? It’s pointless to put too much thought into it. It would be more that Wiseau did.

Wiseau claims it’s a black comedy. Who the hell knows? Half of it plays like a bad Cinemax softcore flick, with Tommy’s wrinkled bobbing ass flexing; the other half plays like a bad Tennessee Williams play.

The whole thing is an incredible mess. From the acting to the sound to the script, there isn’t one thing about this film that works. The kitchen is somehow located out the front door, a window opens into the bathroom, and the T.V. is one of those empty Ikea display models. And that’s just a few issues with the set.


The audience was eating it up. There were fans that have been to every screening of this piece of shit since it’s discovery last year. They wear t-shirts, throw spoons whenever a framed spoon portrait is displayed, and even scream how they want to have Tommy’s baby. At least that’s what the men were screaming.

I have to mention one of the story lines. It’s not really a story line, because it’s brought up and never touched upon again. The mother tells her daughter that she has breast cancer. She says it with the nonchalance of someone remembering they forgot to turn the lights off before leaving the house. That's it. That's all that's ever said. “I’ve got cancer, but it’ll be fine.” End drama here. Wow!!

The most interesting part of this whole fiasco is watching people develop jokes to shout at the screen. A few have already been standardized. Whenever there is a shot of Alcatraz, everyone shouts, "Alcatraz!". There is also a recurring establishing shot that is the same as the television show Full House. So everyone screams, “FULL HOUSE!” Then there is a lot of babble and individual jokes, some of which will stick and become part of the growing audience script at the next screening.


Purposefully or not and I seriously doubt it was, Wiseau has made something that brings people together in a way that very few films do. They trash it, laugh at it, and love it all together in social unison.