I have decided recently to write a book, entitled 100 Movies You Should See Before You're 21. I am trying to write at least two pieces on American films a week for the next year, each about 2 1/2 pages in length. This is the first of these pieces, written about what is hands down the worst movie you will read about in this book. In fact, it may be the worst movie you ever read about, hear about or see in your entire life.
The Room
Directed Tommy Wiseau
Written by Tommy Wiseau
Starring Tommy Wiseau, Greg Sestero, Juliette Danielle
“I cannot tell you, it is confidential.”
“Oh, come on! Why not?”
“No, I can’t. Anyway, how is your sex life?”
-Johnny and Mark
You may think you have seen bad movies. You may be one of those people who saw Catwoman and thought you’d never see anything worse. You may feel that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg raped Indiana Jones three summers ago. And you may be one of those people who has seen so much Mystery Science Theater that you couldn’t imagine anything worse than Manos: The Hands of Fate or The Beast of Yucca Flats. You may think you know what bad cinema is.
You haven’t seen The Room.
Before I discovered The Room I was just an average person who thought the worst movies ever made were all made by Michael Bay or Ed Wood. And then my friend and fellow bad-movie-lover Savannah Dooley told me about The Room, this bad movie people saw on Saturday nights in L.A. After I saw this film, I felt it was my mission in life to tell everybody about this movie and get them to see it. So far, I’ve been pretty successful. It’s the cinematic equivalent of being a born-again Christian.
Tommy Wiseau, the man behind the 21st century’s greatest disasterpiece reeks of liquor, has an accent of unidentifiable origins, and an ego the size of Saturn. Nobody really knows anything about him: where he’s from, what his day job is, or how he managed to raise six million dollars to make this film. But when Tommy Wiseau made The Room, he truly believed that he was going to make a great film. When it was released in 2003, The Room only found its way to two or three theatres, and was laughed off the screen by the serious critics.
But soon the film began to develop a cult following of people who claimed that it was so bad it actually was good. Midnight screenings began in L.A. soon afterwards, and when it became really popular, Tommy started showing up at them, answering (or rather, non-answering) the audience’s questions, and saying the same couple of lines every single time (my favorite, “You can laugh, you can cry, you can express yourself, but please don’t hurt anyone”).
The Room, a film “with the passion of Tennessee Williams” as the trailer advertises, is a love triangle between all-American Johnny (Mr. Wiseau), his best friend Mark (Greg Sestero, affectionately nicknamed “Sestosterone”), and his fiancée Lisa (Juliette Danielle). After the first ten minutes of the film, Lisa decides out of nowhere that she doesn’t love Johnny anymore and begins to have an affair with Mark. The rest of the film meanders along until its inevitable climax, when Johnny realizes he’s been cuckolded. But that doesn’t even begin to explain it.
I am going to try and explain to you why this movie is such a disasterpiece the best I can. My explanations may not be very good, but they will hopefully convince you to run out and see this film as fast as you can.
1. The film is set in San Francisco. How do I know this? Because every single scene begins with a shot of the city. Whenever the audience sees an establishing San Fran shot, they shout out, “Meanwhile, back in San Francisco!”
2. The spoon rule. There is a picture of a spoon in a frame by the telephone in the house where the movie takes place. The only hypothesis I can postulate about its appearance is that it was a fake picture that you get when you buy a frame at Pottery Barn, only the prop man never took out the fake picture. So now every time you see it, you throw plastic spoons in the air and shout “SPOON!” Expect to get hit by flying cutlery several times when you watch this film.
3. Every single character greets each other with the words “Oh hi
4. Lisa’s mother Claudette (played by Carolyn Minnott) is truly one of the dottiest characters in all of film. She seems to have short-term memory, or rather, Tommy does, because her most famous line refers to something which is never brought up again throughout the course of the film. She’s talking to Lisa and casually says “No one wants to help me, and I’m dying!” “You’re not dying, mother,” Lisa says. “I got the results of the test back,” she replies. “I definitely have breast cancer.” Never once do we hear this again. As a result, cries of “CANCER!” whenever she enters the frame are heard in the theatre.
5. Denny, played brilliantly by Philip Haldiman, is one of the great mysteries of The Room. Who is he? Why does he look up to Johnny as a father figure? What kind of drugs was he on? Why does he bite that apple in the film? Is he retarded or is he just a little slow? All these mysteries will be cleared up when you see the film…or not.
6. Characters appear and disappear with alarming frequency. About twenty-five minutes into the film, two characters appear to have sex in Johnny and Lisa’s house. We have never seen them before, and they aren’t properly introduced. Characters keep coming into the film without any introduction, even in the last twenty minutes of the film—the time when you should never introduce anyone new!
7. Of course, the main reason to see The Room is to see the mysterious Tommy himself. With his strange accent and bad hair, you may find yourself wanting to talk like him after you’ve seen the film. Simple phrases like “I did not” become “Ah did naaaaaht” in his dialect. But of course, the most famous line in the film is the moment where he truly believes the spirits of James Dean and Marlon Brando have possessed him. Lisa claims that he hit her, even though we haven’t seen such a thing occur. During their confrontation, Tommy stands up and yells, “You’re lying! I never hit you! YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, LISA!” After you see it, you’ll never stop saying it.
I’ve seen The Room four times now, and my friends are starting to hate me because I begin almost every conversation with “Oh hi,” and scream ‘SPOON!” every time I see a spoon. This movie has warped my perception of reality. Because I know that somebody made a movie that is so inept on every level, from the bad sex scenes to the bizarre characters, I can’t look at any movies the same way anymore. And all my friends who I’ve turned on to the film have slowly become obsessed with it, taking their friends to go see it and absorbing everyone into a giant cult.
I’ve included a picture of me and my friends the second time I saw the movie with an audience. From left to right are my friends Jack and Dylan, myself, Tommy, my writing partner Jon and my oldest friend Ted. I look maniacally happy, as though I have received the greatest Christmas gift of all time. And in many ways, The Room is the gift that keeps on giving.
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