Step Into The Room For A Good Laugh.

You knew I would get to this one. When I first began—when I embarked on a quest to watch some of the worst movies—The Room was in the first three DVDs I bought.

Sure, in 2018 it’s a little cliché to pick on this movie. I’m late to the party. The Disaster Artist (which is excellent and worthy of watching after seeing The Room) did already such a good job of ripping this movie apart that there’s little to bring to the table.

But, believe it or not, The Room goes even further into its own madness than most talk about. Yes, everyone who has knowledge of this film knows the acting is an exercise in aliens attempting human behavior, and the lines/dialogue could make a man scream out for mercy, but, what they don’t show you in those little screencaps on YouTube is how utterly befuddling the rest of the movie is. The story is a mess, yes. The ending is absurd. Characters are not so much cardboard as they are slices of a funhouse mirror held up to a picture of cardboard—but, if you haven’t seen this film, I bet you didn’t know it has a ton of sex scenes? Like way more than reasonable.

The Room Has Some Odd Storytelling Priorities

Also, did you know they have songs accompanying them? Unique songs only used for the sex? With lyrics?

Because they do.

They don’t even fit with the rest of the movie, in most cases. One, rather insistently, informs us that someone is the others’ rose. They are so jarring they stick in the memory long after you see it.

I watched The Room nearly three months ago, and I am still stuck on that one song.

Now, despite my bashing, watching The Room is not that unenjoyable of a process—it’s a cult hit for a reason—but the subtle off-ness of things like a scene cutting to daytime, then night, then day again for seemingly no reason builds a surrealist trip.

The Room May Just Be Accidentally Brilliant.

If The Room was a parody or a satire, it would almost be a masterpiece of the art—because somehow it made me think more than I’d expect.

I can’t get it out of my head.

In the camp of bad movies, this is the most fascinatingly awful. Tommy Wiseau clearly cared a lot about his vision. Of course, as far as I can tell, Birdemic also had a lot of heart behind it’s making, but, Birdemic was full of bad decisions that seemed just products of abysmal planning and execution. Tommy made a movie full of bad decisions that were very purposeful and motivated. What motivated him, however, I have little idea. The Disaster Artist may be tainting my perception—that movie overshadows and biased irreversibly this review—but, even still, there’s a twisted magic there without its influence.

The Room almost does not classify as a so-bad-it’s-funny anymore. This somewhat unoriginal article series of mine would be incomplete without mentioning The Room, but the movie is so much a bewildering miasma of things that are only funny because of how jaw-droppingly misguided or atrociously far from normal human behavior it is, that it’s practically its own genre.

The Room Is So Awful, So Strange, It’s Fantastic.

This may be the only movie I will list in this series that is a “must watch” if you are old enough.

The Room is a classic.

I say that sincerely.

How we ended up in a world where movies could become classic by virtue (or vice) of being awful to the point of existential confusion, I may never understand, but, The Room is the first and perhaps only movie truly to cement its status this way. I’d recommend it (almost) the same way I would Star Wars: A New Hope, simply as something you must, if you intend to be part of pop culture, see in all its glory.

P.S. Did you know Tommy is making another movie? It looks glorious. Click here to check out another bout of sheer silliness. 

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