Challenge Accepted: The Room

Well I asked what Crap movies people wanted reviewed, and boy did my old buddy Shawn point out a doozy. Well, I watched it, well most of it anyway. Let's just say I was sober when I started, by the end I was not. Anyway, Let's get this over with.

The Room is a film that brings a lot of hard questions to mind. Why in God's name is this movie called The Room? How can you spend 6 million dollars and make something so awfully bad with it? Why does anyone watch this film more than once, or indeed more than .85 times? Who is that guy? Who is this guy? Why is everybody talking to them like we should know who they are? What the hell does that mean? Why did she say that? Why does Tommy Wiseau look like he has some kind of palsy? Did we really need 4 Sub-Skinimax quality Make out scenes with crappy music, rotating camera shots, and recycled footage of Tommy Wiseau dry humping some girl who could not possibly have been paid enough?

Anyway, I'm hardly the first person to make fun of this waste of 99 minutes on Earth. And staggeringly, this film has collected a kind of cult following, much like Troll 2. I'm a big believer in the concept of "So Bad it's Good", as seen in Big Trouble in Little China and Troma movies for example, but this is more along the lines of "So Bad I'd rather have medieval dental surgery than see it again."

I can't shake the feeling that this turd started out as some kind of braggadocios boast that got out of hand. "Yeah baby, I'm a director. Sure, you can be in my movie" then a few months later "oh yeah I'm still getting the funding together" and later still "We begin principal photography next week, can we make out again?" But Tommy Wiseau apparently didn't realize that he didn't actually have to make a movie. And The Room is what happened as a result.

That brings up the biggest problem with this "Film." Tommy Wiseau himself. He's the Producer! He's the Executive Producer! He's the "Director"! He's the walking void posing as an Actor! And he's the writer! And based on the way he portrays females in the script, he's the Misogynistic prick who's Mommy didn't hug him enough growing up! He's ridiculously overdubbed too. He acts like he just got his face surgically replaced and he hasn't figured out how to make it move yet. The story seems to center around proving to the audience what a great guy Tommy, er, I mean "Jonny" is and what vile lying sluts his two faced fiance and every other woman in the movie (and presumably in his head) are. He and everything he makes is awful.

The story is despicably bad. The term Plot Hole can't cover it. It is one huge Plot Hole minefield, and you never know what subplot is going where and when. I swear, there were scenes where the characters would start out talking about one subplot, then they would talk about something else, and the next sentence they would be back to the first topic, but they were discussing it as if they had never spoken of it before, let alone 30 seconds ago.

Sound wise, the idiotic overdubbing has to be mentioned. I don't know if Tommy just never learned the importance of Projecting in the Five Acting Schools he studied at, and he just never spoke up enough to be heard on film. Or maybe he was such a shitty actor and director that he didn't realize what a crap performance he was delivering until well after shooting had wrapped. Who can say, but it's awful, that much I can say. There is one laugh that I swear is used every time Tommy's character makes what is supposed to be a joke, even if his mouth isn't smiling or even moving. Combine that with Public Domain symphonies and dime store R&B for the freaky scenes, and the sound becomes a true enemy of the audience. Speaking of the Freaky scenes, whoever was in charge of putting random Tommy Wiseau grunts into these scenes over and over, thanks, I may never sleep again.

Overall, there is nothing redeeming about this. It bothers me to think that people who like bad movies might actually be making this doofus some money. The good news is, whatever I see next can't possibly be worse... I hope.

0 Capable Actors out of 10.