THE ROOM dir. Tommy Wiseau

Elsie's Film House presents... LATE. CULT.

THE ROOM dir. Tommy Wiseau (2003) USA | M | 99 mins

Johnny is a successful banker with great respect for and dedication to the people in his life, especially his future wife Lisa. The happy-go-lucky guy sees his world being torn apart when his friends begin to betray him one-by-one.

Notes for the audience - from SCREENRANT:

Once you're in The Room, Tommy Wiseau’s classic of so-bad-it’s-good cinema, there are certain expected call-outs, traditions, and other in-theater behaviours that are unique to this film and this film alone. Some Room traditions you should know:

• The film’s set is for some reason decorated with pictures of spoons. Whenever the spoons appear, members of the crowd throw plastic spoons at the screen, while shouting “spoon!” Some audiences also throw footballs around the theater whenever footballs appear on screen.
• Most Room audiences will recite some of the film’s more notorious lines along with the characters, such as “I’m tired, I’m wasted, I love you darling,” “hi doggie,” and, of course, “YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, LISA.”
• Some fans of The Room have been known, Rocky Horror-style, to act out certain scenes directly in front of the screen.
• During various scenes in which characters appear with little explanation and immediately become important, the crowd exclaims, “who are you?,” sometimes with an expletive added.
• At a couple of points in which the image on screen goes suddenly blurry, the audience is expected to blurt out “focus!”
• The film’s long and uncomfortable sex scenes are often accompanied by whistling, laughter, and audible jokes about seemingly incorrect trajectory of Wiseau’s pelvic thrusts. Some audience members also sing along with the lyrics of the scenes’ subpar slow jams, especially Kitra Williams’ “You Are My Rose.”
• In the film’s most notorious dropped subplot, the character of Claudette (Carolyn Minnott) mentions in one scene that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer, but it’s never brought up before or after. Some audience members have been known to make cancer jokes whenever the character appears, one of the few instances in which such jokes can possibly be funny.
• During the love scene between the previously-unseen characters of Mike and Michelle (Scott Holmes and Robyn Paris), when Mike inexplicably declares that “chocolate is the symbol of love,” some will declare “no it’s not!”
• During the unnaturally long stock footage of a car driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, some audiences will chant “Go! Go! Go!,” until the car completes its journey across the bridge.
• Some Room fans have been known to sing the theme song of Full House over stock footage of San Francisco houses, or hum the Mission:Impossible theme song as Wiseau fiddles with a tape recorder.
• During one scene, in which Wiseau is looking down at the bottom right of the screen, some fans run towards that spot and screen and shout, “down here, Tommy!”
• In the scene in which Mark (Greg Sestero) says to Lisa (Juliette Danielle,) “these candles? This music? This sexy dress?,” each line is to be interrupted with “what candles? What music? What sexy dress?”
• Wearing costumes isn’t as much a part of the Room tradition as it is for Rocky Horror, but people are welcome to go to screenings dressed as Wiseau himself, or to go as a group inexplicably dressed in tuxedos.
• Audience members are welcome to make their own mockeries of the film’s various absurdities, from its stilted line readings to its inconsistent characterizations to its bad dialogue to its laughably bad green screen work. Improvisation is welcome.