When I watch the worst movie ever, I expect to be entertained by how bad it is, and not just bored or frustrated. Having heard that The Room is the best worst movie ever made, it seemed worth a try as something fun. Lets go over the checklist and see how it succeeded and failed:
- Comical actingcheck. This was pretty consistent throughout, and not many points can be docked here.
- Memorably poor lines of dialoguecheck. Youre tearing me apart, Lisa! I have to admit, I was hanging on Johnnys every word. The accent didnt hurt, either.
- Awkward sex scenescheck. This is a failure, not a success. If I wanted to watch two naked hogs rolling about, Id drive past the farm down the road. You know how it goes.
- Unrelated plot lines thrown in for good measurecheck. Theres a scene that advocates the avoidance of drugs and seemingly has no relevance to the main story whatsoever. But its tense and emotional or it could have been, if any of the actors had been capable of conveying emotion.
- Less than three different setscheck. The viewer would just get overwhelmed if the characters went to too many different locations anyway.
- Repetition, repetition, repetitioncheck. Its difficult to fill an hour and a half, so a good device to employ is the reintroduction of an ancillary character to have the same discussion over, and over, and over again. She doesnt love him, old woman get over it.
Theres other stuff I could put up there, but Im tired of doing lists. Theres no point in reviewing the traditional love triangle plot. Let me just say, the first five to ten minutes (minus the awkward sex scene) are pretty unintentionally hilarious, and worth watching. The rest of the movienot so much. If it had turned into one of the numerous ridiculous horror movies out there, with less of a strained effort on story and more focus on stupid violence, it might have succeeded (see: The Midnight Meat Train). As it stands, The Room felt painfully long and did not make me feel like it was worth my time to sit through this failed experiment; it is just another suckfest, and nothing exceptional.
Better luck on the sequel, Tommy Wiseau.
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