HOME |  CULT MOVIES | COMPETITIONS | ADVERTISE |  CONTACT US |  ABOUT US
 
 
 
Newest Reviews
American Fiction
Poor Things
Thunderclap
Zeiram
Legend of the Bat
Party Line
Night Fright
Pacha, Le
Kimi
Assemble Insert
Venus Tear Diamond, The
Promare
Beauty's Evil Roses, The
Free Guy
Huck and Tom's Mississippi Adventure
Rejuvenator, The
Who Fears the Devil?
Guignolo, Le
Batman, The
Land of Many Perfumes
Cat vs. Rat
Tom & Jerry: The Movie
Naked Violence
Joyeuses Pacques
Strangeness, The
How I Became a Superhero
Golden Nun
Incident at Phantom Hill
Winterhawk
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
Maigret Sets a Trap
B.N.A.
Hell's Wind Staff, The
Topo Gigio and the Missile War
Battant, Le
Penguin Highway
Cazadore de Demonios
Snatchers
Imperial Swordsman
Foxtrap
   
 
Newest Articles
3 From Arrow Player: Sweet Sugar, Girls Nite Out and Manhattan Baby
Little Cat Feat: Stephen King's Cat's Eye on 4K UHD
La Violence: Dobermann at 25
Serious Comedy: The Wrong Arm of the Law on Blu-ray
DC Showcase: Constantine - The House of Mystery and More on Blu-ray
Monster Fun: Three Monster Tales of Sci-Fi Terror on Blu-ray
State of the 70s: Play for Today Volume 3 on Blu-ray
The Movie Damned: Cursed Films II on Shudder
The Dead of Night: In Cold Blood on Blu-ray
Suave and Sophisticated: The Persuaders! Take 50 on Blu-ray
Your Rules are Really Beginning to Annoy Me: Escape from L.A. on 4K UHD
A Woman's Viewfinder: The Camera is Ours on DVD
Chaplin's Silent Pursuit: Modern Times on Blu-ray
The Ecstasy of Cosmic Boredom: Dark Star on Arrow
A Frosty Reception: South and The Great White Silence on Blu-ray
You'll Never Guess Which is Sammo: Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon on Blu-ray
Two Christopher Miles Shorts: The Six-Sided Triangle/Rhythm 'n' Greens on Blu-ray
Not So Permissive: The Lovers! on Blu-ray
Uncomfortable Truths: Three Shorts by Andrea Arnold on MUBI
The Call of Nostalgia: Ghostbusters Afterlife on Blu-ray
Moon Night - Space 1999: Super Space Theater on Blu-ray
Super Sammo: Warriors Two and The Prodigal Son on Blu-ray
Sex vs Violence: In the Realm of the Senses on Blu-ray
What's So Funny About Brit Horror? Vampira and Bloodbath at the House of Death on Arrow
Keeping the Beatles Alive: Get Back
   
 
  Room, The Cheep Cheep Cheap
Year: 2003
Director: Tommy Wiseau
Stars: Tommy Wiseau, Juliette Danielle, Greg Sestero, Philip Haldiman, Carolyn Minnott, Robyn Paris, Mike Holmes, Kyle Vogt, Greg Ellery
Genre: Drama, TrashBuy from Amazon
Rating:  3 (from 1 vote)
Review: Johnny (Tommy Wiseau) thinks he is in a secure relationship with his girlfriend Lisa (Juliette Danielle), who he lives with in their San Francisco home. Their friends think nothing of wandering in and out of the place, friends like Denny (Philip Haldiman), who Johnny is assisting financially to get him through college, and has something of a crush on Lisa, so much so that when the couple tells him that they're going to have some alone time in the bedroom after Johnny has given Lisa a new dress, Denny joins them on the bed for a pillow fight. They manage to persuade the boy to leave, then get down to making sweet love...

Actually, there's a bit too much of the sweet lovemaking in The Room, but for some that was part of the attraction. Indeed, every misstep in this poor little production was part of the attraction to its fans as after a few years since its release it became a bona fide cult favourite due to its perceived terrible quality. Not that it was difficult to perceive much that was decent about the film, as on the face of it The Room was just your ordinary low budget vanity project which somehow made it to cinemas, but such was the ineptitude it put on display that many found themselves responding to it with a curious affection.

Every few years there comes along a film that attracts a Rocky Horror Picture Show style of fanbase in that there will be groups of moviegoers who attend its screenings and turn it into an audience participation event, but much as their creators would have hoped their project had legs, hardly any of them have the lasting allure. After all, how many people still visit their local arthouse to wave coathangers at Mommie Dearest or yell the lines along with Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls? But The Room looked to beat those odds and turn into a minor phenomenon, so much so that its hapless writer and director and star would turn up at screenings, evidently pleased that his work had found someone who enjoyed it passionately, endlessly quoting his dreadful dialogue.

It might have been nicer for him if they were not hooting with laughter all the way through it, but beggars can't be choosers. The plot maps out the doomed romance of Johnny and Lisa, played with a baffling lack of skill in the case of the former, and an admirable struggle with an apparently insane character in the case of the latter. Wiseau speaks his lines in a thick accent, and in spite of having the role tailor made for him - by himself - Johnny has the look of being recently discovered in a glacier and thawed just before the production began. Certainly his attiitude towards the Lisa character appears to have been informed by an unreconstructed male perspective, if not the point of view of someone hailing from another world. Lisa, you see, is not the source of Johnny's happiness, but actually the architect of his undoing.

No matter how loving she seems in the first ten minutes, and get used to the dreadful thought that Wiseau is trying to turn you on with the love scenes as there are a lot of them, she is in fact the Queen Bitch from Hell who has her sights set on Johnny's best friend Mark (Greg Sestero, whose fascinating book on this film was turned into James Franco comedy The Disaster Artist). He reluctantly falls for her charms, and suffers massive guilt, but we're not supposed to blame him at all as it's clearly set out as the woman's fault. If this suspiciously misogynistic narrative were not deranged enough, marvel at the incidental lunacies such as the males' insistence on tossing a football about, even when dressed for a wedding that mysteriously never happens, or the amount of times establishing shots of the city are used without rhyme or reason. Nobody in this acts rationally, it genuinely does seem like a space alien wrote it while trying to pass for human, and possible Conehead in disguise Wiseau's dropping in of a James Dean line is but one instance in an obliviously ludicrous film. It's like a demented sitcom that thinks it's a drama. Music by Mladen Milicevic.
Reviewer: Graeme Clark

 

This review has been viewed 4015 time(s).

As a member you could Rate this film

 
Review Comments (0)


Untitled 1

Login
  Username:
 
  Password:
 
   
 
Forgotten your details? Enter email address in Username box and click Reminder. Your details will be emailed to you.
   

Latest Poll
Which star probably has psychic powers?
Laurence Fishburne
Nicolas Cage
Anya Taylor-Joy
Patrick Stewart
Sissy Spacek
Michelle Yeoh
Aubrey Plaza
Tom Cruise
Beatrice Dalle
Michael Ironside
   
 
   

Recent Visitors
Mary Sibley
Enoch Sneed
Darren Jones
Mark Le Surf-hall
  Louise Hackett
Andrew Pragasam
Graeme Clark
  Desbris M
   

 

Last Updated: