"The Room" is the Midnight Movie We Need in Our Lives Right Now

This past Saturday I went to my first ever midnight movie. I have never done one of these type events, and "The Room" was playing at a local theater, The Tivoli, here in Saint Louis. I jumped on the chance to go since it was a weekend, and I didn't have to coach the following day. I convinced one of my buddies, it wasn't that hard, I asked him if he wanted to go and he said yeah, and we trekked to the theater. He had previously seen a late night screening of "The Room", in fact very recently, so he kind of had an idea of what to expect. Me on the other hand, this was all new territory.

For those of you that don't know, "The Room" is a horrendous movie. It is so bad. It is poorly written, acted, directed, shot and its release was a disaster. It was so bad, this past year a great movie, "The Disaster Artist", was made about the making of this movie. "The Room" is widely considered the "best bad movie ever made". That is why it is so alluring, and the perfect midnight movie.

As I said, I have never been to one, but I know of them. I have heard and read many stories about midnight movies. "Rocky Horror Picture Show" is a big time one. Horror movies seem to draw big time crowds. And, bad movies as well, are the perfect fodder for this event. "The Room" falls into that third category. My buddy that I went with sent me a sort of "how to" when going to see "The Room" at a midnight showing. I am very grateful for this because it helped me to prepare. He, as previously stated, also knew the reins, so he was helpful for this event.

We were all let into the theater right around 11:30 pm to get our seats and get ready. I'd say that the theater was about 1/3 full, not as much as I thought, but it seemed like a good amount. Before the movie started the manager of the theater came out, gave us the rundown of the evening, told us what was upcoming as far as their future midnight movies, and what he knew was going to happen throughout the movie that evening. It was nice to have this little chat right before the start. It even further prepared me, which I like. All the extra prep I can get, give it to me. Then, he told us to enjoy, the lights went down and the curtain was rolled up.

When the movie started, "The Room" has multiple companies producing it, both owned by Tommy Wiseau, more on him later, the first production symbol popped up. The whole crowd cheered. This threw me for a second, but then I was right in there. Then, before the second production symbol, a commercial for Wiseau's underwear popped up.

Now for Tommy Wiseau. He is the star, producer, director and writer of the "The Room". He has a very odd backstory. He may or may not be rich. He may or may not be a villain. He is just an all around goofball. If you really don't know about him, and for some reason you are dying to learn, watch "The Room", or any other thing he may have been in. He is a weird dude.

Anyway, after his bizarre underwear commercial, a bunch of random quotes showed up on the big screen that were immediately followed by an explosion and the text, "Shame on You". Some of the quotes before hand were, "you question the making of "The Room", "shame on you", or "you question Tommy Wiseau", "shame on you". This went on for about 2 minutes, and it was all hilarious. My favorite part was at the end, when instead of the "shame on you", it said, "you know who you are". After all this, the second production symbol came up and the crowd cheered even louder.

Then, the movie started. "The Room" has what seems to be about a 5 minute intro scene, crediting every single person involved with the movie. It seems long when you watch it at home, but with a midnight crew, it ruled. The cheers, the boos and the hisses were amazing. After that nonsense was over and the movie for real started, it just got better form there. The random things people were shouting had me cracking up the whole time. Some great examples, every time that Lisa's mom shows up, Lisa is the villain, everyone yells "CANCER!". This may seem mean, but she randomly says at one point that she "definitely has breast cancer", and it never comes up again in the movie. I laughed every time. Another thing, when Denny, the weirdo that lives in their building shows up at Johnny's home, that is Tommy Wiseau's character, we all yelled, "Hi Denny", and "Close the god damn door Denny". He is always showing up out of nowhere, leaving the door open and saying and doing random nonsense. This also goes for any other character in the movie. Whenever a new person shows up, we' say, "oh hi" insert name, and subsequently telling them to close the door. Then whenever Mark, Greg Sestero, shows up and says that "Johnny is my best friend". we all cheered, until he cheated with Lisa. Then the boos and hisses came out. There was also anytime that people would make out we all yelled, "nom nom nom" because it looks like they are eating the other person's face. Also, during the far too many sex scenes, which are also way too long, we would all clap along to the crappy wannabe R&B music that would play. When Wiseau shows his bare ass, which he is famous for saying that he "needed to show my ass to sell this movie", came up, a loud cheer followed. As far as other random things people said, there was a gentleman in the back, who has clearly been to this more than once, who crushed it all night long. He had one liners and zingers ready all night. He was the star of the evening as far as I am concerned. Some other weird stuff that went on during the movie was the tracking shots of the Golden Gate Bridge, and the crowd chanting "GO! GO! GO!", and then cheering when the cars passed was so much fun. Anytime a football was brought out, which happens a lot, light weight footballs were tossed around. There is a phenomena of pictures of spoons in the movie, and any time one shows up on the screen, we all yelled "SPOONS!", and proceeded to throw plastic spoons throughout the theater. It just got better and better as the night went on. The party scene was hilarious, what with all the laughter and the added commentary. The final fight between Lisa and Johnny was great. The stuff between Mark and Johnny was awesome. The "cheep cheep cheep" noises we all made when people were called chicken in the movie was great. The scene between Chris R and Denny was perfect. The scene with the psychologist, both on the rooftop and at Johnny's home, were amazing. And the conclusion, spoiler alert, when Johnny shoots himself in the head, was just uproarious. That may sound mean, but if you've seen the movie, you know what I mean.

I cannot recommend seeing "The Room" in this atmosphere enough. It was so perfect on so many levels. I now understand why it is such a big thing. This was a night that I will never, ever forget. I had so much fun, no matter how tired I was. This was an amazing event, and I will definitely go to more in the future. It was awesome.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Oh hi Ty.

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