::A Geek in Korea::

Welcome to the insanity of “The Room”. I heard about this movie MONTHS ago from the guys at Stop Podcasting Yourself. First in October , then again later in December, they discussed this legendary bad movie in passing. I had no idea what I was missing by not following up on this tip. I wish I had seen this terribad movie earlier. The Room is a new cult film that’s legend is spreading virally through the Internet. It’s terrible, but strangely entertaining. It’s the Manos: The Hands of Fate for the Internet age.

IFC says of Tommy Wiseau, who financed, wrote, directed, produced, and starred in of The Room in their primer: “When Wiseau speaks in “The Room,” he sounds like Borat trying to do an impression of Christopher Walken playing a mental patient.”

It’s true! Tommy Wiseau’s accent is as inscrutable as it is indecipherable. If it was a better actor doing a character, you’d laugh at how absurd it sounds. Watching Tommy Wiseau, his creepy laugh, his weird greetings, his terrible acting, you know he is giving it everything he’s got, which makes it all the more tragic and enjoyable to see when it comes crashing down into a total cinematic disaster.

You simply become mesmerized by everything being so bad, but so hilariously good at the same time.  The movie is never actually good, but it’s never bad enough to make you look away. It’s poorly made in every possible way, but you know it’s made with a naive passion that makes it watchable despite its flaws.

While I heard about this movie months ago, I only took the dive to finally watch it after the Rifftrax guys did their take on it. They grew obsessed with this B-movie disaster and decided to do their commentary despite the nudity and frequent *awful* sex love scenes. This is a change of pace for Rifftrax, as they have been doing bad big budget movies for so long, watching them tackle a B-movie cult classic seems like a new beginning.

I chuckled quite a few times, but the movie is already laugh out loud bad already. I kept greeting everyone like “Johnny” in the film for a few hours afterwards. I think this is a movie bad enough to require a few more times, and it’s rare that any movie I’ve seen with a Rifftrax holds up to repeat viewings. I’m usually “laughed out” for a while. There is a deep grain of comedy here.

This sort of niche humor gets under my skin and I’d love to be able to share it with someone else “in the know” but my wife wouldn’t sit through a movie that bad without Korean subtitles. For anyone else that wants to get started, here is a comprehensive guide to the movie.

Amazingly though, The Room does have a Korean connection. Tommy Wiseau stated that he got the rumored $6 million it cost to make this movie by importing leather jackets from Korea. Outstanding.