Let’s face it. Everybody loves bad movies. But I don’t mean in a “guilty pleasure, you secretly really, truly enjoyed ‘Jack and Jill,’” type of way. I mean it in a goofy, campy, “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” type of way.
The sort of movie that makes you scratch your head and wonder exactly who the hell thought making it was a good idea, and why nobody around them was kindhearted and patient enough to talk them out of it.
They’re the best. Or rather, the worst. You get what I mean. And the very worst of the best of the worst are sometimes so bad that they become the dark, shadowy things of cinematic nightmares, worshipped in bizarre, frightening midnight showings by cults of devoted, fanatical followers.
I’m speaking of course of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “Reefer Madness” and a movie recently featured at Union South’s Marquee, “The Room.”
“The Room” has been called the “Citizen Kane” of bad movies, is widely considered to be pound for pound the worst movie ever made and has the massive, dedicated fan base to match.
I was lucky enough to experience a midnight showing of this cultural touchstone one Friday night and immediately decided to return Saturday for another viewing. It was, without a doubt, the most fun I’ve ever had and the hardest I’ve ever laughed while watching a movie.
It’s insane. It’s addictive. It’s going to require some explaining.
Much like Orson Welles was the one-man army behind “Citizen Kane,” “The Room” is the sticky, disgusting lovechild of just one dedicated individual, Tommy Wiseau.
Wiseau, who wrote, directed, starred in and produced “The Room,” claims to have funded the production by “importing and selling Korean leather jackets” and refuses to elaborate any further on the point.
That single fact essentially sets the tone for the entire experience of “The Room.”
It’s a movie so bad that fans know the cinematographer, Todd Barron, by name, and will yell at him throughout the film. They yell because the camera occasionally drifts in and out of focus and they feel the need to remind Barron what his job is.
Did I mention that the Korean leather business had raised the budget of the film to $6 million? Remember that whole “pound for pound, worst movie ever made” thing? Yeah. Even “Clerks” was in focus the whole time.
This says nothing of Wiseau’s, shall we say, eccentric, performance, or the fact that one actor quit halfway through production due to “creative differences” with Wiseau, so rather than recasting and reshooting, they just gave that character’s lines later in the movie to… an unnamed character who seems to have been invited to the party for the sole purpose of picking up this now available dialogue.
Am I making my point? This movie is awful. It is, more or less, without any redeeming value as a piece of cinema, and yet it maintains a fervent following. Hell, I went two nights in a row, and I’d go a third. So the question seems to be, why?
The answer, of course, is the answer to the same question that’s asked about any of the horrible, beloved movies mentioned earlier—because it creates a community.
As I quickly discovered on Friday night, there are certain traditions that go along with the film, certain things you yell or do in response to certain shots or lines, things that anybody who’s been through these woods before knows about.
Half the fun of that first night was discovering them for myself, so I won’t spoil any more of them except to say that spoons are involved. Plastic spoons. In the audience. Let your imaginations run wild.
However, as much fun as I had learning these traditions, I had even more fun the next night when I knew them all, knew what to yell and when, and heard a theater of other people yelling along with me—when I belonged to the group.
Not just that, but I loved getting to be creative and take my own shots and make other audience members laugh. It’s fun contributing to the group.
This is, I think, the source of all the appeal surrounding cult cinema midnight showing experiences. In some ways, it’s the anti-cinematic tradition.
They’re awful where others strive to be great, they invite the audience in while others tell them to sit and watch, they take what’s traditionally a spectator sport and make it a participatory and, occasionally, contact affair.
It’s the anti-hero equivalent of movie going, and it’s one of the most fascinating, enduring, and endearing aspects of our cinematic culture.
Got a favorite cult cinema experience to share with our new film columnist, Austin? Shoot him an email at wellens@wisc.edu.
