So bad that it’s good: “˜The Room’ screening comes to campus, followed by Q&A with film’s director Tommy Wiseau

Emile Ayoub and his friends discovered “The Room” last year, when another friend showed clips from what she described as a movie that is so bad it’s funny. Several YouTube videos later, they fell for the film. Once they watched it in its entirety, they began to quote it and crack jokes about it on a daily basis, occasionally attracting the notice of others in the know.

“People from a distance sometimes hear us talking about it and bring up another “˜Room’ quote or say, “˜Whoa, wait, is that from “˜The Room?’ It’s happened twice that we were walking in Westwood and said a quote and some guy screamed one back, like, “˜You’re tearing me apart, Lisa,'” Ayoub, said, referring to the film’s most iconic quote.

Tommy Wiseau, the writer, director and lead actor, created this amalgam of wooden acting and ridiculous lines, soap opera-worthy storylines that go nowhere and camera work that is out of focus and marred by obvious green screens. For example, one character reveals that she has breast cancer in a dramatic scene, but the illness is then never referred to again.

“I like it because of the experience you get watching it, not the movie itself,” said George Torres, a fifth-year computer science and engineering student. The film’s amateurish traits propelled the film to cult status, complete with raucous midnight screenings in the vein of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “The Big Lebowski” ““ filled with fans who know every line by heart, throw props and often call out to the screen, responding to whichever scene is playing.

“You become part of the movie, acting along with it because people know it so well,” said Torres, who has attended two screenings so far.

Some of the antics include the audience throwing spoons when a framed image of a spoon appears on screen, and a break when everyone gets up and leaves because the film features the same sex scene over again, Torres said.

Bringing “The Room” and the following Q&A session with Wiseau to UCLA was a collaborative effort by the Campus Events Commission and the Student Committee for the Arts, said Hanna Linstadt, CEC director of film and fourth-year biology student.

“We have had requests (for this film), and people are getting excited about it now that they know it’ll be showing,” Linstadt said. “We thought it would be a good way to close out the year.”
Much of the interest in and support for booking the film came from within the CEC staff, many of whom had attended previous screenings, Linstadt said.

Ayoub, a third-year business and economics student, is one of these staffers and helped book the film from his ties with SCA.

“I’ve never met anyone who’s seen it and said, “˜That’s just a stupid movie,'” Ayoub said. “I feel like most people who watch it fall in love with it right away.”

The film is so bad that it becomes loved instead of ridiculed, Ayoub said.

Ayoub said the opportunity to bring the whole experience of one of the film’s screenings to UCLA and to see the other cult fans was also appealing, since he had never attended a screening before.
“Nobody really knows who likes the film or not, so this is a great opportunity to see all of the cult fans,” Ayoub said. “We can do everything they do in the theaters.”

While the policy on the throwing of plastic spoons is still undefined, Linstadt promised a memorable audience experience.

“It’s the modern day “˜Rocky Horror Picture Show,’ the same type of experience you wanna be at,” Torres said.