A 00s dark comedy once called ‘the Citizen Kane of bad movies’ is streaming for free right now — if you can stomach it.
Tommy Wiseau didn’t set out to make a deliberately terrible movie when he released The Room in 2003, but the director has since embraced the cult status it has achieved.
The Room tells the story of Johnny (played by Wiseau), a kind-hearted banker, and the love triangle he finds himself entangled in with his deceptive fiancée Lisa (Juliette Danielle), and his conflicted best friend Mark (Greg Sestero).
The semi-autobiographical film was a box office bomb, widely labelled one of the worst films ever made.
However, it gained cult notoriety thanks to its terrible reviews, unconventional storytelling, technical issues, and Wiseau’s bizarre performance.
Need to see what the fuss is all about? The Room is streaming for free on Tubi right now, so you can add it to your weekend watchlist.
The Room holds just a 24% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critics’ consensus reading: ‘A bona fide classic of midnight cinema, Tommy Wiseau’s misguided masterpiece subverts the rules of filmmaking with a boundless enthusiasm that renders such mundanities as acting, screenwriting, and cinematography utterly irrelevant. You will never see a football the same way again.’
The Guardian said: ‘To make a movie that’s so bad it’s good you need vision, drive, luck and obsessive vanity. Fortuitously, The Room’s writer/producer/director/star Tommy Wiseau appears to possess all of these qualities, combined with a total lack of acting talent.’
Chicago Reader thought: ‘As someone who’s watched more bad movies than you can imagine, I’m mostly immune to the so-bad-it’s-good aesthetic, though I can see how, viewed in a theater at midnight after a few drinks, this might conjure up its own hilariously demented reality.’
Variety’s journalist claimed: ‘Given audience reaction at screening attended, pic may be something of a first: A movie that prompts most of its viewers to ask for their money back — before even 30 minutes have passed.
Speaking to Indie Outlook in 2019, Wiseau reflected on public reception to The Room and maintained a positivity about it still screening to this day.
‘My intention was and always will be that I want at least 80% of Americans to see The Room, because I think it’s something where they will [be able to] relate to real life,’ he said.
‘I always say very openly that you don’t have to like The Room. It’s something that will affect you one way or the other.
‘If I one percent affected your life or one point point whatever, or point zero zero, I did a good job, and that’s why I’m happy about the fans. And it’s not just the fans of The Room, but also average Americans.’
He continued: ‘[The film] seems to not have any kind of restrictions based on the age. We just had a screening at IU a few days ago, and I noticed [people] from an older generation approaching me and saying, “Hey, how are you doing, I like your movie”.’
Sestero wrote a memoir about making The Room, The Disaster Artist, which was turned into a film in 2017 starring James Franco.
A sequel, The Room Returns, starring Bob Odenkirk, officially screened this year after first being announced in 2023.
The Room is streaming for free on Tubi now.
Comment now
Comments
Add Metro as a Preferred Source on Google
Add as preferred source