An air of excitement hangs over a crowd of students gathered around the entrance of Hyde Park Picture House. Expectant faces burst into wide grins as talk turns to the film they are about to see. Favourite scenes, quotes and characters are discussed lovingly, laughter bouncing noisily off the houses lining the adjacent Queens Road. The atmosphere could be compared to that of a smash-hit blockbuster, an Oscar contender or an old Hollywood classic, but the late-night feature this sell-out crowd have gathered to see at Leeds’ premier art-house cinema is none of those. As Andy Moore, the 24 year old film administrator at Hyde Park Picture House, says, Tommy Wiseau's The Room is: "probably one of the worst films ever made and yet every time we show it tickets fly out of the door.”
The film tells the tragic tale of Johnny (played by Tommy Wiseau, the mysterious writer and director of the film), a man who seems to live the perfect life. His world is occupied by loyal friends and a seemingly loving girlfriend called Lisa (Juliette Danielle). Johnny’s main worry is whether or not he will get a promotion at the bank he works, but he should be more concerned with Lisa’s extracurricular activities. Unbeknown to Johnny, Lisa is having an affair with his best friend Mark (Greg Sestero), a destructive relationship that will have dire consequences on all involved.
Deciphering The Room’s success is difficult when watching it alone. The acting is beyond bad, the dialogue is laughable ("I'm so glad I have you as my best friend and I love Lisa so much."), and plot holes riddle the film so much that the surface of the moon looks smooth in comparison. But when The Room is seen in a sold-out theatre, in the company of like-minded fans, its appeal becomes obvious.
At midnight screenings in the US, it isn’t uncommon for viewers to chant along to scenes, heckle the actors, boo the villains and cheer the heroes. And tonight’s annual screening at Leeds’ Hyde Park Picture House is no different.
On entering the cinema, giggling fans are armed with handfuls of plastic forks, knives and spoons. Some are already broken and battered from previous screenings, but they’ve been given a new lease of life tonight. A leaflet handed out on the door explains their purpose: ‘Nearly all of the artwork in the film features spoons. Whenever one of the works appears on screen, you yell “Spoon!” and hurl plastic picnic spoons at the screen.’
Another excerpt instructs the viewer: ‘Tommy’s deranged giggle, which he delivers at inappropriate moments, should be mocked mercilessly’. The audience responds accordingly and at times it’s hard to hear the dialogue going on between the actors. But that matters little when the dialogue in question makes barely any sense.
There are a number of inexplicable scenes in The Room in which the characters stop what they’re doing to play American football. As soon as the first of these scenes play, a real American football sails across the theatre and into the hands of a silhouetted figure 15 feet away. The football ends up in the balcony, lost in the mass of bodies vying to catch it.
The spoon throwing happens regularly, the fourth row from the front taking the brunt of the airborne eating apparatus. The splintered cutlery isn't heavy enough to make it all the way to the screen and most of it falls on the viewers seated there. People leave the cinema shovelling spoons and knives out of their pockets and picking forks out of their hair.
As the films comes to its ‘dramatic’ conclusion, a group of young men hug and cheer and fall backwards into the laps of those behind them – the audience is jubilant, celebratory, singular in its excitement.
It is a surreal experience, but it is exactly what the people in attendance have come for. Not one person expected to see a good film tonight, but every one of them expected to have a good time, and on that level The Room delivers. As Chris Blackburn, 26, says: “It was the best film I’ve ever been to see. Everyone getting involved was class.”
His friend, Chris Bowman, 26 adds: “I’ve never had so much fun at the cinema. But the film itself is terrible.”
Catching up with Andy Moore after the screening, he offers his perspective on what The Room offers cinema-goers: “Nothing can even come close to watching a film in a beautiful auditorium like ours with 274 other people, all cheering in unison, quoting lines, throwing plastic spoons at the screen and cracking jokes. It’s all down to the fact that it’s a uniquely cinematic experience - an experience that just can’t be replicated at home.”
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