"Maybe I am too unique" 
 -	Tommy Wiseau 
 The Room is a popular choice for the best worst movie ever*. It was a GIGANTIC VANITY PROJECT bankrolled by, produced by, starring, written and directed by a guy called Tommy Wiseau who was more than a little odd. 
 He was a guy in his 40s, long dyed black hair, looked like one of those heavy metal band guys who've been doing drugs and staying up late for 35 solid years, his face looked facelifted, puffy and like he never went outside and slightly melted, 
 and he had a weird voice with an unplaceable European accent so that English sounded like his third language, he'd got this mangled syntax and every well-known phrase would come out wrong; and in the movie, he's like an alien trying hopelessly to pass as human, his reactions slow, off-centre, he chuckles inappropriately, his lines are all in this monotonous singsong, he's mesmerizingly terrible. You think : there's something fairly wrong with that guy. 
 In The Room the other main male character is played by the author of this book Greg Sestero, who was a young pretty blonde cardboard cutout actor wannabe when the story opens, 
 and also when it closes, because if you check your IMDB young Greg has hardly had what you might call a career in movies. I think Greg's mom was right. 
 IRRATIONAL, DIM-WITTED AND ALL-ROUND CREEPY 
 There are three stories told in this book - first, the painful, unfunny and quite dull story of how Greg tried to become a Hollywood actor - headshots, agents, blagging, auditions, managers, callbacks, all the stuff made great fun of in the character of Joey in Friends, and here it's so not that much fun. Then, in an acting class Greg befriends the older weirdo Tommy, and this friendship is story number two. It's probably the best part, a friendship barely recognisable as such by Greg, until, reluctantly, it dawns on him that he actually really likes Tommy. Who appears to have no other friends. 
 The third story is how they made The Room, and this does have a certain humour to it; but it turns out that jeering at egomaniacs is not that funny when the egomaniac is a sympathetic character. Because however irrational, frankly dim-witted and all-round creepy Tommy is, he's not a bad man. He's a sad man. He's lonely. No one cares about him, he's lost. And he's picked up this absurd dream of being an actor from somewhere; and he made a lot of money selling knock-down schmatter in San Francisco; and now he decides that if Hollywood will never like him, he'll be his own Hollywood. I found I couldn't laugh heartily at his antics, the laughs died in my throat. 
 OUTSIDER ART 
 "We have moment-to-moment acting in my film. Words are secondary." 
 -	Tommy Wiseau 
 Outsider Art : that's what The Room is, like the Watts Towers, the recordings of Daniel Johnson or the beach sculptures at Rotheneuf by the Abbe Foure. 
 It's by a person who does not recognise the agreed-upon common-or-garden reality most of us subscribe to. It's not knowing, unlike your John Waters or your Russ Meyer, not deliberately bad like Pink Flamingos or Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. It's raw. Most people will laugh at it. I did a couple of times. It's excruciating; but most of it is, unfortunately, only bad, rather than so-bad-it's-good. Well, its fans disagree with me, they laugh till their sides split. 
 I don't have a good explanation for this, but I just saw a movie called Satan's Little Helper, and that was in the same badness ballpark as The Room, but without any of the technical ineptitude. SLH had all the professionalism of any modern low budget horror movie - it was its ideas which were awful, plus having an unbearable kid as the main role who did most of the talking throughout the movie - I was praying he'd be the first victim, but no such luck. Other eyegogglingly eptless nightmares I have seen or failed to make through in recent times : Suspiria, Switchblade Romance, The Woman, The Counselor, Brick and Zak and Miri Make a Porno. In all of these cases the badness comes from the horrid inhumane or stupid ideas in the movie. They're all technically good. 
 But The Room has no technical competence. There's no coherence in the script. Many plot points are mentioned once & once only. There are continuity errors by the dozen. All the actors are first timers or are embarrassed to be there. There is no relief to be had from this relentless tsunami of crapness on every possible filmic level from minute one to minute last. 
 A SCENE FROM THE ROOM 
 Johnny : I never hit you. You shoulda hed any secrets from me. I'm your future husband. 
 Lisa : You sure about that? Maybe I'll change my mind. 
 Johnny : Don't talk like that. Whaddoo mean? 
 Lisa : What do you think? Women change their minds all the time. 
 Johnny : (Throws head back and runs hands through hair in a gesture of carefree merriment) Haha. You mus be kidding aren't you. 
 Lisa : Look, I don't wanna talk about it. I'm going to go upstairs and wash up and go to bed. 
 Johnny : How durr you tok to me like dat. (Pushes her back onto the couch). You should tell me everything. 
 Lisa : I can't talk right now. 
 Johnny : Why Lisa WHY Lisa please talk to me PLEASE . You're part of my life, you're everything. I could not go on without you Lisa. 
 Lisa : You're scaring me. (He's scaring everyone at this point.) 
 Johnny : I never hit you. YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA! 
 Lisa : (Scared and hostile) Why are you so hysterical? 
 Johnny : (Pushing her back on the couch a second time) Do you ustellife? (note : I think he means Do you understand life?) Do you? 
 (Now Lisa finally gets up off the couch without being pushed back, third time lucky, & walks up the stair, but pauses and turns to Johnny.) 
 Lisa : (Sudden change of tone to warm and friendly) Don't worry about it. Everything will be alright. 
 Johnny : You drive me crazy. 
 Lisa : Goodnight Johnny. 
 Johnny : Don' worraboudit. I still love you. Goodnight Lisa. 
 A QUOTE FROM JULIETTE DANIELLE (who played Lisa) 
 It's hard to remember a time before The Room 
 I know what you mean, Juliette! 
 *It's currently on Youtube so you can join in all the fun.