After finishing the movie, as a long time fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the first thing I did was sign up for Riff Trax, and downloaded Mike Nelson's commentary. I then watched the movie a second time (with both the SOL gang and an open copy of Greg Sestero's The Disaster Artist) and I enjoyed it even more. No wonder The Room has achieved Rocky Horror status. I can't wait to see it with an audience.
By now there's nothing I can say about Wiseau's disasterpiece that hasn't been printed by angry reviewers (or yelled out at screenings). The Room is god-awful, quite possibly the worst film ever made, and so bad that you can't help but watch it - like slowing down when passing an accident. The Room fails on every level - bad writing, bad directing, very bad acting - and sex scenes so amateurishly filmed, they're uncomfortable to watch. Ed Wood can't hold a candle to Tommy Wiseau...unless of course it's the candle the dominatrix used in the Wolf of Wall Street.
And as giant spiders overran the community, nobody even thought to call the military or to give a heads-up to anyone of consequence. Nobody texted, took video, or posted on Instagram. Hell, nobody even seemed that surprised that spiders had grown into the size of Volkswagens: "Well looky there, Ma! Them's some big-ass spiders! Come take a look at this while I gets my shotgun." Their reaction implied that giant, carnivorous spiders were as common in the local woods as sharks in tornados...or dinosaurs disguised as humans. We are, officially, desensitized by TV violence.
And suddenly, the SyFy channel's Saturday afternoon lineup was born.
Each director - from Ed Wood to Coleman Francis - genuinely believed he was making a decent (albeit low budget) film. Yeah, the head in The Brain that Wouldn't Die was ridiculous. And yeah, it was clear that in The Beginning of the End, the so-called "giant" grasshoppers were filmed crawling on postcards (in an effort to appear larger). And BIG YEAH, Alan Hale's unbuttoned shirts (in the film, The Giant Spider Invasion) were far scarier than the giant spiders, themselves. But despite the face that the spiders were obviously cheap rubber toys, the movie would have failed completely had the spiders been digitized in CGI.
Sigh. Watching the SyFy channel on Christmas made me realize how good we had it in the 90s. I miss Mystery Science Theater 3000 as I miss Rocky Horror - and all the crappy movies that were once played on Saturday afternoons.
And it was for that very reason that I shut the TV before watching Ice Spiders, when my parents suggested we hit the gambling boat for a few hours. The crowd at Harrah's was far more tragic than anything on TV, and when I stepped off the casino floor to go to the bathroom, I was delighted to see that all six urinals were taken by misshapen old men - all wearing ugly Christmas Sweaters. "That's what makes a movie," I thought. "Thinking that you've done your best, when in reality you look absolutely ridiculous." I was tempted to take a picture, but being in a public restroom, well...
I'd try do duplicate the effect on my Mac, but there's no way CGI could genuinely capture the horror of that moment.