The Room Screening Guide: What to Bring, What to Yell

Orientation

You are about to attend a screening of The Room. This is a significant life event. The experience will fundamentally alter your relationship with cinema, community, and the concept of spoons.

Whether this is a midnight theatrical screening, a living room watch party, or your first time seeing the film at all, this guide will prepare you. Preparation matters. The Room is not a film you watch. It is a film you participate in. The audience is not separate from the experience. The audience is the experience.

Bring comfortable shoes. You'll be standing for parts of this.

What to Bring

Essential

• Plastic spoons. Not metal. Not compostable. Plastic spoons. You will throw them at the screen every time a framed photograph of a spoon appears in the background of a scene. There are many such photographs. The spoons in the photographs have never been explained. Tommy Wiseau has been asked about them. His answers have not clarified the situation. Bring at least twenty spoons per person.
• A football. You will toss it during the football scenes. There are multiple football scenes. They occur without narrative motivation. Keep the tosses gentle — you're in a room full of people.
• Your voice. You will be yelling. Rest it beforehand.

Recommended

• Roses. When Johnny buys flowers from the flower shop ("Oh hi, Doggy!"), you throw rose petals. Real roses are expensive. Fake petals from a craft store work. Dollar store roses work. The roses are a symbol of your commitment to the ritual.
• Water. You will be yelling for ninety-nine minutes. Hydration matters.
• A friend who hasn't seen it. Half the joy of a Room screening is watching someone experience it for the first time. Their face during the flower shop scene is worth the price of admission alone.

Do Not Bring

• Expectations of quality
• A critical mindset
• Fragile items

The Participation Guide

Opening Credits

When "A Tommy Wiseau Film" appears: applause. Genuine, sustained applause. This is not ironic. This is earned. The man spent $6 million to give you this evening.

The Establishing Shots

The Room features repeated establishing shots of San Francisco — the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, cable cars — that appear between scenes with no narrative purpose. Every time one appears:

Yell: "MEANWHILE, IN SAN FRANCISCO!"

This will happen approximately thirty times. You will not tire of it.

The Love Scenes

The Room contains four love scenes. They use the same footage. The music is by R&B artist Clint Moffatt. It plays in its entirety each time. The choreography suggests that Tommy Wiseau's research into romantic intimacy was conducted exclusively through reading about it in a manual translated from a third language.

Protocol: During love scenes, the audience traditionally boos, shields their eyes, and yells "BECAUSE YOU'RE A WOMAN" (a line from the film that has been repurposed as a commentary on the scenes' gender dynamics).

"Oh Hi, Mark"

When Johnny sees his friend Mark and says "Oh hi, Mark" — and he says it many times — the audience responds in unison:

"OH HI, MARK!"

This is the call-and-response that defines Room screenings. It occurs at least seven times. Each occurrence is funnier than the last. This is scientifically impossible and yet empirically verified.

The Flower Shop Scene

Johnny enters a flower shop. The following exchange occurs:

Johnny: "Hi." Shopkeeper: "Can I help you?" Johnny: "Yeah, can I have a dozen red roses please?" Shopkeeper: "Oh hi, Johnny, I didn't know it was you."

She did not recognize a customer who is standing directly in front of her. She then says: "You're my favorite customer." The entire transaction takes eighteen seconds. A dog appears. Johnny says "Oh hi, Doggy." He leaves.

Audience response: Throw roses (or petals) during this scene. Yell "OH HI, DOGGY" in unison. Applaud the dog.

The Spoon Frames

Framed photographs throughout the apartment contain stock images of spoons. Every time one is visible:

Yell: "SPOOOOOON!" and throw plastic spoons at the screen.

This happens more often than you expect. Vigilance is required. Veteran attendees can spot a spoon frame before the camera has fully settled. This is a skill that transfers to no other area of life.

The Rooftop Scenes

Multiple scenes occur on the apartment rooftop. The green screen is visible. The skyline does not match San Francisco. The railing is at an unusual height.

When someone approaches the railing: "DON'T DO IT!"

When someone sits on the rooftop: "BECAUSE WE'RE ON THE ROOF!"

"I Did Not Hit Her"

The film's most iconic scene. Johnny, disheveled and distressed, enters the rooftop and delivers the following:

"I did not hit her. It's not true. It's bullshit. I did not hit her. I did NAAHT. Oh hi, Mark."

Audience response: Recite in unison. This is the pledge of allegiance of bad movie culture.

The Football

At least three scenes involve characters tossing a football at distances of approximately four feet. These scenes appear without warning or narrative justification.

Protocol: When the football appears on screen, produce your own football and begin tossing it with your neighbors. Continue until the scene ends.

"You're Tearing Me Apart, Lisa!"

Johnny's anguished cry. The delivery exists in a register between agony and someone who has been told what agony looks like but has never experienced it.

Audience response: Yell it with him. Match his intensity. You will not be able to match his intensity. Try anyway.

The Ending

The film's conclusion is genuinely dramatic in a way that catches first-time viewers off guard. Without spoiling specifics: respect the moment. The audience typically falls silent. The silence is itself a form of participation.

After the credits roll: sustained applause. You have completed the ritual.

Post-Screening Protocol

• Discuss the film. This will take longer than the film itself.
• Identify your favorite moment. You will disagree with everyone else. This is correct.
• Quote lines for the remainder of the evening. "Oh hi" becomes your greeting for the next seventy-two hours.
• Plan the next screening.

For First-Timers

If this is your first time seeing The Room, you are in a privileged position. You can never unsee it for the first time again. The experience of watching this film for the first time — the slow realization that every scene is going to be like this, that nobody is going to explain the spoons, that the football is coming back — is singular.

You don't need to know the participation cues in advance. The audience around you will teach you. That's how it's always been. That's how it will always be.

The projector is warm. The spoons are ready. Take your seat.

Oh hi.