A viewer’s relationship with most movies is almost exclusively one-sided, with the sounds and images from the screen leaving an impression on the viewer, and the viewer passively accepting these impressions. An interactive movie experience like a midnight screening of The Room or Rocky Horror Picture Show or other cult classics gives the theater event a whole new identity, and the audience transforms from passive observers to major players in the story and comedic contributors to the film’s soundtrack.
This is a new way of having a relationship with a screen, and has the potential to give a viewer a new appreciation for the act of increasing his or her level of engagement with screen-based storytelling to the point of participating almost involuntarily in the world of a movie. One of the reasons we like to watch movies with an audience is this interactive aspect, feeding off the energy produced by intense silence, raucous laughter or audible gasps. Seeing The Room takes the pent up feelings of wanting to speak back to the flat images on a screen and accommodates the cathartic moment where this dialogue is not only possible but encouraged.
Or at the very least, loudly making fun of a terrible movie is a lot of fun to do in an environment where such behavior is welcomed rather than scorned.
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