‘Please don’t hurt each other, and have a fun with The Room‘, says Tommy Wiseau, the writer, director and star of cult film The Room. If you haven’t heard of this cinema phenomenon yet, Wiseau’s film tells of a love triangle between a man, his fiancée and his best friend. His ungrammatical but earnest exhortation is but a small example of the oddness The Room is famous for: characters disappear and appear without explanation, dialogue is terrifyingly clunky and the living room set is famously decorated with framed pictures of spoons.

Its peek-out-from-behind-your-hands awfulness, incoherent plot and hammy acting have certainly earned The Room a place in the Worst Film Ever annals. However, despite its obvious flaws, The Room has managed to find an enthusiastic – and repeat – audience, which is of course any filmmaker’s dream. (In his PDF message to The Room‘s Australian audience, Wiseau says: ‘It is my suggestion to you that if you can see “The Room” at least five or more times in the theater.’) A quick YouTube search brings up viewer-created videos of particular scenes from the film in which the audience, who have clearly seen the film at least once before, yell out lines or throw props at the screen. (Take a helmet if you’re brave enough to check out a screening.) For a clearer vision of the artistic tenor of The Room – and the tongue-in-cheek hamminess that its stakeholders have embraced to market it – check out the trailer or this video of Greg Sestero (Mark), made to promote the film’s run in Australia (exclusively at Cinema Nova). Holy exploding football, Batman!

The Room is showing at Cinema Nova on Wednesday 28 April at 7pm.