Though it was poorly received when it was first released in 1975, The Rocky Horror Picture Show has endured since then as the movie that puts the "cult" in "cult classic." Tales of the movie's audience participation at midnight screenings have become the stuff of legend, with diehard crowds shouting responses at the screen, tossing rice and toast and toilet paper into the air, dressing in costumes and pantomiming scenes as the movie plays. This following has been referenced and parodied in movies and on television, and was even strong enough to get the movie selected for permanent preservation in the Library of Congress's National Film Registry. But how could a cheesy B-movie spawn all this? I'm jumping in to investigate.
Meet Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon), a young couple who've recently gotten engaged. While on their way to tell the good news to Dr. Everett Scott (Jonathan Adams), the high school science teacher who introduced them to one another, they end up taking a wrong turn and get lost in the middle of nowhere. To further compound things, they end up stranded with a flat tire while stuck in a thunderstorm.
Seeking shelter at a nearby castle, they find they've arrived on a very special night. The master of the castle, the cross-dressing mad scientist Dr. Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry), is hosting a party to celebrate the unveiling of his latest experiment. Claiming to have discovered the secret to life itself, Frank has created a man of his own, a muscular boy toy he's named Rocky (Peter Hinwood). One thing leads to another, and Brad and Janet soon find themselves becoming more and more wrapped up in Frank's bizarre world of unrestrained hedonism.
To tell you the honest truth, I'm not sure how to properly approach a review of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It's so much more than a simple cheesy B-movie at this point. It's a full-blown experience. The movie is only a small part of the whole Rocky Horror equation. I've attended three midnight showings, and trying to judge it as just a movie now would be almost impossible. If I'd written this review before this past August, I could have viewed it from a perspective unaltered by the full Rocky Horror experience. I could have reviewed it as just a movie and nothing more. But having seen the big picture more than once and having had the time of my life in doing so, I'm afraid I may end up critiquing the experience and not the actual movie itself. But I'm going to see what happens.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show got its start in 1973 as a stage play in London. Among those who worked on it was Jim Sharman, who had directed productions of the play in both London and Sydney, Australia. With the majority of the original London production's cast and crew reuniting to turn the play into a movie, Sharman was called in to direct it. His direction is actually quite good, as he establishes exactly what kind of movie to expect as soon as it begins. He uses the gloriously over-the-top sets and production design and Peter Suschitsky's impressive cinematography to create a movie that is hard to dislike. The movie has an energy that is paralleled by very few cult movies, and it's due in part to how Sharman is able to pull everything together.
Let's move on to the script, written by Sharman and Rocky Horror's creator, Richard O'Brien. It's nonsensical, irreverent, ludicrous, cheesy, and just plain weird... and I wouldn't have it any other way. Nothing in the movie makes any sense at all, but it doesn't have to. It shouldn't, either, since Rocky Horror's strength lies in its insanity. If it were a normal movie with traditional characters and stylings, it wouldn't have worked at all.
And it just hit me: critiquing the movie's writing is probably a bad idea. For one thing, it's a musical where all the exposition and plot movement comes in the form of song lyrics. Secondly, it's just too darn strange to judge whether its good or bad. It's... I don't know what it is. The movie is so unique that there's no real frame of reference for me to review it with. But the utter silliness of the story, the dialogue, and the characters has a charm to it that cannot be denied.
But there's two elements that really make the movie what it is. One is the cast, many of whom are reprising roles they had in the London stage performances. Among the newbies are Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon, playing the innocent and naïve Brad and Janet. Bostwick and Sarandon are likable and humorous in the roles, and though they've gone on to bigger and better work in the 35 years since this movie, they'll always be Brad and Janet to me.
Also among the new actors is Peter Hinwood as Rocky. He has no dialogue and even his singing voice is dubbed by someone else, but Hinwood's Rocky is funny, cute at times, and convincing. You actually can believe that Rocky really is a boy toy built by a mad scientist with half a brain.
We can't forget the stage actors who've come along for the ride, though. Reprising their roles as the sibling duo of Riff Raff and Magenta are O'Brien and Patricia Quinn. Their performances are loud, ostentatious, and very funny; you can't help but be entertained every time they're on the screen. The same can be said for "Little Nell" Campbell, whose turn as the outrageously-dressed groupie Columbia is great. She's so amusing that she'd probably be my favorite character if it weren't for a certain someone else.
And who would that "someone else" be? None other than the one and only Tim Curry as Dr. Frank N. Furter, of course. His flamboyant performance completely steals the movie and runs laps around the rest of the cast. This is Curry's breakthrough role, perhaps his most famous, and for very good reason. He's the biggest reason to see the movie at all. Curry is so incredibly compelling that you'll be cheering Frank on in spite of his depraved and manipulative behavior.
The other element of the movie's success is its music. The songs — all of them written by O'Brien — are so catchy that you'll almost certainly come away with one of them stuck in your head. How one could hear "Sweet Transvestite" or "Time Warp" and not have at least the tiniest of smiles on their face is beyond me. And I should also commend the actors, who all did their own singing (with the previously-mentioned exception of Hinwood). Musicals obviously live and die around their songs and the ability of the singers, and the actors do a fine job handling themselves.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a gleeful celebration of decadence, debauchery, and deviancy. It's too silly to take seriously, too goofy to hate, and too much damn fun to watch. That's really all the movie and its cult following is about: having fun and not caring who sees you. Okay, I will confess that the movie's not great art or anything like that. But who says it has to be? I started this review trying to determine just what it was about Rocky Horror that sparked the following that it enjoys today, but I've come to the realization that there's simply no answer beyond than the fact that it's pure and simple fun. And what's wrong with having a little fun once in a while?
Final Rating: ****½
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