To quote a certain Criminologist, I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey….
I first saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show when I was 12 years old. My mom, bless her heart, rented it on VHS from our local public library on my behalf. You see, I was home from school recovering from emergency surgery, and she knew my two favorite things in the world were Universal monster movies and classic musicals.
Needless to say, an obsession was born. Naturally, at that young age I didn’t know what to make of director Jim Sharman’s 1975 cult classic camp extravaganza based on composer and actor Richard O’Brien’s stage musical, except I knew that I loved it.
In its rapturously seedy midnight tale of uptight squares Brad Majors (played by Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (played by Susan Sarandon) who have their consciousnesses expanded and boundaries shattered during a fateful dark and stormy night at the castle abode of gender-bending mad scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter (played by Tim Curry) I’d found something that spoke to me in the thick of my suburban central New Jersey youth.
A few decades and what feels like a lifetime later, and Rocky Horror is still here, and so am I.
50 years after its release, the movie remains the longest-running theatrically released film in history, with late night screenings still held on a weekly basis across the country and around the world. Books have been written and documentaries have been made chronicling this bonafide global cultural phenomenon, and I find myself in the position of trying to write an original thought regarding The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a film that, 20 years ago, was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by no less an authority than the Library of Congress.
Having recently viewed the brand new, stunningly presented 4K Blu-ray edition, released in a limited-edition SteelBook with Dolby Vision and Atmos Audio, and having spun the 50th anniversary deluxe edition of the film’s soundtrack on 180-gram red-in-gold vinyl, the conclusion I can come to is this: Rocky Horror, by and large, still works as the norm-smashing, envelope-pushing, taboo-flaunting, thrilling and chilling and fulfilling creature of the night it was built to be.
Musically speaking, O’Brien is a gifted pop-rock tunesmith; there’s a reason why a number of these songs have become Halloween season playlist staples and are sung along to with aplomb by devoted crowds to this day – they’re great, fun, witty and catchy songs.
So many of the on-screen performances are instantly and enduringly iconic – especially Curry’s, which deserves to be in any conversation for the all-time great screen turns, as every cell of his being is devoted to bringing this complex, compelling and ultimately tragic character to high-heeled life.
And then there’s the overall spirit of the thing. Sure, there are facets of Rocky Horror that haven’t aged well – chiefly, Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s grasp of consent is non-existent, and there are a number of intimate interactions in the film that some viewers may find off-putting as a result. And (50-year-old spoiler alert) much could be made of the film’s deathly climax, and what it may say about O’Brien as a writer as he contemptuously and violently disposes of so many of the characters he himself created.
But, criticisms aside, I can never turn away from Rocky Horror. When Curry climactically sings “Don’t dream it, be it” I am reminded of that scared, wounded and enthralled 12-year-old kid I once was so long ago, their mind and heart being introduced to profoundly transgressive and empowering ideas and attitudes for the first time. It meant the world to me then, and I am profoundly grateful for it now.
We may indeed be, as the Criminologist says to conclude O’Brien and Sharman’s proceedings, “crawling on the planet’s face, some insects called the human race, lost in time, lost in space and meaning,” but at least we’ll always have The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
