Who hasn’t heard of or seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Probably those of you who are under 25, and that’s a shame.
I vividly remember seeing this movie the first time in the late ’80’s with a bunch of friends in an old theatre on the Danforth, which is a Greek area in one of the many ethnic parts of Toronto. I was amazed at the antics of the regular theatregoers as they threw rice during the wedding scene as well as toast at the screen, shot water guns during a storm, and sang the lyrics of all the songs and no one told them to shut up. Apparently audience participation was expected and encouraged! 🙂
It was an experience going to see this movie every Friday night and especially on Halloween, as Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), Janet (Susan Sarandon) Brad (Barry Bostwick), Riff Raff (Richard O’Brien) and a host of other memorable characters such as Magenta, Columbia, Rocky (Peter Hinwood), Charles Grey as the Criminologist, and Eddie (Meat Loaf) did their best to scare the audience in a fun way. But there was one scene with Meat Loaf which still makes me want to puke and if you’ve seen the movie you know which one. 🙁
Rocky is a classic and I recently bought the 25th anniversary edition DVD to see if it was as entertaining as I 
remembered. It was! The only thing missing was the audience as there were no fans (other than me) to shout the lines along with the actors. Watched alone or with a few friends The Rocky Horror Picture Show loses a lot of its charm since there’s no fun in throwing rice and toast or a water balloon at the television screen , but you can still lipsync or sing aloud the lyrics of the songs.
I understand that when Rocky was released in1975 it flopped, but a few loyal fans kept going to see it and a movie theatre in New York started showing it at midnight because fans just wouldn’t stay away. This was the genesis of one of the ultimate cult films of all time, and this movie is still showing in small theatres all across North America on Friday nights and Halloween. Part of the attraction and charm is the soundtrack as the songs are addictive – Science fiction Double Feature, The Time Warp, Sweet Transvestite, Over at the Frankenstein Place, Toucha Toucha Touch Me, Hot Patootie, Make me a Man and I’m Going Home. I have worn out this CD.
The plot is really ridiculous but Rocky transcends the plot limitations and has remained a cult favourite and garners new fans every decade. It’s a great date movie too, a bit scary in parts, but wonderful fun and very different from any other film. This movie has spawned numerous stage productions.
The story is simple and is typical of the B movie genre. Two young Americans, uptight Brad Majors and his fiancee Janet Weiss (Bostwick and Sarandon) are stranded when their car breaks down on a dark, deserted road in the middle of a storm, and they try to find a telephone to call for help at the only place they can find – a castle located conveniently nearby. Does this remind you of anything so far? Hundreds of campy horror movies have this classic beginning. Instead of a telephone they find cross-dressing mad scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), two very strange looking servants, Riff-Raff (Richard O’Brien, who wrote the musical), Magenta (Patricia Quinn), and various other weirdos, including lovers Columbia (Little Nell) and biker Eddie (Meat Loaf). Brad and Janet walk in on a party in honour of the creation of Frank-N-Furter’s boy-toy Rocky. Bed-hopping becomes the name of the game until the servants take control. This may be the first movie with gay sex as Timmy Curry has sex with both Brad and Janet. 🙂 I don’t think there has ever been a transsexual like Frank-N-Furter, and maybe Transylvania would have been a better place with him in it. The end still makes me tear up. 🙁
Why am I taking a walk along memory lane with Rocky? It’s Halloween, that’s why, and I always went to my favourite theatre on this night to party with the characters. I also wanted to list my top 5 horror movies as promised, and I hope you will list yours too.
1. Alfred Hitchhock’s Psycho which in my opinion has the most memorable movie scene of all time – that shower scene. I couldn’t go into the shower for years without locking the door after seeing this movie. I think that Norman Bates’ character was one of the most twisted in any movie I have seen before or since.
2. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Another memorable horror from the master. This is one of the most suspenseful movies of all time. If you haven’t seen The Birds and love horror you must watch this classic which was filmed in 1963 and starred Tippi Hedren (who was attacked by a seagull and then all hell broke loose) and Rod Taylor.
3. The Sixth Sense with Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment (who stole this movie right from under Willis), still scares the crap out of me. I think The Sixth Sense is the sleeper psychological horror movie of this or any decade.
4. The Exorcist (with Mia Farrow) & Rosemary’s Baby (Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn and Max Von Sydow) – I couldn’t decide which was worse – spinning heads and buckets of vomit or birthing the devil
5. The Silence of the Lambs starring Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster. What a psychological thriller this was. Once was enough for me.
Of course there are many other movies that scared the bejesus out of me such as Dawn of the Dead, Seven, The Mist, War of the Worlds, Pet Cemetary, Poltergeist, the Shining and on and on but I have to leave room for your top 5. 🙂
My top 5 horror films:
1. Cat People (the original) Extremely creepy for the fact you never see the monster. Has a strange but also brilliant sequel which is almost like a fairytale and deals with the ‘imaginary friend’ of a child.
2. The Innocents. A governess is tormented by the ghosts of a garden keeper and her lover – or is she? Based on Henry James’ “Turn of the Screw”.
3. Poltergeist. I loved this movie as a kid, and Poltergeist II is worth your while. Best to pretend Poltergeist III never existed.
4. Alien. The ultimate haunted house film… but on a spaceship.
5. The Ring. A cursed video, a creepy phonecall, and a creepy little girl who will crawl out of your tv and suck your soul away. Plus Naomi Watts, who makes anything she does believable.
Hi Sean
Alien is on my top 10 of all horrors, especially the first movie. I didn’t eat anything with noodles for a long time after. Talk about scary.
I haven’t seen Cat People but it looks like I should, very soon. ooohh! I love being scared.
The other movies on your list are all classics. Thanks for the reminders and for Cat People which I’ll check out on Netflix.
Hi Wave,
I’m not particularly fond of horror films, but there’s one movie which makes my blood run cold even after all those years, it’s “The Vanishing” (originally “Spoorloos”)
The Sixth Sense is a great movie, but only when you watch it for the first time. Knowing the ending somehow kills the fun.
I like “The Addams Family”, which isn’t spooky, but great fun, and “Sleepy Hollow”, both for Kirsten Dunst. SHE can play creepy!
Hi Feliz
I haven’t seen The Vanishing so thank you for that.
As you said, The Sixth Sense, like any other real horror movie is only wet the pants scary the first time, although the second and third time could still make you want to hide under the covers. That was my reaction to The Sixth Sense which I have seen a number of times and I plan to do so tonight as well.
I do recall The Addams Family but I preferred The Munsters. 🙂
Enjoy!
I didn’t do the Friday night thing, that not being available to me, but I did go to the stage show quite a few times. All undressed up, of course, and ended up being interviewed by the local BBC radio station because I was the only person in costume who didn’t spot the reporter in time to run away before she’d buttonholed me…
Jules!!! You didn’t do the Friday night movie ritual? That was the best part.
I saw the musical off Broadway and while it was good I missed the tackiness of the moviegoers.
Being intereviewed by the venerable BBC must have been a thrill though. LOL
I love RHPS – soundtrack playing the background. I went to see it a few times armed with my toast and water pistol, what an experience.
5 Horror Movies (off the top of my head)
1. Hitchcock – Psycho/The Birds/Shadow of a Doubt(that guy is just creepy) followed by funny The Trouble With Harry
2. Alien
3.Salem’s Lot – the kid vamp scratching at the window still gets me
4.Misery
5. Arsenic & Old Lace – Raymond Massey is downright creepy
Hi Andy
Isn’t that music incredible? I’m also playing it in the background.
Re the horror movies – you can’t go wrong with anything from Hitchcock. Shadow of a Doubt I can’t remember seeing so it’s next on my list.
Your other choices are all horror classics especially Alien which I have seen many times – the first time was on an IMAX screen – just horrific.
Arsenic and Old Lace – I must rent that again. Thanks Andy for sharing your favourite horrors.
Alien IMAX – wow. I’m jealous. That had to be amazing.
Shadow of a Doubt – ‘Uncle Charlie’ (Joseph Cotten) is creepy on so many levels…
Andy
After watching one scene in the movie in Imax (you can probably guess which one it was) I decided that the small screen offered a few advantages, because everything wasn’t so h-u-g-e. LOL
One mustn’t forget Shock Treatment, which had some of the same characters and cast as “Rocky Horror.” It never became very popular – possibly because of the lack of that gay sex scene 🙂 – but I liked it just as much. I was in London at the time it first came out; having attended “Rocky Horror” about thirty times by then, I walked three miles (there was a public transport strike) in order to get to a showing of “Shock Treatment.”
I sometimes run across the sentiment that our society has become more puritan since the Sexual Revolution of the 1970s (which “Rocky Horror” was part of). But if one needs a barometer of change in society, here it is: The latest issue of our volunteer-run, family-friendly town newspaper includes an ad showing Frank-N-Furter in drag . . . as part of the town’s annual film festival.
An article in the same newspaper describes the film as a “cult classic.” No mention of the bisexual orgy scene.
I’ll be wearing the material from my old Rocky Horror minidress (circa 1981) as a shawl to tonight’s show. And oh, how I love that I can write that sentence without revealing my birth gender.
I don’t like horror movies at all but Rocky Horror seems to be in a different category.
An ex-boyfriend introduced me to Rocky Horror – the only good thing I got out of the relationship. 🙂 When I was in my senior year of university and the couple years after, I went regularly and have seen the move over 35 times (at least). Friends and I had a Rocky Horror Halloween party that senior year and even though only five of us were in costumes, it was a blast. My performance of “Sweet Transvestite” brought the house down and got some of the wildest looks from people there who hadn’t ever seen the movie. That Christmas my best friend from college gave me a set of the pictures she took along with the negatives – it was back in the good old days with the “safety” of negatives. What a blast.
Wave you are right that you really need the audience to really enjoy the movie. The quality of the audience was what really made the movie experience. I also find the final scene very teary.
Jeffrey
I would have loved to see you as Frank-N-Furter in drag and full regalia, including the stockings. Are you sure there isn’t a picture of you around that you could send me? I promise not to share.
I think Rocky created a whole new culture and fans became brave and showed who they were in RL. One of my friends told me years later that he decided to come out as a cross dresser after watching Rocky.
It must have been so much fun for you to play this part. I don’t view Rocky as a horror except for that one part with Meat Loaf. 🙁
Audience participation baby – without it Rocky would have been just another low budget cult movie.
Thanks for sharing your memories Jeffrey.
Just imagine Tim Curry in full costume throwing off the cape but doing it in a living room and with a mustache. If I knew how good it was going to come out, I would have shaved. 🙂
Jeffrey
Now that would have been funny. I laughed so hard at Tim Curry in drag with a ‘stache. I’m thinking Tom Selleck in a bustier. Oh my, what a rush. Thank you for this Jeffrey. 🙂
Dusk
Thanks for reminding me about Shock Treatment. I never did see it because most of the fans didn’t seem to think much of this movie – maybe because there was no gay sex. LOL I love Rocky because of the music and the costumes and I didn’t feel that a remake or sequel could do it justice. I’ll rent it for nothing else but that they showed vision about reality tv which was non existent at the time. I know it’s much darker than Rocky and I’ll view it as something that’s unrelated except for the lead characters with the name Brad and Janet.
I assume that you live in a pretty small town where the antics in Rocky are still pretty strange even though the residents embrace the movie. 🙂 Where I live it’s almost like California in terms of attitude except for small pockets of people whose religion frowns on same sex relationships.
You should send us a picture of you in your shawl – it’s too bad you couldn’t wear the mini dress to the show. 🙂
“I love Rocky because of the music and the costumes”
The costumes in Shock Treatment are very eighties, which is a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you think of eighties fashion.
The music I like just as much as in “Rocky Horror,” partly because the part of Janet is played by Jessica Harper, who has a wonderful range as a singer.
“I’ll view it as something that’s unrelated except for the lead characters with the name Brad and Janet.”
I think that’s the proper way to approach it.
“I assume that you live in a pretty small town where the antics in Rocky are still pretty strange even though the residents embrace the movie.”
It’s a D.C. suburb, leaning toward New Deal liberalism, because that’s how we started (we were a New Deal experiment by the federal government). However, when I was growing up, our town didn’t publish photographs in the newspaper of cross-dressers, much less make a bisexual cross-dresser the centerpiece of their film festival. 🙂
Seriously, when I wrote an “It Gets Better” post recently, Rocky Horror was the first “gets better” item on the list. It was the first truly upbeat image of homosexuality that I ever encountered, and Rocky Horror was the first place where I met someone who was openly GLBT. (The movie also ended up bringing me heartache, because it helped to give me the idea that one-night stands were an easy road to happiness, but it’s hard to hold a grudge against a movie that was so clearly not meant as a Serious Message.)
“You should send us a picture of you in your shawl”
No camera, thank goodness. 🙂 I actually do have a photo somewhere among my boxes of me in my Rocky Horror outfit at age 18. My mother took the photo. She also took me to Victoria’s Secret to go shopping for bits of the outfit. I asked her years later why she helped me (the movie wasn’t at all her sort of thing), and she said, “It was better that I help you than that you run off and do all this on your own.” I had a great mom.
Hi Wave,
All great choices. I thought “The Sixth Sense” had the most original plot. No one ever guessed what was going on. Although I’ve seen many of the “Halloween” type movies and the clones, I find the more subtle horror flicks (along the lines of the Birds and Psycho) to be far scarier.
The edge of your seat anticipation of what will happen is the scariest sensation. What can beat Tippi Hedron and Suzanne Pleshette trying to quietly get the school children inside before the birds attack. Gives me goosebumps!
TJ
You’re right about the psychological thrillers being more effective as horrors than the slasher movies. I still can’t get The Sixth Sense out of my mind after all these years. I have it out to watch for the I don’t know how many times and I will have to go to sleep with a night light for months AGAIN. 🙂
The Birds and many other movies by Hitchcock are my favourite horrors because they stay in your mind and the tape rewinds and plays over and over again.
When I was at school RHPS was all the rage and I remember every mixed school dance became a rockyfest. It use to make the boys school teachers cringe every time sweet transvestite Came on and all the boys would show off for us girls. Oh those were the days. 🙂 some were more fabulous than others. (a pity I was more than a few years older than Heath Ledger cause he would have made a fantastic rocky)
I think I’ve own that film in one form or another since VHS first came out. My sister met her husband at a RHPS we through in 86. My poor dad can never forget the first meeting of his future son in law wearing fishnets and suspenders. (he has great legs)
Tish
I take my imaginary hat off to your Dad. He must be a great guy. 🙂
I LOVE horror movies. Of the 42 I’ve seen this year, 10 have been horror movies. And the next two will be as well. Last year, 15/48 were.
RHPS was a big favorite around RPHS, (Raymore Peculiar High School) although nobody talked about it. At least half of my graduating class was there on the night after graduation.
Favorite horror movies
1) Gothic. Gabriel Byrne and Julian Sands as Byron and Shelley, with Natasha Richardson as Mary Shelley and Timothy Spall as Dr. Pollodori. Byron is unabashedly bisexual, and ends up in everyone’s pants, except Mary’s. Hot, creepy and generally awesome.
2) Bride of Frankenstein. Terrific sequel to the original. Karloff is in fine form for this, but Una O’Connor steals the show, as she usually does.
3) Any of the Hammer Draculas. Bosomy blondes in filmy nightdresses, sexy, non-discriminating charismatic Count… What’s not to love? (these were serious porn when I was 14-15 and discovering my own kinks)
4) From Dusk Til Dawn. There is so much to love about this, starting with the truckstop, Selma Hayak and Cheech Marin and going right on through to George Clooney and Tom Savini.
I see a lot of horror movies.
The Hills Have Eyes remake has its moments. Then again, Blood Diner had its moments.
Silent Hill was terrific.
The Resident Evil series: kick-ass heroines and Oded Fehr operating heavy machinary. I’m shallow that way.
The Mummy movies. (see above) I also like the original.
The Abominable Dr. Phibes holds up beautifully.
A Company of Wolves is dreamlike and eerie and takes two or three watches.
Planet Terror was really gross, but a one-legged gogo-dancer fighting zombies doesn’t get much more cool. Also Naveen Andrews.
The Wicker Man is a tough movie for me to classify. I read it as a parable more than a horror film, a cautionary tale of what happens when you mix religion and desperation. It’s a big fave-rave.
Hi Angel
I don’t watch that many horrors now because they are mostly slasher movies and I prefer suspense like Hitchcock but there are some wonderful movies on your list.
You actually know how many movies you watch every year? I never keep track.
I’m going to check out many of the movies on your list except Resident Evil. LOL
I’m not much into horror, but was swept up in The Others.
I’m another Rocky Horror fan, with dreams of attending a midnight showing dressed as Columbia. And I raised my kids right. My son has let it be known that he could never be involved with someone who wouldn’t watch Rocky Horror with him. I recently visited him, and we rode through town with the windows down, singing to the remade soundtrack. If singing Time Warp with your mother doesn’t scare off potential dates, nothing will.
And I’m right there with you on the “Eddie, make you wanna hurl” scene.
Hi Eden
I’ve seen it hundreds of times and it still makes me sick. 🙁 But the movie was wonderful.
The Others was very suspenseful. If you haven’t seen the Sixth Sense you should try watching it – just don’t do it alone. LOL
Wave, I met my husband at a double feature of Rocky Horror and Shock treatment exactly 28 years ago today on October 31, 1982…
~ZAM~
WOW ZAM
How wonderful. An anniversary on Halloween. 🙂
I just loved going to The Roxy every Friday night at midnight for the show – it was a ritual. No matter what I was doing (unless I was out of the country) I had to go to the show.
Tonight must bring back great memories for you. Happy anniversary.
Wave, if you have trouble with gore, see the Resident Evil movies before you see Planet Terror or From Dusk Til Dawn. They’re much less gruesome. (Quinten Tarantino’s zombifying balls spattering all over the floor kinda traumatized me) The Hills have Eyes and Blood Diner probably aren’t for you. (Our hero ends up drenched in blood in HHE.)
The Hammer movies are famous for their buckets of bright red blood, but it’s so clearly fake. And Christopher Lee is at his hottest.
Gothic has very very little blood, (Mary gets a cut on her forehead) it’s all creepy and atmospheric. And same-sex kisses. The Wicker Man is all atmosphere. Silent Hill might work for you. There are a couple of really awful scenes, but it’s more about peril.
I keep a running list of what I watch and read. I try to read 50 books and see 50 movies, no repeats or rewatches, every year. Some years I do better than others.
Angel
You are so organized. I could never keep a running total of the movies I watched in any one year, and I end up watching some movies over and over again because they are keepers. (Field of Dreams which is not a horror but a feel good movie about baseball is one of my keepers). LOL
Some of your movies probably would only be watched the one time. 🙁 I really have a thing about blood.) However I love suspenseful horror movies so those keep me entertained.
I’ll try Resident Evil based on your rec.
Add me as another who doesn’t watch horror – ever – but watched Rocky more times than I can begin to count. And I still have to close my eyes at that Meatloaf scene.
In Berkeley it was shown on Saturday nights, at the late, lamented UC Theater. Throughout my teens, being there was the only way I could see any of my friends on Saturday night (many of whom were in the cast and crew of Indecent Exposure). Because of the friend connection, I usually got in free and rarely sat straight through the whole movie; I’d be bopping in and out to hang out with friends.
One particularly memorable night involved taking a couple of “virgin” friends who were in the Navy. One’s best friend was gay, but the other was mildly homophobic and sat between us. I suppose it’s wrong, how much fun we had terrorizing him that night. But he didn’t stay homophobic for long.
The “theme” that Halloween in my crowd was for all the guys to go in drag. While he was one of the few who didn’t, I have photos of him pretending to grope one of his Navy buddies who was in drag. (The buddy in drag? He’d been homophobic when he first met us. That Halloween he asked me to take him shopping for lingerie, as he wanted to “do it right” if he was going to do it at all.)
Hi Jessica
That scene still creeps me out and I have watched this movie at least a hundred times.
They must have at least been bi curious because most straight men don’t want to even touch other men, because they are afraid it would “make them gay,” as if it were something you can catch.