The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) - film review

One wet November evening, Brad Majors and his fiancée Janet Weiss find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere when their car breaks down.  They come across an ancient castle where they hope they can telephone for help.  Invited into the castle by a ghoulish manservant named Riff Raff, Brad and Janet are confronted with the bizarre spectacle of a Transylvanian Convention, which comprises a collection of strange aliens dancing to rock and roll numbers.  The castle’s owner, an outrageously dressed transvestite named Dr Frank N. Furter, then puts in an appearance and lures his guests into his scary pink-tiled laboratory.  Here, Brad and Janet watch in amazement as Frank brings to life his creation, a perfectly formed specimen of Aryan beauty named Rocky Horror.  Frank’s triumph is interrupted by the arrival of Eddie, the delivery boy who donated part of his brain to Rocky.  On discovering that Eddie has been messing around with Frank’s helpmate Columbia, the mad scientist takes an axe to him, before dragging Rocky off to his bridal suite.  Transformed into stone statues by Frank in a fit of pique, Brad and Janet’s adventure would appear to be over.  But no, the evening has only just begun and there are plenty of other surprises in store...

No other film embodies the notion of a cult phenomenon more vigorously than The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a bawdy, totally unhinged concoction of Gothic horror and seventies rock ’n’ roll that still manages to draw audiences with a penchant for fishnet stockings and glam makeup.  Thirty-five years on, it continues to play at several theatres around the world, a record which no other film in history has matched.  This cinematic one-off has such a dedicated fan following that it has practically acquired the status of a religion, one that exists to celebrate individuality and rejoice in unbridled camp outlandishness.

The concept started out as a modest musical stage play, The Rocky Horror Show, written by actor-musician Richard O'Brien and first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1973.   The play’s success in the UK led producer Lou Adler to stage it in the US with members of the original London cast, including the star Tim Curry.  With the Rocky Horror play proving to be a reliable money-spinner, director Jim Sharman and producer Lou Adler sold the idea of a film adaptation to 20th Century Fox, although the studio had some reservations about the project and the budget was set at a modest 1.4 million dollars.  Fox’s concerns were borne out when the film bombed on its initial release, largely as a result of some highly unfavourable reviews which painted the film as deeply offensive.  An initial box office disaster was subsequently reversed when the US distributor took the brave decision to release it for midnight showings, even catering for audience participation during the screening.  A few years after its disastrous premiere, The Rocky Horror Picture Show had become an unprecedented cult phenomenon, and it remains so to this day.

It is perhaps not too difficult to see why the film has acquired such a dedicated fan following.  Gothic horror, science-fiction and rock ’n’ roll - the film’s three central ingredients - all have cult appeal, so put them altogether, along with a comicbook plot and a dash of seedy (but mild) eroticism, and it is no surprise that it attracts fans like pins to a magnet.  Anyone who expects this to be a great piece of cinema will be disappointed, however.  Structurally, the film is a mess, unevenly paced and climaxing with a totally muddled ending.  The dance sequences are generally poorly staged and the musical numbers are, with one or two very notable exceptions, painfully banal.  There are two things that save the film and make it worth watching: its extravagant design and Tim Curry’s tour de force performance as the transvestite from transsexual Transylvania.  

The design of The Rocky Horror Picture Show was heavily influenced by B-movie sci-fi and horror films, and part of the fun of the film is spotting all the references to these classic movies, which range from Murnau’s Nosferatu to the original Flash Gordon via Bride of Frankenstein.  There is even a small homage to Jean-Luc Godard’s Bande à part, if you care to look for it.  The castle exterior and some of its interiors were shot at Oakley Court in Berkshire, the location of many a Hammer horror film, something which contributes that essential aura of Gothic decay and eeriness to the proceedings.  Watch closely and you should be able to recognise the props from those old Hammer movies.

Then there is Tim Curry.  Arrayed in black laced-up corset, garter straps and the obligatory fishnet stockings, Curry is a one-man fashion statement and brings so much style and energy to the film that it is exhausting just to watch him.  There is no word in the English language that can describe Curry’s performance.   ’Camp’ doesn’t even scratch the surface.   He burns the celluloid like Greta Garbo’s Goth transvestite superbitch alter ego and somehow manages to make the artistic mess he is thrown into cohere into a satisfying glam-tinctured whole.  Yes, there are some spirited turns from Richard O'Brien as the creepy servant Riff Raff and Meat Loaf as brain-donor Eddie, but this is inevitably Tim Curry’s show - and what a way to make your film debut.

Like all highly spiced dishes, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is not a film that will appeal to every taste.  A kitsch spectacle of camp excess that luridly exhorts the pleasures of the flesh (including cannibalism) is unlikely to appeal to the mainstream, but for devotees of the weird and wonderful its eccentric charms are virtually irresistible.  Its central theme of "Don’t dream it, be it" is one that will always strike a chord with those who refuse to have their lives governed by rules and convention, whilst devotees of Gothic horror and seventies rock will love it pretty well by default.  So, as Frank N. Furter and his ghoulish entourage return to Earth for another fun-filled fright fest and give themselves over to absolute pleasure for our delight, put on that mascara, slip into those fishnet accoutrements and let’s do the timewarp again...

© Steve Chandler 2010

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