Jul
24
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” plays at the Nuart in Los Angeles every Saturday. I go about once a year or so. That said, I know absolutely none of the callbacks. I don’t dress up like my favorite character, either. I’m just there because it’s a fun time-killer on a Saturday night, and there are always some muy caliente young women in attendance.
For the uninitiated, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is a movie adaptation of “The Rocky Horror Show” stage musical. It’s a sexy send-up of 1950s B-pictures that stars Tim Curry — as Dr. Frankenfurter, a self-described “sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania” — and a very young, very “aoogah” Susan Sarandon. The film was a bunker-busting bomb when it opened in 1975, but it ultimately became the longest-running theatrical release in cinema history once it caught on with the midnight movie crowd. Nowadays, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a major city that doesn’t have some art house that screens the movie for devotees at least once a month, if not once a week.
The experience of going to see “Rocky” is unlike your average night out at the movies. Sitting there in stone silence isn’t encouraged. You’re actually supposed to talk back to the screen. In fact, there are all sorts of pre-scripted “callbacks” one shouts at certain moments throughout the film. These callbacks have evolved over the film’s 30+ years of playing to obsessed fans. Each time I go, I’m amazed at how current events will make their way into the fold.
At the Nuart, not only do audience members hurl insults at the screen, but a “shadow cast” — a troupe called Sins O’ The Flesh — acts out the movie as it plays behind them. They have character-specific costumes, props and visual gags that collectively add another layer of obsessive fandom to the experience. You don’t actually go to “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” to watch “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” I’ve been four times now, and I still have no friggin’ idea what’s going on in the movie; it’s something about a newly engaged couple that winds up at a castle populated by cross-dressers. No, you go to see “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” to have a movie-going experience that’s unlike any other.
And MTV wants to suck all the fun out of that by remaking “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” as a TV movie, according to Bloody Disgusting. Did I not just explain in detail how the film is 100% more enjoyable when seen with a large crowd of weirdos dressed in drag? I own “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” on DVD and have yet to watch it. That’s partly because I’m waiting for Halloween to roll around. I’m also convinced that watching it at home won’t be nearly as much fun as being in a theater and seated next to women in corsets and fishnet stockings.
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is an interactive movie. When they do “The Time Warp” musical number in the movie, the people in the audience get out of their seats and “do a jump to the left, then step to the right,” etc. I would imagine there’s something wholly unsatisfying about “a pelvic thrust” when performed at home by yourself.
I think MTV’s completely lost their minds. What, are they going to have the cast of “Real World: Transsexual Transylvania” star in this piece of trash? Do they honestly think the hardcore fans of “Rocky” are going to want to see this? I’m not even a diehard, and I couldn’t be less interested. This is the most obvious example of lack-brained building on a brand I’ve seen to date. You can bet that whenever this monstrosity airs, I’ll instead be catching the Late Night Double Feature Picture Show at the Nuart.
-Brad Lohan
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