Week 19: “My Hate-Hate Relationship with The Rocky Horror
Picture Show”
Anyone who has read some of my previous articles will know
that I’m not a huge fan of musicals.
Other than Mary Poppins (1964)
and The Muppets growing up I pretty much stayed clear away from them. Even as an adult I’ve experienced and
explored ever genre of film except really the musical for the simple fact that
(for the most part) I can’t stand watching a great film that suddenly busts out
into song for no apparent reason other than because it is a musical.
Now I will not deny that over the last decade I’ve come
closer to appreciating the musical. I’ve
seen Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of
Fleet Street (2007) and The Phantom
of the Opera (2004) and I actually enjoyed Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) and The Devil’s Carnival (2012) but those are all more modern day
musicals. These films appeal more to my
darker sensibilities and are made for the horror fan. This in no way has allowed me to understand
or like anything that was made before the year 2000. Then there is the number one cult musical in
history which is The Rocky Horror Picture
Show (1975) which is based on the original stage show The Rocky Horror Show. This
is probably the worst film I’ve ever seen.
Let me rephrase that – for my entire life I’ve been under
the notion that this is the worst horror musical I’ve ever seen. This was a film I hated the first time I saw
it as a child. I didn’t understand the
film and it was a musical so that’s two strikes against it. The only problem is that it was a favorite
film of my younger sister so I heard the music (but never really saw it again)
a billion times especially growing up in the days of the VHS boom the fact that
the film was constantly on repeat on cable stations. Now that I’m older I’m not afraid to admit
that the film was just weird and I didn’t understand it. Putting aside the fact that I hate musicals
(for the moment), The Rocky Horror
Picture Show was an amalgam of cross dressing aliens, cheesy one-liners,
crazy costumes and spectacularly over the top performances, so, in other words
it blew my mind (as a child) to the point of a nuclear meltdown. This being said, I never could appreciate the
film like so many other people could.
The film seemed to have a life of its own to me.
Every woman I dated loved the movie and my sister constantly
reminded me that I should give it another chance because I was a filmmaker and
that I should be open to all genres of film.
When I went to college the musical was still the only genre I could not
come to appreciate. When I studied the
films of James Whale I finally saw Show
Boat (1936) and that made me want to at least start watching the films that
are considered classics. Needless to
say, I FINALLY gave the musical a chance…but I still couldn’t stand The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
There was just something about this film that I just couldn’t
grasp. Oddball characters. The oddball situation. It had Susan Sarandon and Tim Curry as
Frank-n-Furter which should have sold it to me right there. I’m a huge fan of Curry’s but I still wasn’t
a fan of this film. The Rocky Horror Picture Show was a film that just eluded me at
every turn. The merchandising was
everywhere. Every theatre person I knew
was a huge fan who had at some point been in the show. Every Halloween (my favorite holiday of the
year) some friend of mine would dress up like a character from the film. What was the crazy allure of this weird film
that just went WAY over my head?
And then it hit me. I
had never seen the film LIVE. I had only
seen it on the small screen with one other person and never more than that. Never in a group setting.
It was a friend of mine that told me that every weekend at
an art house theater in downtown Atlanta a Midnight Screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show with live
actors performed the film to audiences.
My friend was a huge fan of the film and she was dying to see the live
performance so for her birthday I took her.
For one, I thought it was a great way to try and understand why this
film had affected so many people and for another my date was so obsessed with
the film that she dressed up like Magenta from the film (which I must say was a
huge turn on). I was the only one not in
on the joke as when we arrived at the theater most of the audience was dressed
up. The theater was a mixture of people
who were dressed up and those not, of all genders and all races, and of all
ages. This was a film that had crossed
generations and was still being enjoyed by new audiences every day.
When we took our seats a Waitress (dressed for the part)
walked through the aisles greeting everyone and informing them about what they
were going to see (for the new comers).
Those who had seen the performance before already knew what was
coming. Everyone was excited and couldn’t
wait for the lights to go down and the film to start. That is when things got even weirder. We weren’t just watching the original film on
the big screen and we weren’t watching the stage version of The Rocky Horror Show, we were watching
live actors perform the parts of the film as the film was playing and
commenting and reacting to everything going on during the film. It was an interactive 4-D movie going
experience like I had never seen before.
It was as if the characters from the film jumped off the screen and
started interacting with themselves and the audience at the same time.
This was a mind altering and mind blowing experience. Never before had I had such an “excellent”
experience. The actors sang the songs
and the audience members who knew the songs sang with them (and I realized my
date knew every song in the film) and it was an exhilarating way to enjoy a
musical. Needless to say, I finally got
why the film’s popularity has endured for so long.
I had heard of Midnight Movies before. Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond (1981) and Zombie (1979),
The Blues Brothers (1980), and El
Topo (1970), to name a few, but there is no other film that can rival the
popularity of The Rocky Horror Picture
Show. And now I know why.
I must admit that once you’ve seen the film performed live
you probably can’t ever enjoy it as much.
I not only can now appreciate the film for its contributions to the
horror musical and to the Midnight Movie but I can honestly say that it’s not a
half bad film. I even managed to seek
out the sequel Shock Treatment (1981)
and even though it doesn’t have the charm of Rocky Horror (nor Tim Curry) it’s not an altogether forgettable
film. I can say that I can now
appreciate the place that musicals play in the history and future of film and
I’ve even found a way to enjoy them more because of this film. I’m a huge fan of Repo! The Genetic Opera and see that as a companion film and I
probably would’ve never given this film a chance had I not finally come around
to liking Rocky Horror.
For those of you lucky enough to live somewhere where The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a
Midnight Movie success I recommend you checking it out and for those of you
unlucky saps out there who don’t…well, you can always start your own because
I’m sure there’s enough people out there who love the film enough to give you a
hand.
No comments:
Post a Comment